YOU MAY SOW YOUR FIELD FOR SIX

YEARS, AND FOR SIX YEARS YOU MAY PRUNE YOUR VINEYARD, AND GATHER IN ITS

PRODUCE, BUT IN THE SEVENTH YEAR, THE LAND SHALL HAVE A

COMPLETE REST A SABBATH TO THE LORD; YOU SHALL NOT SOW YOUR FIELD, NOR SHALL

YOU PRUNE YOUR VINEYARD.

(Vayikra 25:3-4)

The commandment of the Shemittah

year is similar to the commandment of the Sabbath, since just as the

commandment of the Sabbath serves to strengthen the belief in the peoples'

heart that they are a holy nation, so too the commandment of Shemittah instills in their heart the belief that their

land is a holy land since it rests in that year as God rested on the seventh

day. See Don Yitzhak (Abarbanel's) pleasant words in

his Nahalat Avot

chapter five s.v. galut

ba la'olam. Just as God

gave them two portions of food on the sixth day while they were in the

wilderness, so too when they dwelled in their land He would command His

blessing towards them in the sixth year that there should be enough grain for

the Shemittah year as well. The land's holiness was a

strong factor keeping the people from making the land

impure or desecrating it with abhorrent deeds. Necessarily, when the land

rested the slaves and animals could also rest a bit from their labors,

similarly to the way slaves and animals rest on the Sabbath. That year's grain

was considered ownerless out of compassion for the poor; thus the wealthy and

the indigent were made equal, and the wealthy man's pride was brought low,

reminding him that all human beings are equal. The cancellation of debts is also

a matter of compassion and grace towards the poor. Furthermore: just as the

people were given other holidays beyond the Sabbath in which to rest and be joyful

for God's sake, so too the Holy Land was given the Jubilee year in addition to

the Shemittah year. Like the Sabbath and the Shemittah, the Jubilee makes the rich and the poor equal by

taking a break from agriculture, and by making the crops ownerless; in

addition, tracts of land return to their owners and slaves are set free [in the

Jubilee year], and this is a great act of compassion towards the poor and a

great reinforcement of equality among the citizens…

And for your

slave and maidservant – It says in parashat Mishpatim: and the poor of your people shall eat it,

and here it adds the slaves and residents who are not Israelites. Know that I

possess a manuscript which has Rashi state regarding

the verse and for your hired workers and your residents: "including

gentiles" (not converts), and so it is found by R. Emmanuel Hai Ricci, and in Torat

Kohanim Behar parsheta 1.

(ShaDaL Vayikra 25:2-6)

And

the Sabbath of the land shall be yours to be eaten…

Oshrat

Shoham

Parashat Behar begins with the

commandment of Shemittah: When you come to the

land that I am giving you, the land shall rest a Sabbath to the Lord – the

land's Sabbath in the seventh year. After describing the preparations and

prohibitions involved, the Torah concludes its account of the Shemittah with the verse, And [the produce of] the

female slaves, and for your hired worker and resident who live with you.

In

effect, the Torah distills the Shemittah, with its

prohibitions of work in the field and vineyard with a general, egalitarian, and

comprehensive expression: to be eaten [Hebrew: le'okhla]

This

expression occurs only a few times in Scripture. Its first occurrence is in the

end of the Creation story, in the twilight between man's creation and the

completion of God's work, when God speaks His first words to man:

"Behold, I have given you every seed bearing herb, which is upon

the surface of the entire earth, and every tree that has seed bearing fruit; it

will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the

earth and to all the fowl of the heavens, and to everything that moves upon the

earth, in which there is a living spirit, every green herb to eat [ le'okhla ],"

and it was so. And God saw all that He had made, and behold

it was very good

It appears that God's instruction to His creatures upon the

completion of creation is to be found in the expression to eat – le'okhla, alongside be fruitful and multiply and

fill the earth and conquer it. Even if man is to be fruitful and multiply

and to fill the earth and to even conquer and lord-over every

living thing, human existence and the existence of the entire world depends

upon the fulfillment of the clear instruction of le'okhla;

not just the le'okhla of human beings, but

also the le'okhla of every beast, fowl, or

creeping thing. The perfect and original state of the world is one of harmony

in which every living thing is provided with its appropriate le'okhla.

