Parshas Behar
Shemittah is linked to Har Sinai for several reasons.
At Har Sinai, G-d was visible to all. His existence was not a matter of belief. It was a matter of fact. And so, if He would have asked us there and then to keep Shemittah, the answer would have been, “Of course, whatever You say.”
But G-d does not want man to keep His mitzvot only when His presence is obvious. He wants us to keep his mitzvot when his presence can be questioned.
It seems that when our own life experiences convince us of G-d’s existence, the effect is long lasting. When G-d has to convince us of His own existence, the effect is short lived. Witness how fast it took the people of Israel to worship a golden calf after having experienced the blinding reality of G-d at Sinai.
And so, although our survival during the Shemittah years of our lives, or for that matter, during all the years of our lives, could be explained by natural means, we need to understand that it is as much a miracle as the meeting between G-d and man on Mount Sinai itself.
Furthermore, Har Sinai reminds us that relying solely on G-d for our food once every seven years is not such a scary prospect, given that He sustained us for forty years in the wilderness on our trek to the Revelation at Har Sinai. So what we are eating really depends on where we are going. If our journey in life is towards Har Sinai, we will be taken care of.
Indeed the laws of Shemittah were meant to be given at Har Sinai because the original plan was that we would enter the land of Israel a short while later, not forty years later.
Shemittah is not about giving the land a rest so that it will become more fertile. We don’t need that. We have a guarantee that if we heed His commandments, the land will remain fertile, however long or hard we work it (Devarim 11:13-16). The purpose of the laws of Shemittah is to remind us that the land is ours because G-d gave it to us (Vayikra 25:2) not because we conquered it. Shemittah is the resting of the land for G-d’s sake, “Shabbat la’Shem,” not for the land’s sake.
“And you shall count for yourself seven cycles of Sabbatical years, seven years seven times, and you shall sanctify the fiftieth year and you shall return each man to his hereditary property” (25:10). Why does the Torah add the word “lechah,” that you shall count for yourself?
It is similar to G-d’s command to Avraham, “Lech lechah,” which Rashi tells us means that it is for your own good and for your own benefit (Rashi to Bereishis 12:1). It is no good for us to believe that what we accumulate in our life time is ours forever. At best, we can call it ours for 50 years, which is the productive lifespan of man from the age of 20 to the age of 70 (Tehillim 90:10). After that we have to let it go, because we will be let go. That realization of the temporariness of life is good for us because it forces us to focus on what is really permanent and what will outlive us. As Rav Dovid, zt”l, used to say, it is not just the books that the gedolim have written that made them eternal, but it is primarily the kindness they have shown to others for which they are remembered long after they are gone. It is the kindness we show to each other by returning land, the icon of wealth, to those who had to sell it out of need and by waiving the debts that we could otherwise enforce, that make us live on in the memories of those who survive us. Ultimately we are the beneficiaries of our own kindness.
We are told that Yovel, the Jubilee, is on the 10th day of the seventh month on Yom Kippur (Vayikra 25:9). We know that Yom Kippur is on that day. So would it not have been enough for the Torah to save words and just give us the date without telling us again that date is Yom Kippur?
But there is message behind those seemingly redundant words. On Yom Kippur we ask G-d to waive the rights He has over us to exact retribution for our sins. Have we done for others what we are asking Him to do for us on this day? Have we waived our rights over our lands and over our debts? On the day of Yom Kippur of the Jubilee year we have a unique opportunity to put our money where our mouth is. When we pray for leniency, we show Him that the benefits of clemency will not stop with us but will be passed down to others in need.
Do not lend your money with interest, I am Hashem your G-d who took you out of the land of Egypt…” (25:37:38). What is the connection between lending money with interest and the Exodus? “The borrower is a servant to the lender” (Mishlei 22:7). As those beholden to credit card companies know too well, one can keep on paying interest one’s whole life and never pay back the principal. The word for interest in the Torah is “neshech,” which means a bite, like a snake bite which attacks you at the heel and consumes you all the way to the top of the head. It is also called “marbit,” because it adds to the principal and to the wealth of the lender. So release your debtor from the slavery of interest just like G-d released you from the slavery of Egypt. Be kind with your arithmetic just like G-d was with His, when he deducted 190 from the 400 years of slavery he foretold Avraham.
