My attempt here is not to promote any particular religion or belief,

but rather to consider the ‘Spirit’ and penetrate the mostly forgotten,

critically important and always timely idea of the Jubilee.

 

  Christianity begins with the appearance and teachings of Jesus; in turn, the teachings of this Jewish Rabbi hinge upon the Jewish law and the practices of the times in which he lived. A fundamental law and practice of ancient Judaism and Christianity is the observance of the Sabbath and the Jubilee; I believe it is an idea whose time has come again.

 

  A few months ago, I moved to Mexico and, seeking to live there for the foreseeable future, visited the Mexican Consulate in Calexico, California, to apply for a Mexican Visa Temporal. Everything went well, and when asked to sign some forms, I noticed that my ‘Status’ was listed as ‘Jubilado.’ I recognized the root of the word and asked the man at the consulate what was ‘Jubilado’. He said it meant that I was ‘retired.’ I asked him if he knew where ‘Jubilado’ came from, and he did not, but he told me that the more recently used words for this idea are ‘retirado’ or ‘pensionado.’

 

  The Spanish word - ‘Jubilado’ comes from the Latin Jubilee, Jublilare, which means ‘to shout with joy.’ The more ancient derivation of the word comes from the Old Testament, where Jews were instructed to blow the shofar or Rams Horn on the Passover and at the beginning of what is called the Jubilee year.

 

  The Hebrew Old Testament records that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. That ‘resting’ day, celebrated on Saturday for Jews or Sunday for Christians, is called the Sabbath, and we must understand the Sabbath to understand the Jubilee.

 

“And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished His work which He had made; He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from all His work which God in creating had made.”

- Genesis

 

The Bible speaks of special observances that should be made on this seventh or Sabbath day:

 

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the LORD thy God, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore the LORD 

blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” 

- Exodus 20:8–20:11:

 

  Not only was there a Sabbath day every seven days, but in ancient Israel, every seven years was a Sabbath year, and in that Sabbath year, as declared in the Old Testament, there was to be a ‘release’; the land and animals were to be rested, no crops were to be grown, debts were forgiven, and slaves set free. 

 

“At the end of every seven years, thou shalt make a release.

And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbor or of his brother;

because it is called the Lord’s release”

- Deuteronomy 15:1-18

 

  The rules of the Sabbath are clarified many times in the Old Testament, and the reason God gives for why He drove the Jews into captivity and exile in Egypt was because they failed to honor the Sabbath. God expresses these ‘reasons’ in the Old Testament: 

 

“Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it (the land) lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate, it shall rest, because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it.

- Leviticus 26:34-35

 

Another way the Jews failed to honor the Sabbath was that they did not grant their slaves freedom or their neighbor a release from debts in the Sabbath year. In the following Biblical verse, God speaks ‘scornfully’ about their disobedience as he proclaims a 'liberty’ to the Jews as a punishment:

 

“Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every one unto his brother and every man unto his neighbor: behold, I proclaim a liberty unto you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine and I will make you be removed 

into all the kingdoms of the earth.”

- Jeremiah 34:17

 

After 48-49 years (a Jubilee), the Jewish people were released from their slavery in Egypt and then wandered in the desert for 40 years with Moses until all the transgressors of the previous generation had died. Then, before this new generation crossed the river Jordan to The Promised Land, God again instructed them to keep the Sabbath:

 

“The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath unto the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; but in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land,

a Sabbath to the LORD.

- Leviticus 25:2-4

 

  In addition to the weekly and the yearly Sabbath, there was described a ‘Grand’ Sabbath, the Jubilee, which would occur every seven times seven years. In this ‘Jubilee,’ just like the seventh-yearly Sabbath, the land was allowed to lay fallow, animals rested from their work, all debts were forgiven, and slaves were set free; but, in the Jubilee-Sabbath, in addition to the ‘normal’ every seven years Sabbath, on the Jubilee, all land was returned to its original owners so that no man (or his family) would lose their inheritance if that land had been given as collateral to a lender.

 

“And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 

 

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim 

 liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. For it, the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase (surplus from previous years)) thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee, ye shall return every man unto his possession.” 

- Leviticus 25: 8-9

 

  The importance of the Sabbath Jubilee cannot be overestimated. It is a central theme of the Bible, the Hebrew tradition, and the life and Teachings of Jesus. Indeed, the very first Teaching words of Jesus concerned the Jubilee; when Jesus returned to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth after his 40-day fast in the desert, he was handed the scrolls of Isaiah to read to the congregation, and he did so. Jesus opened the scroll and read:

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the Jubilee.”