What is this

guiding principle that stands at the foundations of the world's existence?

The second occurrence of the expression le'okhla

in the Torah is found in God's command to Noah to enter the Ark with all the

living things, "And you, take for yourself of every food that is eaten

and gather it in to you, and it shall be for you and for them to eat[ le'okhla]" (Bereishit

6:21).

Noah, who was to preserve the existence of all the world's

living things and to share the Ark with them,

is

told to collect enough food le'okhla – enough

food to sustain the passengers of Creation's rescue-Ark.

The Torah's third use of the expression le'okhla

is found in connection with the manna: When the children of Israel saw [it],

given you to eat [le'okhla]. This is the thing that the

Lord has commanded, Gather of it each one according to his eating capacity, an omer for each person … And they measured [it] with an omer,

not have less; each one according to his eating capacity, they gathered " (Shemot 16).

There is no doubt that one verse comes to interpret its

fellow; the choice of the expression le'okhla is surely not accidental.

The detailed command that each person should collect manna, each

according to his fill, each according to his precise needs without hoarding or

accumulation constitutes an exegesis upon the expression le'okhla

found in Bereishit. The secret to our survival is the

readiness to make due with life's necessities according to our precise needs, whoever

gathered much did not have more, and whoever gathered little did not have less.

The situation described is not competitive; it is not a situation of power,

rather a situation in which human needs are completely and fully met, but in a

measured way.

It does not seem a mere coincidence that the

manna as well as the rainbow displayed to Noah upon his emergence from the Ark

both appear in the list of ten things that were created in the twilight of the

first Sabbath eve (Avot

5), together with the primordial command of le'okhla.

God's word at the completion of creation is accompanied by the creation of the

rainbow which reminds us of how all the passengers of the Ark made do together

with the food Noah had stored up; the manna teaches us how to deal with food

and how to sustain ourselves.

And now, back to the Shemittah: It seems that the earlier uses of the

expression le'okhla help us to understand that

aspect of Shemittah. Now, in the seventh year, in the

Shemittah, we again try to return to the state of Bereishit, to the Divine instruction given on the

twilight of the first Sabbath eve according to which the earth and its fruits

were given to us – its inhabitants – to eat le'okhla;

we must restrict ourselves to filling our needs each one according to

his eating capacity, as if we were living the primordial existence

described in Bereishit or a miraculous existence like

that in the wilderness, or as if we were together with the world's other

creatures in the Ark. We must free ourselves of classes, free ourselves from

power, competition, the accumulation of property and food, and be satisfied

with le'okhla, that which we need to eat. It is not accidental that the Torah insists that le'okhla includes for your male and female slaves, and for your hired worker and resident

who live with you.

We have wandered far from the primordial

situation of man described in Bereishit and far from

the generation that ate manna. We have stored up, accumulated, and fought. We

are divided into classes and annihilate all living things. We have even strayed

from the wilderness existence of whoever gathered much and whoever

gathered little. However, once in seven years we once again

"reconnect" to Bereishit, to the Ark, and

to the wilderness, to the sufficient distribution of needed goods. We open our fields, our gardens, and our

warehouses. We share the goods and limit our consumption to that which is

genuinely needed.

Only

by internalizing the value of le'okhla can the

blessing and behold it was very good of Bereishit

and our parasha's promise of and the land will

then yield its fruit and you will eat to satiety, and live upon it securely

be achieved.

Oshrat Shoham is a member of the Bak'a Egalitarian Minyan and a

criminal attorney in the office of the Jerusalem district attorney.

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 its 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)

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)

You shall not

and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, the Lord's.

(Vayikra 26:1-2)

Holiness in

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

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)

You shall not

therefore wrong one another, and you shall fear your God, for I the Lord am your God.

(Vayikra 25:17)

Our Rabbis taught: You shall not therefore wrong one

another; Scripture refers to verbal wrongs… E.g., if a man is a penitent,

one must not say to him, ‘Remember your former deeds.’ If he is the son of

proselytes he must not be taunted with, ‘Remember the deeds of your ancestors.

If he is a proselyte and comes to study the Torah, one must not say to him,

‘Shall the mouth that ate unclean and forbidden food, abominable and creeping

things, come to study the Torah which was uttered by the mouth of Omnipotence!’

