Sponsored in loving memory of Joseph and Shirley Goldwasser by Avraham and Joyce Litzman, their children and grandchildren.
Day Twenty-One
The Secret of the Jubilee Year
The Ramak reveals an additional aspect of Teshuvah Elyonah (Supernal Repentance) that embraces the concept of the Jubilee Year, the fiftieth year culmination of the Sabbatical year cycle that evokes the idea of freedom. * On the Jubilee Year, Jewish slaves are granted freedom. So too, when a person engages in Teshuvah Elyonah (Supernal Repentance), the Creator opens new worlds of freedom for him, which liberates him from the physicality of this world and the impurity of transgression. After disengaging from the material aspects of this world, one incrementally ascends to the holy root of his soul and the essence of his being is sanctified.
In the Words of the Ramchal
The Ramchal states similarly (Otzros HaRamchal, Parshas Vayeira):
“There can be no redemption without illumination from the Light of Binah (Divine Enlightenment). And this is the Secret of the Jubilee, which liberates the slaves and takes them out to freedom.”
This idea also finds expression in the ninth blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei prayer: Sound the Great Shofar for our freedom. “Our freedom” is an allusion to Teshuvah (Repentance). The Secret of the Jubilee assists Man in returning to his holy root. It thus behooves us to contemplate this idea and strengthen our Trust that HaShem, in His infinite compassion, liberates us from the strictures of this world through the Secret of the Jubilee.
The Fiftieth Year and the Fifty Gates of Binah
Apart from granting freedom to slaves, the Jubilee Year also mandates the reversion of ancestral lands according to their original tribal distribution. This cyclical fifty-year occurrence corresponds to the “Fifty Gates of Binah.” Thus, the Secret of the Jubilee Year opens the Fifty Gates of Binah so its light can shine upon a person and release him from the shackles of his earthly body and the bonds of material existence. More, we find that the Jubilee Year affects a property’s return to ancestral ownership despite the existence of debts. So too, the Jubilee Year alludes to the “Fifty Gates of Binah” which elevates a person to the holy root of his soul despite his “debt-load” of impurity. Not only that, but the Light of Binah actually rectifies human nature and cleanses the impurity, just as the Sun’s light dispels the darkness.
Clearance for Entry is Readily Available
There is an essential difference between the “Earthly Jubilee Year” and the “Secret of the Jubilee” aroused by Teshuvah Elyonah (Supernal Repentance): Whereas the former occurs but once every fifty years; the latter, wherein the “Fifty Gates of Binah (Divine Enlightenment)” are opened, is available to a person whenever he arouses himself to do Teshuvah! Also, the gates of Teshuvah Elyonah (Supernal Repentance) are opened immediately for the person who intends to arise to the holy root of his soul.
The Liberating Power of the Yovel
Moreover, Teshuvah Elyonah (Supernal Repentance) applies even to a person who perceives himself as so spiritually defiled that he has virtually no chance of mastering the perversions of his nature. Through the Secret of the Jubilee he can free himself from all the impurity that previously seemed indelibly ingrained in the very fiber of his being.
*(the Torah decrees once every seven years the prohibition against agricultural undertaking, an imperative to cancel debts, and the reversion of properties to ancestral ownership)