 

“Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He then said to them,

“Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

- Luke 4:1

 

  The early Christians tended to interpret the Jubilee allegorically or messianically, but the Jews of the Talmud (Old Testament) assumed the practice was both literal and historical, and it seems to me that Jesus referred to, taught, and embodied both interpretations. Perhaps now, you may understand my excitement at being declared ‘Jubilado.’

 

  Retirement can be understood as a time when our debts to society, obligations to family, and the necessity to work for money are ‘released;’ our children are grown, our grandchildren have been born, we may receive a pension, we are forgiven of needing to work, and a whole new purpose and understanding in life may be revealed and lived.

 

  According to Jesus, the forgiveness of our own debts is based on our forgiving the debts of others. Indeed, this is part of the Lord's prayer! When asked how to pray, Jesus said:

 

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’

- Matthew 6:12

 

  The ‘Lord's Prayer offers a clear example of the metaphysical release of debt (forgiveness by God and release from the ‘wages of sin’) and how it corresponds to the practical, economic, person-to-person forgiveness of debts and release of collateral (as we also have forgiven our debtors). This practice assured the health of the community by arranging for the greatest numbers of individuals (the masses) to have a chance to live their lives free from crushing debt to the wealthy and eternal bondage.

 

  One aspect of forgiveness is based on the acknowledgment that we are all indebted to God and utterly dependent on a vast, mysterious creation. We came with nothing; nothing belongs to us, and we take nothing with us when we die. The ‘reason’ given by God to the Jewish people, and the principle on which the commandments and practice of the Jubilee are based, is that God or Yahweh claimed ownership of everything. Since He owns everything and is the God of all people, His people were to be just caretakers of His (God’s) property, and they were to use that wealth to enrich all the people and not just themselves. What is striking is that forgiveness of another’s debts is based on recognizing the humbling reality of our own debts and our utter lack of ownership, yet obligation to look after and redeem all and everything.

 

‘The land must not be sold permanently because the land is mine, and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession,

you must provide for the redemption of the land.”

- Leviticus 25:23

 

  This fundamental idea of the Sabbath-Jubilee found its way to America. It was inscribed on the Liberty Bell to celebrate the 50th anniversary (Jubilee) of the ‘Charter of Privileges’ composed by the Quaker, William Penn. Inscribed around the perimeter of the bell was a verse taken from Leviticus about the Jubilee:

 

“Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land 

unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

- Lev: 25: 8

 

  At the very first strike of the clapper in Philadelphia, the bell cracked. It had to be melted down and recast twice. Then, it cracked again, and it is now displayed with its crack behind glass in Philadelphia, the first capital of the United States. 

 

  Some may say this crack is a ‘sign of God,’ some may say it is an ‘omen,’ and some ‘just unfortunate,’ but whatever one thinks about it, the Liberty Bell, with its inscription proclaiming the Jubilee, broke, and is rung no more and sits behind a glass case in Philadelphia to be seen but never heard and just so, It seems the idea of the Sabbath-Jubilee and the release of debts has faded into obscurity and is heard of rarely these days. But that does not mean the Jubilee does not hold great wisdom to guide us in our personal lives and our care of the lives of others (family, friends, strangers, animals, and Nature) . . . it is a Bell that should be heard ‘throughout all the land.’

 

  There is a court case between Puerto Rico and several hedge funds that loaned the country tens of billions of dollars. After the tremendous destruction of Hurricane Maria, which decimated the small country with category Five winds of over 150 miles an hour, Puerto Rico declared itself unable to pay its debts and in need of declaring bankruptcy. The hedge funds now claim it is illegal for an ‘unincorporated territory’ of the United States to declare bankruptcy and argue for "the sanctity of contract" and "moral obligation,” claiming they must be repaid. The Puerto Rican government states that if they give all their money to repay these hedge funds, a humanitarian crisis will ensue in the country.(1) Schools will close, the food supply will be threatened, infrastructure will not be rebuilt, and the people of Puerto Rico will suffer harm. How do we judge such a thing? If we consider the tradition of the Jubilee and the teachings of Jesus, it seems there comes a time when the forgiveness of debt is necessary, and this is an example of such a time.

