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In the 1973 film “American Graffiti”, a film about a group of high school seniors in 1962 spending their last night together, one scene is particularly humorous. A young Ron Howard, while at the “sock hop” with his girlfriend (Cindy Williams), decides to curse out the school’s unpopular principal. In disbelief, the principal declares the student suspended immediately and a demerit put on his academic record. Howard then reminds the principal that he’s already graduated the previous term, meaning he can’t be disciplined in any way. The principal huffs away angrily, realizing that the student is right. He’s the beneficiary of a special status – one phase of life (high school) completed, but the next stage (college) not yet initiated.
I enjoyed a similar status in the first several months of 1986. I had finished my studies at Penn, but I hadn’t yet matriculated at JTS. That meant that I had an entire term with no tests, no papers, no homework assignments and no pressure. As a result, I was able to spend forty to fifty hours per week learning Talmud in a yeshiva in Israel, and that enormous investment of time and energy was life-changing for me in both the short run and the long run. Had I had even one or two college classes remaining, I could never have studied at that pace.
As it turns out, the jubilee year, or yovel¸ also conferred this special status on Hebrew slaves. How did this work? The fiftieth year commenced on Rosh Hashanah. Yet the Torah declares, “Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month – the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) – you shall have the horn sounded throughout the land.” (Leviticus 25:9) This invites the following question – what was the status of a freed slave who was entitled to reclaim his family estate in the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? One answer is suggested by the Sifra (Behar 2:1), a 3rd century CE commentary on the book of Leviticus:
- R. Yochanan b. Berokah said: (From Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur) bondsmen would neither be bound to their masters nor free (to return) to their homes, nor would fields revert to their (ancestral) owners. But they would eat and drink and rejoice with their crowns on their heads until Yom Kippur arrived. When Yom Kippur arrived, they (beth-din) would blow the shofar — whereupon fields would revert to their owners and bondsmen would be free (to return) to their homes.
In other words, people were allowed a week or so of down time to rejoice in their status. Though I would still advise against cursing out former superiors.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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