Parashat Behar: On Equality

Amidst a discussion of the Yovel, the Jubilee year, the Torah says, twice, lo tonu ish et amito, “do not wrong one another.” The rabbis say that the first ona’ah refers to property -- one should be careful not to wrong another by underpaying or overcharging in a sale. The second ona’ah, say the rabbis, refers to ona’at devarim -- wronging someone through the use of words.

My question is: What does ona’ah have to do with Yovel? Why is this prohibition against mistreatment of your fellow given here? With regard to the ona’ah of property, the answer is clear; the Torah warns people to be careful to take into account the number of years remaining before the Yovel year – when property automatically returns to its original owner – in determining the price of property. But what about ona’at devarim, which the Talmud says is the more serious offense of the two? How is wronging someone through speech connected to the Yovel year?

The Yovel year is the 50th year after 7 cycles of 7 years each of Shmita, of working the land for 6 years followed by a land sabbatical on the seventh. On the 50th year, not only is one forbidden to work the land as in the shmita year, but two other important things happen. First, all land returns to its original owner. At the time, land was wealth. If a family became impoverished and sold its land, in the yovel year the land was returned to them and they got a chance to start again on equal ground with their fellows. Second, all Israelite slaves are freed. Again, such a state of enslavement would have been reached through poverty, and by being automatically freed in the yovel year, people were guaranteed a fresh start even if they had fallen on hard times. On the yovel year, the Torah says, dror, “freedom,” was declared throughout the land; no Israelite must be master or slave to another, and all must stand on equal economic footing in terms of land holdings.

The prohibition against ona’at devarim seeks to instill a similar sense of equality among people. Consider some classic examples of such forbidden speech acts – to remind one who was previously not religious or a convert of his past; to say (as Job’s friends did) to one who is suffering that he probably deserves it because of his sins; to ask a person a technical question in a field in which the questioner knows the questionee has no expertise. The common denominator in all these examples, as Nechama Leibowitz points out, is that a person is trying to show that she is superior to another person, to point out the inadequacies of another in order to raise her own stature by contrast. Such a sense of superiority is prohibited by the Torah. One must treat one’s fellow as an equal, in speech – by avoiding ona’at devarim -- as well as in deed – by freeing slaves and returning land on the Yovel year.

The use of the verb ona’ah is telling in relation to this issue of equality. In the rest of the Torah, the object of the verb is someone weaker than oneself, the ger (“stranger”), the orphan and the widow. Here the object of the verb is first ahiv, “his brother,” and then amito, “one another.” The Torah seems to be saying: Do not treat your brother, your equal, as if he is in any way less than you. Treat him as an equal.

Ona’at devarim is an issue that comes up a great deal, especially among siblings, where there seems to be a constant need to show one’s superiority; “Did you go to that park with your class today? I already went there last week.” Sometimes, there is some resistance to admitting one’s intentions. “But I was just asking a question. I just wanted to know.” The matter is a delicate one, depending to a great extent on one’s inner thoughts and intentions. It is for this reason, says Rashi, that the Torah says, immediately following this prohibition, Fear your God. Only God knows one’s true intentions.

Both the mitzvah of Yovel and the prohibition against ona’at devarim speak to the same issue, an attempt to remind us of the basic equality of all humans, or, as the Sefat Emet would put it, of our common divine source. We are none of us slaves and none of us masters, but all equal in the eyes of God.