Parshas Behar
Why Shemittah1
It is one of the most famous questions posed by Rashi in all of Chumash:
What does shemittah have to do with Har Sinai? The oft-
repeated answer – that the Torah wished to underscore that the specific
details and minutiae of each mitzvah are as sourced in Divine revelation
as the general shape of the mitzvah – leaves a nagging question in its
wake. Why did the Torah chose shemittah to teach a lesson as
important and fundamental as the scope of Sinaitic revelation? Certainly
we could think of any number of suitable mitzvos to which this lesson
could have been linked. While we struggle to comprehend the depths of the
Torah’s intention in this, we may as well ask the more general question
about shemittah. Just what makes it so central and pivotal that
the dire threat of next week’s tochechah places shemittah front and
center as the cause of all that has gone wrong: “Then the land will be
appeased for its shabbosos… then the land will rest and it will
appease for its shabbosos.”2 The
tochechah speaks in general terms about our projected spiritual
meltdown. It deals with only one specific transgression – the desecration
of shemittah. Why? Why, for that matter, does shemittah
join with the three cardinal sins of Yiddishkeit in the passage in
Avos, “Galus comes about because of idolatry, forbidden
relations, murder, and shemittah.”3 Why does shemittah figure so prominently in the
etiology of galus?
The solution will come by way of unraveling a mystery associated with the
first Mishnah in Avos, which describes Moshe as receiving the Torah
from Sinai. Why Sinai? Isn’t the real point of that Mishnah that Moshe
received the entirety of Torah from HKB”H? Can a mountain give the Torah?
We can suggest that Sinai does not mean the mountain per se, but
what we colloquially call ma’amad Har Sinai, the experience of
standing before Hashem, in the most overwhelming display of His Presence
ever. That experience, like no other moment in human history, impressed
clear emunah upon our souls. His reality became so clear and
immediate that our souls fled our bodies. Emunah at that moment
suffused our beings. We apprehended Him not only with mind and heart, but
emunah in Him penetrated the appendages of our bodies. The sense of
ayn od milvado, there is nothing besides Him, permeated every last
nook and cranny of our bodies.
Such was our experience even before He began speaking to us. Our
preparation for receiving the Torah hit its stride only with this unique
and absolute clarification of emunah. Quite possibly, the Mishnah
in Avos means this magic moment when it refers to Moshe receiving
the Torah from Sinai. It means that Moshe was coming from a place of
utter and complete emunah, and, as our teacher, drew a straight
line for us from that moment to all the times we would spend studying
Torah. When a Jew studies Torah – or performs any mitzvah, for that
matter - he must hail back to that moment as much as possible, approaching
his learning (as the Mishnah there says) with fear and trembling,
revisiting and drawing upon an emunah so deep that it seizes his
body and causes it to tremble.
We might explain Rashi’s “general” and “specific” along these lines.
The “general” refers to the overarching sense of emunah that
accompanies the entire mitzvah system. Every individual mitzvah –
every “specific” instantiation of the mitzvah system – brings along a
specific insight and deepening of emunah. The source of all of
this is Sinai. We draw from it, and recreate in our own lives the clarity
of emunah that was made available to us on that day.
One mitzvah in particular has special potency in reliving that
emunah. Each shemittah a Jew turns his back on the source
of his livelihood and survival. With no apparent source of sustenance, he
prevails upon himself to desist from the activity that ordinarily puts
bread on his table. Living through shemittah is living with an
emunah that suffuses his body. It represents the epitome of
emunah. (Arguably, Shabbos is a key component of living with
emunah, representing as it does our conviction in Hashem as
Creator. Shabbos, however, is about awareness of the facts of Creation.
It pertains to emunah of the mind and heart. Shemittah
demands an emunah that occupies our bodies. The Torah hints at
this in speaking of Shabbos ha-aretz, with aretz implying
the lower, coarser, more earthy part of us. Shemittahemunah-teaching experience of Shabbos, applied to the aretz
of our beings, or the penetration of emunah even to our unthinking
and unfeeling bodies.
A key pasuk in the parshah of Shemittah yields
several approaches that highlight the centrality of emunah and
bitachon in its observance. “If you will say, ‘What will we eat in
the seventh year?’…I will ordain my blessing for you in the sixth
year….”4 Why did the Torah bother to
even ask the question? Had the Torah simply provided the Divine guarantee
of sustenance through a special blessing of the sixth year, we would have
completely understood why such a berachah was necessary.
Actually, says the Noam Elimelech in the name of his brother, we
would have gotten it wrong! The real master of emunah and
bitachon does not require a special blessing! The channels of
Divine influence run clear and strong to such a person, in all his
endeavors, throughout his life. When doubt intrudes and spoils that
perfect bitachon, the connection to the Divine influence is
disturbed. In order to accommodate the less-than-perfect bitachon
of the Shemittah observer who has room for the question, Hashem is
forced, kivayachol, to establish a special berachah do
sustain him. (The easier way to parnasah through complete
bitachon was illustrated nicely by the Rozhiner Rebbe through a
parable. A poor person heard of an exceedingly generous philanthropist in
the next town, who provided for all those who came to him. He traveled
there, but mistakenly knocked on the door of the town miser. The poor man
asked for food; the miser did not identify himself as such, but promised a
meal in return for the poor man’s labor. He worked him hard. When the
poor man asked for a meal at the end of the day, the miser sent him next
door, to his generous neighbor! The Rozhiner explained that in the end,
we are all sustained through the generosity of HKB”H. Some of us make the
mistake of knocking on the doors of the wrong apparent providers, and
enslaving ourselves to them unnecessarily. This, too, is the central
teaching of Shemittah. It is not the land that we work that
provides our parnasah. It is Hashem Himself.)
Be’er Mayim Chaim offers an entirely different approach to the
pasuk, but also arrives at the same place of deepening our
appreciation of emunah and bitachon. The question given
voice by the pasuk is not born of weakness or equivocation. The
questioner does not doubt for a moment that Hashem will provide for His
children and not let them starve as a consequence of their observing His
mitzvah. They do not question whether He will provide them with their
needs; they ask just how He will bring it about. Understanding full well
that the sustenance will come, they inquire as to what wonders and
miracles should they expect to see?
Hashem responds by rejecting the premise. He will not perform wonders and
miracles. He has no need for them. (We are loathe to depend on miracles,
and miraculous intervention comes at the price of reducing our available
store of merit.) He has enough leeway in the processes of Nature that he
can ordain His berachah without contravening natural law in the
slightest. Providentially providing us with what we think is miraculous
does not take miracles!
It is likely that Shemittah impacts far more than the years around
it. Indeed, it is Shemittah that determines success or failure at
all times in the Land of Israel. Shemittah is an attitude and a
program. In other places, more development usually leads to increased
profitability. In Israel, the reverse is true. Hatzlachah comes
from that which we refrain from development in the Shemittah year,
assigning our parnasah needs instead to Hashem.
“When you come into the land,…the land shall observe a Sabbath rest for
Hashem. For six years you many sow your field…”5 The words are so familiar, we don’t even realize that
they are backwards! The six years of sowing proceed the one year of
Shemittah. Why does the Torah reverse the logical order? What the
Torah means to do is to convey the urgency of Shemittah, and its
centrality in living in the Land. When you come into the Land, the first
order of business, the platform upon which to build all else is Shemittah
and the clarified emunah that it implies and embodies.
1 Based on Nesivos Shalom, 116-119
2 Vayikra 26:34
3 Avos 5:9
4 Vayikra 25:20-21
5 Vayikra 25:2-3
Text Copyright © 2008 by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein and Torah.org
