In this week’s parsha, we encounter the laws of Shmitah and Yovel (the Sabbatical and Jubilee years). Every seventh year, the land of Israel takes a nap; every fifty years, the "Grand Reset" happens. The Torah commands (Leviticus 25:9): “You shall sound the Shofar throughout the land.” This wasn't a standard Rosh Hashanah blast; it was blown on Yom Kippur of the Jubilee year to signal that every slave in the country was officially a free agent.
The Sefer HaChinuch asks a very practical question: Why the Shofar?
Let’s be honest—sending away your servants was a financial catastrophe for the owner. From a purely business perspective, owning a slave was a "bonanza." Imagine running a company today where there’s no payroll, no Social Security taxes, no 401(k) matching, and no one ever complains to HR about the office temperature. It was the ultimate free labor. Then, suddenly, the calendar hits Year 50, a Shofar blasts, and your entire workforce walks out the door.
The Sefer HaChinuch explains that the Torah commanded the Shofar to be blown throughout the land to give people the psychological strength to do something incredibly difficult. It created a sense of "universal public action." When that Shofar sounded, the slave owner realized, “I’m not the only one getting crushed today. My neighbor is losing his staff, the guy down the street is losing his staff—we’re all in this together.”
There is a deep psychological principle at play here: Social Proof. As Robert Cialdini, a well known figure in the field of social psychology, famously noted: “We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.”
Human beings are hardwired to look for "the herd." If I’m the only one losing money, I feel like a victim. If everyone is losing money, it’s a "market correction." The Shofar was essentially a national broadcast of solidarity, turning a private financial loss into a collective religious experience.
The Chinuch emphasizes that nothing strengthens the human spirit like seeing everyone else do the same thing. This is the "Everybody’s Doing It" defense, and it is more powerful than we’d like to admit.
Take the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaigns of the 80s and 90s. Every kid in America knew drugs were bad. They saw the commercials with the frying pan—"This is your brain on drugs." They weren't stupid; they knew the risks. So why did so many start? Because of the intense pressure of the peer group. As psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated in his famous "Conformity Experiments," an individual will often state something they know is false—like saying a short line is longer than a long one—simply because everyone else in the room said so.
The Sefer HaChinuch is telling us that we can actually "hack" this instinct for the good. If social pressure can make a person do something inherently destructive, it can also be used to help a person do something inherently holy (and difficult).
The lesson here is that we never truly "outgrow" peer pressure. We like to think that once we get our diplomas and start paying a mortgage, we become independent thinkers. We don't. We just trade high school cliques for "community standards."
Psychologist Jim Rohn famously said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” This is why the community you choose to live in is perhaps the most important decision of your life. If you live in a community where everyone is chasing a certain lifestyle, you will feel obligated to conform. But if you live in a community where people prioritize kindness, Torah study, and integrity, you will find yourself acting better than you naturally would—simply because "that's what we do here."
The Shofar of the Yovel reminds us that we are social creatures. We are profoundly influenced by our environment—especially our children and teenagers, whose brains are practically "wired" for social validation.
Don't fool yourself into thinking you can "go it alone." If you want to be a better person, don't just rely on willpower—rely on your zip code. Find a community that wants the right things out of life, and put yourself in the middle of it. When the "Shofar" of that community blows, you’ll find it a whole lot easier to do the right thing, even when it costs you.