If he is visited by suffering, afflicted with disease, or has buried his

children, one must not speak to him as his companions spoke to Job (4), Is not

Remember, I pray you, who ever perished, being innocent?…

            R. Yohanan said on the authority of R. Shimon b. Yohai: Verbal wrong is more heinous than monetary wrong,

because of the first it is written, and you shall fear your God, but not

of the second. R. Eleazar said: The one affects his

not for the latter.

(Bava Metziya 58b, based on Soncino

translation)

The admonition addresses all members of the nation together

and says: they are not to hurt one another in any way,

each one is to fear his God, is to know that He is equally the God of each of

his brethren. Thereby is described what is to be the direct result of the

institution of Shemittah and the Jubilee for the

whole social life of the people in the land. Inasmuch as these institutions

interweave the thought "God" into all business transactions, and

inasmuch as they bring the thought continually to mind that all are living

together on the same soil of God, in the same Land of God, where He is the

Master and Owner of all possessions, and that in the exercise of this ownership

He demands the tribute of acknowledging Him in the whole of business life:

these institutions immediately beget the twin thought of these thoughts, viz.,

that the whole of one's life takes place under God's Eye, that God is present

not only in the Temple but in the midst of all intercourse between people, that

He only bears and blesses this intercourse and each individual of it in His

Land if the intercourse tends to the happiness of all, where none hurts the other,

no one misuses the position he may have won, or the breath he draws, in the

Land of God, to the loss or mortification of others, and interweaves into every

phase of private and public life that fundamental truth of all truths, with all

its consequences, that I am the Lord your God.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra

25:17, Levi translation)

Readers respond

Regarding Menachem Klein's article, "And

you shall remember that you were a slave" (Pesach issue)

Dr. Menachem Klein describes the connection

between slavery and skin tone made by the medieval sages, writing: "The Sages and the medieval commentators

thought that people of color – the descendants of Kush

– were naturally disposed to enslavement." He continues: "The identification of slaves with the

dark-skinned peoples is an extreme expression of another justification of

slavery: that the slaves are naturally inferior. The racist apology for slavery

is the extreme form of the notion that it is natural for the slave to be under

his master's control. A slave regime is built upon the essential distinction

between master and slave, which views the slave's inferiority and the master's

mastery as natural and necessary." However, Dr. Klein calms us regarding the

implications of these ideas for the modern world: "Today, when

slavery is prohibited by accepted norms…we can remove the ethnic and

essentialist label that distinguishes between the Canaanite and the Hebrew

slave, etc." One might gain the impression from these words that racism

towards people of different skin-color is a problem that has disappeared from

the modern world. True, slavery, in the old sense of the word, no longer exists

in the Western world. However, there remain differences between the ways people

of different skin-color are assigned to different social classes. Often,

skin-color constitutes a barrier keeping individuals and entire communities

from studying in various educational institutions. It directs them to continue

working in basic service occupations that garner them an especially low income.

Unfortunately, we have only recently heard of many instances in which religious

educational institutions fought to keep away students of Ethiopian extraction

or to reduce their numbers. Do they cite the medieval exegetes to justify their

racist positions? The modern problem of slavery will be decided in the

educational system.

Yaron Shur, Jerusalem

Dr. Menachem Klein, author of the article,

comments:

I am pleased that Yaron Shur

has added to my words rather than contradicted them. In my article I mentioned

that in parts of the world of slavery continue to persist in our day, such as

the trade in women, which everyone agrees is more serious than the prejudice

suffered by the Ethiopian immigrants due to their skin color. The trade in

women involves the objectification of human beings and deprives them of ownership

over their own bodies. Discriminatory practices in education and employment do

not involve similar objectification but they do prevent equality of income and

of opportunity and they must also be purged from our cities. There are various

degrees of evil, and today's moral norms cannot be compared with those accepted

not so many years ago by the same Western culture. As I have written: in issues

of human rights and liberties, normative change precedes change in practice. The

more we stress the norm the more we advance its application. We must not aspire

to return to a situation in which there are Canaanite slaves and Hebrew slaves;

rather, we must aspire to a world without slavery of any kind whatsoever.

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