SPEAK TO THE CHILDREN

OF ISRAEL AND SAY TO THEM: WHEN YOU ENTER THE LAND THAT I GIVE YOU, THE LAND

SHALL OBSERVE A SABBATH OF THE LORD.

 (Vayikra 25:2)

The earth is the Lord's and all that it contains

A Sabbath of the Lord – For the Lord's sake, that you must

not think like farmers who let the land lay fallow one year in seven to

preserve it fruitfulness. Rather, do it for the glory of the Lord, who

commanded the Sabbath of the seventh year and to whom the earth and all that it

contains belong.

(R. Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Vayikra 25:2)

But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine;

you are but strangers resident with Me.

(Vayikra 25:23)

For the land is Mine – Your eye shall not be evil towards it

(you shall no begrudge this) for it is not yours.

(Rashi ad loc, Silbermann translation)

You are but strangers resident with Me

– Lest you say: "You have given us the land for an eternal possession, and

we are the citizens of the land!" That is why He said that even though in

comparison to the other nations you are citizens of the land, from My perspective you are resident strangers, for the land is

Mine, and you are like strangers who have arrived from a distant country, and

the Lord of the land has allowed you to dwell in it. Indeed, man is like a

stranger on earth; his soul is from above and it descended from its place to

dwell on earth, as I have written regarding the verse, the years of my

sojourn (Bereishit

47:9).

(R. Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Vayikra 25:23)

What does

the Sabbatical Year have to do with Mount Sinai?

Menachem Klein

Thanks

to Rashi, the Sages' question, "What does the

Sabbatical year have to do with Mount Sinai?" has become a popular

expression in the Hebrew language. The Sages' bewilderment was aroused by our parasha's unusual opening sentence. The parasha

deals with the laws of the Sabbatical year, which is one of the 613

commandments. However, before going into the details of those laws the Torah

adds a strange introductory verse – And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount

Sinai, saying. What is the point of this additional verse? "After all, all of

the commandments were relayed at Sinai" (Rashi,

citing Torat Kohanim).

The midrash's answer is that the verse

comes not merely to teach us something about the Sabbatical year, but rather

about the entire Torah; just as the laws of the Sabbatical year had been given

at Sinai with all of their details and specifics, so it was with all of the

other commandments. Rashi offers a somewhat different

explanation. The Sabbatical year is not mentioned later in Devarim,

in contrast to other commandments whose main points are presented in the first

four books of the Torah, while some of their details are given only in Devarim. That is why the Torah had to emphasize that all of

the principles and details of the Sabbatical year were given at Sinai. Rashi makes the additional claim that everything Moses said

in the wilderness of Moav (in the book of Devarim) had already been said earlier at Mount Sinai.

The

interpretations offered by Torat Kohanim

and Rashi share a common ground. Both are concerned

with the connection between the details of the commandments and their

principles, and with their source of authority. Mount Sinai is not a mere

geographical location; it is a source of authority and of specific legal contents.

In other words, "Mount Sinai" is identified with the Torah as a

system of commandments given by God.

Ibn Ezra and the RaMBaN develop

different approaches. Ibn Ezra claims that we are

told that the laws of the Sabbatical year were given at Mount Sinai in order to

teach us that this section was originally part of the theophany

at Sinai and was given prior to all of the laws of the Tabernacle and the

sacrifices. To him, "Mount Sinai" refers to the unique event in which

the Ten Commandments were brought down, followed by a number of additional laws.

The fact that the passage occurs late in the book of Vayikra

says nothing about its place in the chronology of the Torah's narrative – and

so, the opening verse dates it as having been said at Mount Sinai.

The RaMBaN follows Ibn Ezra's lead

and also connects the section on the Sabbatical year with the theophany at Sinai. In contrast to Ibn

Ezra, he believes that the Sabbatical year was mentioned only with the delivery

of the second pair of tablets and not during the original theophany at Sinai. According to the RaMBaN,

the order of the text correctly reflects the chronological timing of the

reception of the Sabbatical laws; first the second Tablets were brought down, then

the commandments regarding the Tabernacle and the sacrifices were transmitted,

and lastly, Israel was commanded regarding the Sabbatical year.

