Summary of the Parasha

On Mount Sinai (Behar Sinai), God commands Moses about the rest of the land: every seven years comes Shemitah, when the land is left fallow. After seven cycles of seven years, the fiftieth year is the Yovel (Jubilee): ancestral land returns to its original families and Hebrew slaves go free. God promises to provide for the people during these years, and no one will go hungry.

The Torah distinguishes the sale of a house in a walled city from that of a field, and commands the redemption (geulah) of land sold, by a close relative. It asks us to support the poor, not to lend to them at interest, and explains how to treat and redeem a Hebrew who has fallen into servitude, for “the children of Israel are My servants”.

Summary of the Haftara

“Vayomer Yirmeyahu” (“And Jeremiah said”)
Text in Jeremiah 32:6–27

Jerusalem is besieged by Babylon and Jeremiah is imprisoned for having foretold its fall. His cousin Chanamel comes to offer him the right to buy back his field in Anatot, by the family’s right of redemption. Jeremiah buys it for seventeen shekels of silver, has the deed signed before witnesses, and has it placed in an earthenware jar so that it will last a long time: “Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land”. Then he prays: “Nothing is too hard for You”.

Parasha-Haftara Connection

The parasha establishes the redemption of land by a close relative; the haftara shows Jeremiah fulfilling exactly this mitzvah, at the darkest moment, just as the land is about to be lost. Buying a field in the middle of a war is a way of declaring that the bond between the people of Israel and its land is eternal.