The seventh year was a Sabbatical Year, verily a shabbas among years, in which debts were cancelled, and the inequities of wealth which tend to creep into the community were subject to a levelling out: the hills made lower, and the valleys boosted up a bit.
This is usually ignored by modern believers, who cherry-pick their beliefs, choosing only the ripest and juiciest bit of hypocritical self-interest to pop into their little baskets - just as we say that we forgive those who "trespass" against us and not that we forgive the "debts" owed us by others.
Which is why Religion is so difficult; we really are not up to it, are we?
The Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had the right idea: hold off that whole rig-a-marole of Baptism until on one's death bed, then send for the vicar!
How could we hope to live up to those "inhuman" virtues expounded in the Bible? We would become fanatics of charity, terrorists against evil, wild-eyed-radicals of justice!
The mere thought makes one's head spin!
Let us be thankful for our innate ability to deceive ourselves.
John 12:25 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
We pick and choose our law - we "cherry pick" the law we shall follow - exactly because we are in love with this life, and we would go to any lengths not to lose our life in this world: we would deny every principle and maxim in our holy writings, we would distort and torture the meaning of every religious genius who has spoken to us, just so that our comfortable life in this world may not be infringed.
It is our paradoxical "love" of this world of illusion and life that creates our Politics.
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