For

both Ibn Ezra and the RaMBaN,

"Mount Sinai" marks a foundational event. However, we still lack a

substantive explanation of the connection between the Sabbatical year and Mount

Sinai. What is it about the Sabbatical year that connects it with the theophany at Sinai?

Parashat Behar is entirely

devoted to laws concerning the sale and purchase of real-estate and slaves. Slaves

in ancient society were classified as property rather than as people. A slave

owner possessed not only the slave's labor and the fruits of that labor; he

also owned the slave himself. The slave was a kind of property, and, like

real-estate, he was "hard" property. A unified line of thought

connects the laws of real estate with those of human property. Consideration of

the conclusion of that line at the end of our parasha, deepens the

connection with the theophany at Sinai that opens the

parasha. The final verses of the parasha

are quite similar to those of the Ten Commandments as they appear in parashat Yitro. I am the Lord

your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage

parallels For the children of Israel are slaves unto Me,

your God. The Sages even base a midrash

on this parallelism in order to explain why the ear of a slave is pierced if he

refuses to be freed on the seventh year:

Why

was it appropriate to pierce the ear, of all parts of the body? Because it

heard at Mount Sinai For the children of Israel are slaves unto Me, they are My slaves, yet he threw off the yoke of

Heaven and took upon himself the yoke of flesh and blood [masters], therefore,

Scripture says, "Let the ear come and be pierced for not abiding by what

it had heard." (Yalkut

Shimoni Mishpatim 318)

Do

not make for yourself an idol or any image parallels Do

not make idols for yourselves, do not set up a pillar-statue or yourselves.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy parallels and keep My

Sabbaths. These are the commandments which are relevant to understanding

the Sabbatical year and the real-estate ownership in the Land of Israel. Why

specifically these commandments? And why does our parasha

add the matter of do not place figured stones in your land to worship upon

them and the command and fear my sanctuary, I am the Lord? In order

to understand this, we must first consider the main characteristic of holy

places.

The

holy place represents a rendezvous between the earthly, material realm and the

heavenly spiritual realm. The holy place lends meaning to the lives of the believers

through the encounter with the world's hidden order, or with the religious

entity who dwells within it. In this way, the holy place allows the community

of believers direct communication with God, usually

for purposes of attaining forgiveness and atonement – but not solely for those

purposes. Many of the believers think that there they may be cured, gain

success and redemption. Members of the societal elites use the holy place to

settle judicial and political issues, and to gain legitimacy for their

decisions and very sovereignty. Secondly, the holy place symbolizes the sublime

within a physical reality; there the holy is anthropomorphized. These are translated

into ritual acts and ceremonies which strengthen the encounter and create broad

circles of support. Thirdly, the holy place is physically separated and

temporally distinguished from its environment. The holy place is bounded; entry

to it is limited and requires the completion of a series of rituals, especially

rituals of purification. Only the exalted One, the holy One Whose

place it is, is allowed permanent residence there. Those who serve the holy

place or visit it are there on a temporary basis; it is only thanks to their

duties that the priests are allowed to stay longer than the visitors. The

latter are allowed or commanded to visit at appointed times, but not to stay

there on a regular basis. The holy place contains a hierarchy of sites or

rooms, whose graded holiness sorts out all comers, determining who will enter

which spaces and for how long.

The

holy place is connected to a salient material presence in which the encounter

with the heavenly takes place: to a mountain, a tree, a boulder, or a river. In

our own case, Mount Sinai marks the direct encounter with God. The connection

of the physical to the heavenly is complicated and fragile. The danger exists that the believers will

distort it, as R. Meir Simkha

MiDvinsk warned:

Do

not imagine, God forbid, that the Temple and the

Tabernacle are holy in themselves. The blessed Lord dwells amongst his

children, and if they transgress His covenant as one man all holiness is

taken from them, and they become as profane vessels, which have been entered by

robbers and defiled. Titus entered the Holy of Holies accompanied by a

prostitute, and remained unharmed, for its holiness has been removed. Moreover,

the Tablets written by God, even they are not holy in themselves, but only for

you, and when the bride fornicated in her wedding canopy [a reference to the

sin of the golden calf], they became as pottery shards, lacking any holiness of

their own account – only for you [are they holy], when you observe [what is

written on] them. (Meshekh

Hokhmah on Shemot 32:19)

Idols

and stone pillars are examples of the distortion which completely identifies

the metaphysical Divinity with its physical symbol. That is why the Sages point

out that Sinai was the lowest of mountains, and why Jewish tradition lacks

knowledge of Sinai's exact location. Judaism wished to downplay the physical element

in the encounter with God in order to keep it from becoming a cultic site.

