Canter Bridge

In circles far removed from that insight into human affairs that is native to ‘honor-shame’ cultures, a quick and easy reflex dispenses with all talk of helping a man save face. We are about truth, we flatter ourselves. Not for us the fudging of responsibility’s sharp edges. Let the chips fall where they may and good people who have fallen into difficulty with them.

Our patron saint is Adam Smith, our decalogue the Crown Financial canon, our circumcision the debt-free gospel, our Sabbath observance the well-funded 401(k). We know our boundary markers and live by the pride they maintain. The narrow piety that defines for us precisely where the border between truth and fluff lies at the same time pumps up our competitive spirit and fuels the fabulous meritocracy we design in our minds for as long as calamity spares us the other side of reality.

Leviticus is both more subtle and more intelligent, not least when it provides a way for the brother who has fallen into difficulty to maintain his dignity. The bare fact that this is important to the Levitical code and not to us ought to indict.

If any of your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them; they shall live with you as though resident aliens. Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them, but fear your God; let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance, or provide them food at a profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God. If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall be free from your authority; they shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold. You shall not rule over them with harshness, but shall fear your God.

Leviticus knows no simple solutions to economic breakdown. Its ethic does not depend upon pithy dicta that gather up complex reality in their cold, simplifying embrace.

What it understands, even if we do not, is the fragile value of the brother’s dignity. Leviticus envisages an Israel where a space can be found for such a man to work his way out of the shame of dependence in a society that has developed the skill of averting its gaze at the appropriate moments.

Mercy shares its bed with respectable labor. All that could be demanded is forgotten in the interest of restoring one’s kin to a firm foundation. One learns to forget the shameful moment. It is spoken of no more.

Eventually a man and his family recover their footing. People forget to ask the hard questions about the leanest of years, or simply choose not to indulge their curiosity at a brother’s expense.

One day the brother will again be strong. Perhaps one of his kin will fall into difficulty and find himself working in this man’s field. There will be work for him. Not much will be spoken about it.