When God created humanity He tasked us with, “fill the earth and subdue it.” Simple enough. All Adam and Eve had to do was procreate and become masters of their earth. Yet it soon became apparent that humankind’s appetite for control required greater and more specific directives.
Left to our own irresponsible behaviors we would bring ruin on one another and on the land. So God directed us to obverse laws that would curtail our destructive tendencies because we could not be trusted to control our lust for power and possessions. So, He told us to observe a once-per-week Shabbat. Every seven days we are to light candles, bless wine and break bread. On Shabbat, the Holy One told us to live in the world on this Shabbat, not above it. In that way the earth would reclaim one day for its own healing and we could reclaim the vitality of our lives.
Then God saw fit to add that when people sold themselves into slavery they needed to be set free after six years of labor. Everyone deserves a new start in the seventh year.
In B’har, God further expands the rule of seven by indicating the shmittah, a seventh year of Shabbat for the land.
We are just beginning to learn the value of this mitzvah. The body heals when it is given time to rest. The mind recuperates when given a Shabbat. Society heals when old debts are forgiven. And the earth too needs time to recover from the never-ending onslaught of chemicals, depletion and deforestation.
To emphasize the importance of this mitzvah the Torah states that this was a law given at Mt Sinai.
God gave us a gift of a body and universe that self heals. But only if we give it what it needs.
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Davar acher
This text, from Exodus 34: 21, tells us to observe the Shabbat and, for some strange reason, chooses to use the example of refraining from planting and reaping on the Shabbat. Why did the Holy Text use this example and not, say, refraining from work? Or not shearing sheep? Or not making fire?
Rashi explains that the Torah uses this specific example because it wants us to be aware that it is speaking of two different sorts of Shabbat. One of them is the seventh day of the week where we are supposed to leave the earth alone and the other is the seventh year when we are told to let the land lie, the Shvi’it year. Both are equally valuable.
So holy is the Shvi’it, explains Rashi, that even the sixth and eighth years are tinged by the holiness of the seventh year. That is, explains the French rabbi, accidental produce that came up on the eighth year of the land is also holy and plowing at the close of the sixth year is forbidden.
The Torah reading of this week, B’har, opens us with God speaking to Moshe at mount Sinai, saying, "Speak to the Children of Israel and tell them: When you come to the land which I am giving to you, the land must keep a Shabbat to God ...". Leviticus 25:1
The concept of a "Shabbat to God" was interpreted with great zeal by our Sages, of blessed memory. They stressed that the observance of the Shvi’it was critical to our well-being. Read their words:
Come and see how difficult the Dust of Shvi’it is: A man who deals in produce of the Shvi’it year will eventually have to sell his chattel ... then his property ... and his house ... eventually his daughter as a handmaid ... he will have to borrow with interest ... and will be forced to sell himself ... to someone who worships idols, which will cause him to do the same. Kiddushin 20a
The phrase, “A Shabbat to God” is stated at the outset of our parsha. The expression can also mean “a return to God." In thinking about the usual Shabbat, the seventh day of the week, our tradition sees this as a day that restores the soul to the body. Shavat va’yinfash states the Ten Commandments instructing us on observing the Shabbat day. On the holy Shabbat our nefesh is given a glimpse of eternity. In that sense, Shabbat is about returning to God. Shavat va’yinafash means that our soul, nefesh, is reawakened and re energized. The day and its observances allow us to be soulfully connected to our Maker.
Shabbat is about reestablishing our relationship with the Almighty. It is a return to God. The Chernobyl Rebbe wrote that the word "Shabbat" -- shin-bet-tav -- stands for "Shabbat Bo Teshuvah" -- in Shabbat there is a return to the Lord.
After seven Shvi’it cycles (7 X 7= 49 years), there is the Jubilee year when land is returned to its original owners and Jewish servants are freed. There are three Shabbats observed by our people; Shabbat, Shvi’it and the Jubilee. Each one contains the nuance of returning back to God. The Sefer HaChinuch tells us this to make us aware that everything belongs to God. We are simply travelers on the earth.
Perhaps there is another lesson here for modernity. Life surges forward with ever-greater velocity. The speed of innovation and the attendant demands on our soul are dizzying.
Who heard of a cordless phone thirty years ago? Who lives without a cell phone today??
I would not advise investing in maps. GPS systems will soon be in every car.
When was the last time you saw a floppy disc drive? Computer technology does not advance, it races.
How long will it be until there are no more gasoline driven cars?
Judaism does not seek to resist or demonize technology. Our task is to harness it, though, and not be harnessed by it.
I cannot help but wonder whether the terrifying curse that is mentioned in the Talmud above may contain kernels of truth. Perhaps we can end up selling all our possessions and ultimately our soul if we are not watchful guardians.
Amalek, the dreadful enemy of the Jews has the same gematria, numerical value, as doubt, safek. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Had the Jewish people only kept the first Shabbat, no nation or people could ever have had control over them. It says in Torah, "It happened that on the seventh day some of the people went out to collect [manna].” Immediately afterward the Torah reveals, "Amalek came . . ." Shabbat 118b. Amalek was the doubt that God knew what was best for the nation of Israel. Amalek were the lingering and festering thought that perhaps humanity knows better.
Maybe the lessons of the past, the doubts, the idea that somehow we are made of different stuff than all the generations that pack human history, is there to teach us to trust God.
Perhaps that is why when speaking of the seventh and Jubilee years the Torah promises that if we observe these Sabbatical laws " . . . You will dwell securely upon it." Leviticus 25:19 Trust is asked of us. Trust can give us blessing and make us whole.
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