 

  We all suffer misfortunes, natural disasters, war, pestilence, and disease; we all make mistakes or have accidents that can drive us into debt and despair. The practice of the Jubilee allows the economic game to be reset, the losing players are forgiven, and the opportunity for growth is restored. It is said that 85 individuals possess over 50% of the world’s wealth. Three people in the USA possess half of our own nation's wealth. Imagine what might happen in our country if we forgave debts and practiced the Jubilee?  Imagine if all that money was spent in the economy instead of being hoarded by the wealthy.

 

  It would bring about a massive effect on the culture and economy of the day. Free of the burden of debts. it would be a time of rejoicing for the multitudes. All who are poor and struggling financially, those who have suffered medical bills they could not pay or setbacks they could not afford, would rejoice in a time like this. Those who were rich, banks, credit card companies, and those who had slaves (employees) and owned much might rather such a day had never come. But for this world's vast mass of people (the poor and downtrodden), the forgiveness of debts would allow them to work once again and reap the fruits of their work for themselves. For a society that seeks the welfare of everyone, it would allow us to grow again.

 

The Jubilee Sabbath was not to oppose the aggregation of personal wealth but was specifically concerned with increasing the health and welfare of the community, especially the poor and the downtrodden. The idea and practice of the Jubilee-Sabbath sought to balance a society in the face of the inevitable accumulation of wealth in the (relatively few) hands of the rich, a process that has always occurred. The phenomenon of the accumulation of wealth in a Capitalistic System(2) was why the inventor of Monopoly, Elizabeth Magie, created the game as a teaching tool for students to demonstrate the inevitable accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. (I have written on this in my soon-to-be-published article: True Wealth and the Dung of the Devil)

 

The Jubilee-Sabbath tradition did not say that no one needs to be repaid; only that if repayment is not accomplished in seven years, that debt should be forgiven. The tradition in the USA, borrows from the Biblical one and states that one can only declare bankruptcy every seven years). In the Bible, it says if the debt was still not repaid in 7 times 7, or 49 years, then not only is the debt forgiven, but even the collateral (usually land) should be restored to its original owner so that no person or family should be condemned to landlessness and ever-increasing poverty. A limit was recognized and set on all things because they belonged to God, not to man. There was an attempt in this rule to not punish a debtor or his family and to provide a path to change their fortune.

 

People will always say this will not work and that we should not forgive debt; instead, we must honor our transactions, abide by our contracts, and take an eye for an eye. This is the same argument put forward by the Pharisees in the time of Jesus, who said we must honor the law and abide by the Sabbath. This way of thinking was addressed by Paul in his letters to the Corinthians when he wrote: “ . . . the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

 

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So, taking hold of the man, 

he healed him and sent him on his way.

Then he asked them,

“If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day,

will you not immediately pull it out?” 

And they had nothing to say.

- Luke 14: 1-6

 

  As then, so it is today; when confronted with the spirit of the Jubilee, the 'Pharisees' or debt collectors have nothing to say except to state the ‘law.’ But, the question is, ‘Which law?”

 

  You can tell the dominant theme of a culture by its tallest building when you come into a city. Today, the tallest building in town is no longer a church, cathedral, temple, or even a political building but a ‘temple’ built to honor finance or some business. Today, more than ever, we live in a world where money, business, and the accumulation of possessions represent the laws and gods we worship. In our modern-day application of the Sabbath, the forgiveness of debts (Bankruptcy) can be engaged only every seven years, not more often. Still, even in the case of the seven-year occurrence of bankruptcy, the underlying spirit of the law and the reasoning behind a jubilee are mostly forgotten.

 

  Being acknowledged as ‘Jubilado’ made me happy; I was declared ‘free to live,’ not just survive. I was free of debts, released, and forgiven. The word and idea of the Jubilee hold deep and powerful meaning; this brief consideration has but scratched the surface.

 

  Like many of my generation, I have retired and become ‘Jubilado.’ It is a time of liberation; we may turn our attention from our jobs and professions to our faithful(3) calling and, via many actions, offer our service to others and the world around us in gratitude. Like Jesus, in his very first teaching in the New Testament, we, too, may proclaim:

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“I am the Jubilee”

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the Jubilee.”

​
 

- Luke 4: 18-19

 

 

I am writing an essay on this subject: 'True Wealth and the ‘Dung of the Devil’

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Footnotes:

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#1 On June 28, 2015, Governor García Padilla admitted publicly that "the debt is not payable" and that if the government was unable to grow the economy, "we will be in a death spiral.

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#2 Capitalism: An economic system in which the means of producing goods and services are privately owned and operated for a profit.

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 #3-true to the facts or the original.