Shabbat Parashat Behar - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Behar - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  When you make a sale to your fellow or when you buy from the hand of your fellow,

  do not victimize one another. [Vayikra 25:14]

  Do not aggrieve one another, and you shall have fear of your God for I am Hashem

  your God. [Vayikra 25:17]

These two verses seem related. Why does the Torah need to tell us both of them?

The key is the word "tonu". In the first verse, it is usually understood as not victimizing

and in the second as not aggrieving, which seems close although different, but it

remains the same word in both verses. How do they differ?

Commentaries are split as to whether the verses refer to who is being wronged, or

to what the subject matter of the wrong would be.

The first verse specifies "when you buy from the hand of your fellow". Rashi and many

others understand this to mean that the commandment refers to someone wronging a

fellow Jew, and adding that there is a preference when possible to do business with a

fellow Jew. Talelei Oros notes this, but then brings that the "Be'er ha'Golah says it

also applies to gentiles, that one must be extremely careful." Yet, others interpret this

verse as applying to the second idea, the subject matter.

The phrase, "from the hand of your fellow", is interpreted by some as meaning a sale of

some movable goods, as opposed to land. The halacha is different in those two categories

of sales, so Onkelos and Or HaChayim apply verse 14 as a prohibition against unfair

dealing in movables, and 17 as extending the prohibition to sales of land, citing Bechorot [13a].

But not everybody agrees with this. Ramban concurs with Rashi about the two verses in

between ours, both of which seem to follow on from 14, and both of which discuss sales of

land. We could reconcile these opposing opinions by saying that the crops discussed in 15

and 16 are (or will be) movable property, but this seems to avoid the real question here.

Most of the commentators agree that verse 14 applies to monetary or commercial

transactions, and that therefore verse 17 extends the prohibition to incidents of social

intercourse. Rav Hirsch, for example, calls 14 a "general warning against unfair dealing,

sharp practices by either the seller or the buyer" and 17 to "take advantage of one's position

to hurt or to mislead one's fellow." He adds that it "applies to every type of hurt by words".

This idea of hurting by words is very broad, ranging from bad advice (Rashi), taunting and

embarrassing (Nechama Leibowitz), to referring to past misdeeds to a convert (Bava

Metziah 58b).

The word tonu then is used similarly in the two verses, but with different inferences based

on both who is being wronged and what the wrong is about. The Torah is teaching in both

verses that it is not proper for a Jew to do these kinds of wrongs in any situation.