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     Real estate agents, property owners, economists and commodities traders, beware!  Reading this part of Leviticus could give you a heart attack!  There is some dispute as to how the "sabbatical years" and "Jubilee" years were actually observed, but there is no dispute that the institutions themselves existed.  Israel appears to have "borrowed" them from earlier civilizations!  Returning property to its original owners?  Not planting crops for an entire year?  Releasing any slaves that might be part of your household?  Forgiving all indebtedness?  Mind you, all of this without today's data and record keeping!  The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is still observed, but the rest of the legislation seems to have disappeared in practice.  Yet, all of this was religiously motivated as a means of maintaining an attitude about the sacredness of the land.  The land was originally given to the twelve tribes and could not truly be sold.  My father's legal practice involved a considerable amount of property law and I learned early how to do a "chain of title" for a piece of real estate.  Imagine undoing all the real estate transactions for a fifty year period!  Imagine, too, (perhaps with pleasure) not having to pay any taxes for a whole year!  It's hard enough now to imagine Sundays when everything was closed!  

     The whole concept of economic sabbaticals and jubilees seems fanciful to us now.  We do, once in awhile, have "tax holidays" during the Christmas shopping season to boost sales!  The rest would be beyond us.  Perhaps this scripture from Leviticus can help us to realize that we cannot just separate out human economic behavior from faith and morals.  There are values greater than money, and human dignity and welfare are among the highest of those values!  Economic sabbaticals and Jubilees, no matter how ancient or quaint they may seem to us, have something to say to us if we're willing to listen.  AMEN