In the Old Testament Law, the Jubilee establishes God's right over the earth and its fruits. It is he who grants its use to man, calling him to solidarity towards the weakest.
by Rosanna Virgili
The Jubilee draws its inspiration from biblical tradition. Anyone who wants to know the origin of both the name and this “law” – as it is announced in the Bible – should open the book of Leviticus and scroll to the end, to the twenty-fifth chapter, where its order is found.
The Israelites are asked to count “seven weeks of years,” that is, seven periods of six years, which end with a special year, out of the ordinary, which is called a “sabbatical year.” This year becomes the temporal basis of the Jubilee but also constitutes its theological pillar, which we must therefore stop to evaluate. This is what the author of Leviticus himself does: “The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and said: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall have a Sabbath rest to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field and prune your vineyard and gather its fruit; but the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field, you shall not prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself after your harvest, and you shall not gather the grapes of your vineyard that you have not pruned; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. "And the sabbath produce of the land shall be for food for you, for your male and female slaves, for your hired servants, and for the stranger who is with you; and for your livestock and for the beasts that are in your land, all its produce shall be for food" (Luke 25:1-7).
The promulgation of these rules regarding the sabbatical year is based on a fundamental theological reason: the land belongs to God, who granted it to the children of Abraham in usufruct. The latter will be able to work it and therefore collect what it produces for six years, but then they will leave it at the disposal of its legitimate owner and lord, who is God. It is a law that echoes the terms in which the Covenant between God and his people was established, in which a day of rest was foreseen every seven days precisely to remember and celebrate that not only the land, but also time and life are of God. Thus says the book of Deuteronomy: "Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord, your God, has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work; But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. In it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your ox, or your donkey, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your gates; that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you" (Deut 5:12-14).
The law of the Sabbath gives all creatures the right to rest and therefore the dignity of being free. But it reminds the Jew that the earth is a gift from God, just as the fruit of his work comes from him. He is the creator who, in turn, rested on the seventh day, as is written in the book of Genesis: "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it he had rested from all his work which he had done in creating" (Gen 1:31-2:3). And if God rested on the first Sabbath of time, weekly rest is a divine right for all his creatures. This is equivalent to saying that all creatures are born free and that no one should ever be enslaved.
The law of the Sabbath, moreover, will be rooted in the heart since it would not be truly observed if it did not find a deep and convinced interior adherence. This depends on the sincere love that every Israelite must feel, show and act towards his brothers. In fact, we read again in Deuteronomy: "If there is among you a needy brother of yours, in one of your towns in the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand to your needy brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him whatever is needed for his need [...] For this very reason, in fact, the Lord, your God, will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. Since the needy will never cease in the land, therefore I command you: You shall open your hand to your poor and needy brother in your land" (Dt 15, 7-11).
Unfortunately, moral corruption can empty this law – like many others – of its meaning and its authentic yearning, to reduce it to a mere external practice, to a ritualism that does not involve love, solidarity, tenderness towards the weakest and neediest. The hypocrisy of those who act in this way is strongly denounced by Jesus in the Gospel stories. One of the many is that of the bent-over woman who had observed the Sabbath rest for eighteen years by going to the synagogue; no one had ever healed her of her illness thinking that this act could violate the Sabbath rest. Jesus instead heals her and also contradicts the leader of the synagogue with harsh words: «The leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had performed this cure on the Sabbath, spoke up and said to the crowd: There are six days on which work ought to be done; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath. The Lord answered and said to him, “You hypocrite! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead him away to watering? And ought not this, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has held captive these eighteen years, be released from this bond on the Sabbath day?” (Lk 13:14-16).