In 1751, the colony of Pennsylvania ordered the creation of a bell that would celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges, the colony’s original constitution that granted unprecedented religious freedom and government participation for the colony’s citizens. Because this “Liberty Bell,” as it became known, would be constructed for the colony’s jubilee celebration, the makers of the bell chose to inscribe a famous verse from Parashat Behari, “Proclaim liberty (dror) throughout the land to all its inhabitants” (Vayikra 25:10). In making the choice to describe this biblical verse on the bell, the colonists were making the statement that their colony should be a place with freedom of a unique and special quality.
Jewish tradition ascribes equal importance to the verse chosen by the colonists of Pennsylvania, as our parasha includes this verse in the description on how the Israelites should observe the yovel (Jubilee Year), a time when all slaves should be freed, and all debts should be cancelled. When examining the language chosen by our Torah, our commentators asked why the Torah uses the word dror for “freedom” or “liberty,” as opposed to hofesh, the more commonly used word for freedom. While attempting to explain this linguistic, our commentators will help us discover that not all freedom is created equal. Rashi argues that the term dror connotes a finality and complete freedom of movement for the formerly enslaved person. He states:
“You shall proclaim dror”: For release. The slave is released even if his six years of service are not up, and even if his ear has been pierced with an awl, making him a slave “for life” (Shemot 21:6). Said R. Judah: “What is the meaning of this word dror? He lives on his own and conducts business anywhere in the country.” That is, he may dar, reside, anywhere he likes-he is under no one else’s authority. That is what “release” means” (Rashi on Vayikra 25:10).
According to Rashi, the essence of the word dror is that when the yovel year comes, the previously enslaved person is now “under no one else’s authority.” However, Rashi’s commentary also implies that merely being granted physical freedom does not warrant the use of the word dror, for this word denotes an additional kind of freedom, one that requires deeper exploration.
Rabbi Avraham Bedersi writes in Hotam Tokhnit, a late twentieth-century book analyzing the usage of synonyms and antonyms in Jewish texts, that a subtle, but essential difference, exists between the words dror and hofesh. According to Bedersi, “Both terms are antonyms to bondage, but dror surpasses the other in that is denotes charity and purity, i.e., anything free of dross and corruption,” making the word dror not merely a word connoting personal freedom, but that word signifies a certain kind of world. Bedersi writes:
“This meaning of dror stands out in, “And you shall proclaim liberty (dror) throughout the land to all its inhabitants” (Vayikra 25:10), not only to the servants but also to the sold fields, to be returned to their original owners in the yovel year, and to the farmers who interrupt their work on the land. Thus, “And you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants...and you shall return every man to his possession, and you shall return every man to his family. A yovel shall shall that fiftieth year be to you, you shall not sow...For it is the yovel, it shall be holy to you…” (Ibid. 10-12). Deror implies an absence of fear and impediment” (Rabbi Avraham Bedersi, Hotam Tokhnit, translation taken from Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Vayikra, Vol. 2, 533).
The Torah uses the word hofesh to describe an individual person’s freedom, yet when Torah single use of the word dror implies what Bedersi considers to be the “unqualified freedom” that can only come in the yovel, where debts are released, slaves freed, and society returns to an original state where people have an equality of opportunity that did not exist previously.
When we place our parasha in a larger historical context, Bedersi’s reading makes a great deal of sense. In the JPS Torah Commentary, Baruch Levine writes that the term dror reflects an ancient Babylonian practice of new kings releasing those people previously enslaved under prior regimes. Levine writes:
““You shall proclaim release throughout the land…”: The Hebrew term deror has conventionally been rendered “freedom, liberty.” More has been learned about it in recent years, however. Hebrew deror is cognate with Akkadian anduraru, which designates an edict of release issued by the Old Babylonian kings and some of their successors. This edict was often issued by a king upon ascending the throne and was a feature of a more extensive legal institution known as mesharum, a moratorium declared on debts and indenture” (Baruch A. Levine, The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus, 171).
In this commentary, Levine notes that the word dror reflect a state of affairs where a new regime wants to wipe the societal slate clean, and allow ordinary citizens to not be encumbered by previous policies that deprived them of freedom of movement an opportunity. By extension, when the Torah states that we should proclaim dror throughout the land, our text proclaims that the yovel is a chance for a fresh start and a new world.
In each of these commentaries, we are reminded that mere physical freedom, hofesh, does not matter unless a world of opportunity is open to the newly freed person, the state of affairs our parashah attempts to capture when saying that we shall declare dror during the yovel year. Like the motivation of those who carved this verse on the Liberty Bell, not all freedom is created equal, for dror (liberty) is a moment when a person feels a new world is open to them. The message from our parasha and the Liberty Bell is one that must give us pause as we educate our children to be independent thinkers, for one day, each of them will walk out into the world a “free” person, yet if we do not help them see the world as one of immense opportunity, then the freedom is not the quality of which we should expect for them. As a Schechter Community, may we heed the message of our parasha, and help shape a world where freedom is proclaimed, so that our children all people might see the possibilities a pure and holy freedom will bring.
Shabbat Shalom!
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