What has happened to the leaders of Israel who marched into the arena of history as giants of vision and conviction but have now degenerated into discredited and scandal-ridden pygmies, shamelessly holding onto positions now emptied of stature and significance? Where have we gone wrong, and how can we correct ourselves?

I believe the answer lies in a proper understanding of Behar but requires an introduction from the earliest verses of the Bible. Universal in its scope, vision, and ethos, the biblical reach goes far beyond Israel and Jew. Our God is God of the universe, and He has created the human being – not only Jew – in his own divine image.

Alas, neither Adam nor Noah was ready to accept the divine morality of the freedom and the inviolability of the human being or to subject himself to the personal discipline and delayed gratification necessary for the structuring of a truly moral world. The delicious fruit and tantalizing wine of the moment were too tempting for each of them.

The Bible tells us that from the three sons of Noah are derived the 70 nations of the world. (Genesis 10.11) They build "a city and a tower whose top extends to the heavens in order to make for themselves a [grandiose] name." God confounds their materialistic and selfish goals by making "babble" of their speech so that they do not understand – and so cannot communicate with – each other and scatters them all over the face of the entire earth. (11:4-8).

And then God elects Abram, establishing a covenant with this first Jew, whereby He guarantees him progeny (never to be destroyed) and the Land of Israel (to which Israel will ultimately return). God makes Abram into an eternal nation.

However, God has not chosen Abram to the exclusion of the world. Much the opposite, God changes Abram's name to Abraham, from "exalted father" ("Av-ram") to "father of a multitude of nations" (Avir hamon goyim). (17:4,5) And even before the name change, God charges Abraham with the divine mission that "through you shall be blessed all the families of the earth" (12:3), since Abraham must found a "holy nation and kingdom of priest-teachers" who will lead the world to morality, peace, and redemption. Israel must become God's entranceway to the world.

It should come as no surprise to find that the Bible views Israel as a mirror of – and eventually a model for – the entire world; Israel is the heart, conscience, and reflection of the world, as well as the means for the tikun (repair) of the world. And so if Noah's three sons fathered the 70 nations of the world, it makes sense that the three patriarchs –Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – father the 70 souls who came down to Egypt and formed the Jewish nation. (Exodus 1:5) Jacob's dream ladder is rooted in earth with its "top extending to the heavens" (Genesis 28:12), and the midrash on virtually all the verses of this dream sequence identify the place of dream as Mount Moriah and Jerusalem and the ladder as the Holy Temple, paralleling the ladder and the Temple with the Tower of Babel.

Indeed, when the Jews are not worthy, they too will be exiled and scattered to the four corners of the world, just as God scattered the babbling nations all over the earth. But eventually the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple-tower in its midst will serve as a tikun for the Tower of Babel, when its Torah of peace will spread throughout the world, when all nations rush to it and become united in commitment not to self aggrandizement but to the service of God: "Then shall I transform for the nations one clear speech for all of them to call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder." (Zefaniah 3:9)

Nowhere is our function as model for the world more clearly expressed than in the biblical portion of Behar, where the Land of Israel is set up to be worked for six years, granted a sabbatical on the seventh year, when all debts are likewise to be rescinded. After the seventh sabbatical, the 50th year becomes the Jubilee: "And you shall sanctify the 50th year, and declare freedom for the land and all of its inhabitants; it is a Jubilee for you, when every person shall return to his/her homestead, to his/her family…." The Jubilee reflects our national dream – and mission – for world redemption; "the land" in the verse cited may well refer to the entire land that God created together with the heavens, and on which all of humanity must be free and secure.

The founding fathers of Israel – like David Ben-Gurion – may not have been observant Jews; they may not even have believed in God, but they did believe in the necessity of the Jewish homeland, and they shared in the biblical vision of our mission to the world. They understood the necessity of the Land of Israel for the future of the Jewish people and of Israel's Ten Commandments for the future of the world.

Tragically, the present leaders appear never to have seen knesset Yisrael – historic Israel – as greater than they are and never articulated a mission – to themselves or their nation – that was worthy of selfless sacrifice and commitment. Unless we, the people of Israel, feel strong enough about our right to be where we are and about our mission to inspire a world committed to freedom, peace, and security for all, and unless we choose leaders who share these goals and ideals, then we just may not be the generation worthy of realizing the dream of the beginning of our redemption. Hopefully, we are now cleansing ourselves.