In

the beginning of the theophany at Sinai, God

introduces Himself and immediately warns against depicting His non-material Being in a statue or pillar. This warning is all the more

important when the religious experience of encounter with God is

institutionalized in a holy place and in the Holy Land. The Land of Israel is

rocky, and the Temple is built of stone. Boulders, mountains, pillars, and

stones are characteristic of holy places in the biblical Land of Israel. There

is a danger that the stone, the mountain, and the land will become sites of worship

in their own rights, making those who dwell in the land idolaters. That is why

our parasha warns us of worshiping figured stones. Stone,

which is only the shell for meta-physical content, should not become an object

of worship. Scripture immediately adds, observe My Sabbaths and fear my

sanctuary, to teach us that holiness of place should be just like holiness

of time. Time is non-material, abstract, and its sanctity cannot become an

object of idolatrous worship; we should relate to holiness of place in the same

vein. Fear of the Temple which Scripture requires of us does not come only to

teach us fear of the God who dwells in the Temple, but also fear of turning the

stone from which the Temple is built into something holy in its own right.

The

Sabbatical year, which is observed only in the Holy Land, is also connected

with this issue. Settlement of the Land of Israel invites the danger of the

Israelites making an analogy between their ownership of real estate and its

holiness: both may be thought to last eternally, and the rite of land-ownership

can replace or overshadow one's direction of thought towards the immaterial

God. In contrast, Scripture insists that the land shall not be sold for

strangers and residents unto Me. Redemption of the land does not mean its

permanent ownership by Jews. Careful reading of the parasha

reveals that the word redemption refers to temporary human ownership of

land, houses, and slaves. The commandment of the Sabbatical year teaches that

the soil of the holy place is mere matter, a platform for revelation and

encounter with God.

Menachem

Klein is a member of the editorial board of Shabbat Shalom and teaches in the

Political Science Department of Bar-Ilan University

Holiness in Life is Connected to Covenant and Memory, not Dead Stones

You shall not make idols for yourselves, or set up for yourselves

shall keep My Sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, the Lord's.

(Vayikra 26:1-2)

Venerate My sanctuary – The Sabbatical year, for it is

written, It shall be holy for you.

(Ibn Ezra ad loc)

It is My Sabbaths which

will bring Me and My rule home to you wherever you

are, and the sanctifying place which will win your whole life over to My

Presence – My Sanctuary, the Sanctuary of My Torah. Hence, You

shall keep My Sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, the Lord's.

Not by means of statue

and pillar, not by means of likeness and memorial stones have we to keep

ourselves conscious of God and His rule; the Sabbaths of God, the Sabbath of

Creation and the Sabbath of the Land, the Sabbatical year and Jubilee, which regulate

the whole of our private and public lives with the thought "God," and

by great acts of sacrifice make the acknowledgment of God real in our lives, as

well as the Sabbaths of God in the wider sense, the appointed seasons of the

Lord, the times of gathering and reunion dedicated to the memory of His rule

and management, these are our sign and covenant, and appointed time. From

these, not from molded dead stone, but from the symbols of acknowledgement,

bond and memories woven out of the living tissue of our active life, not so

much from them themselves as from the influence they have in forming the

pattern of our daily lives, from these do we draw the inspiration which makes

us find ourselves at one with God.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch ad loc, Levy translation

)

The Sabbatical Year as an Egalitarian Experience that Promotes Peace

At the end of seven years: For the Sabbatical year also brings

solidarity and peace, since during it there is no sowing or cultivation, and

the nation's poor may eat [whatever grows by itself], for one is not allowed to

keep the grain for oneself in the seventh year as the owner of the estate. This

no doubt causes peace; since all conflicts derive from the notion "mine is

mine" –which is to say – "all is mine." None of that happens in

the seventh year because while in activity all are not equal, all are equal in

inactivity, and that indeed is the essence of peace…

(Keli Yakar

on Devarim 31:12)

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