In this week’s double parsha we are told to let land lie fallow every seventh year.  Then, after seven cycles of seven years, in the forty-ninth year, there is to be a Jubilee, to be greeted with a shofar blast, “proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants.”  In this year, land is returned to its original owner, for it is not land that is sold but a number of harvests.  (You can pay less for the land as it approaches the Jubilee year, since you’re buying fewer harvests.) 

 If someone sinks into poverty and has to sell his land, his nearest of kin is to buy it from him.  If he has no one to redeem the property, he can sell it but it reverts to him in the Jubilee year.

 Finally, if someone needs money, you are to lend it to him without charging interest.