8 Elul: Teshuvah Through Stewardship

We are almost born into the idea that we “own” things.  As infants or toddlers, beware of competing for possession of our blankies or stuffed animals! Growing older comes with more extensive possessions, clothing, electronics, collectibles. Adulthood enables us to add to what we “own,” cars, homes, property, businesses, and investments. Living seems at times coextensive with accumulation. Written large, countries act with the same attitude, carving out inviolable lands and even claiming dominion over adjacent bodies of water. We live in a culture which legitimizes possessions. Regrettably, we can trash what we feel we own.

Owning is not forbidden by our tradition. Abraham painstakingly purchases a plot in Canaan to bury Sarah. Our people are promised a land of our own. Yet a powerful idea challenges the right to ownership, and sacred practice relentlessly reminds us of our limits.  

Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of this world. The Creator is God. One of the less familiar Names of God is “Koneh”, the “Possessor.” God is praised in the first blessing of every Shmoneh Esray as “Koneh hakol,” “Possessor of all.” As Creator, God owns this Earth and its inhabitants and never relinquishes possession. 

Shabbat is the gem of sacred days, and at its center is the command that we let go of every gesture of ownership on that day. Anyone who serves us and any working animal must rest. The prohibition of work proscribes every act indicative of ownership.  Every seven days, we simply are at peace with the world around us, without the power to change anything for better or for worse. Temporarily we surrender the mantle of ownership before God.

The Torah does not stop there. The concept of the Sabbatical Year and Jubilee, respectively every seven or every fifty years, goes farther. For an entire year, the farmer gives up one’s power over one’s own land by not cultivating. In antiquity, slaves were freed and debts cancelled, more signs of ownership or mastery. In the Jubilee year, parcels of land bought and sold were returned to the original distribution among the tribes of Israel. Every sign of ownership was suspended. These practices are notable especially because they applied to the promised land.

The Torah is not shy about explaining these demanding commandments:

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ לֹ֤א תִמָּכֵר֙ לִצְמִתֻ֔ת כִּי־לִ֖י הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֧ים וְתוֹשָׁבִ֛ים אַתֶּ֖ם עִמָּדִֽי׃ 

The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me. (Leviticus 25:23)

We do not act as owners because, in the deepest sense, the land belongs to God. Even in our own land, we are considered גֵרִ֧ים וְתוֹשָׁבִ֛ים, resident strangers.

If we are not owners, what are we then?  Perhaps we are at our best when we see ourselves as stewards entrusted with the well-being of this Earth. Ancient legislation could not be more relevant than at this moment when this Earth is so imperiled. Teshuvah this year calls us to embrace stewardship.

Shelly Lewis is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, CA. He is the author of How Precious the Ground on Which We Stand: Jewish Values that Could Save the Earth and Torah of Reconciliation.