"And the land's Sabbath shall be food for you". Not for commerce, nor for waste nor for sprinkling [around a room for aroma] nor for steeping nor for laundering, but eating it is permitted, and also wherever the benefit comes together with its consumption as with eating. For you and your male servant and your maid servant. That is to say, all are equal, just as they cannot be excluded because [the produce] is hiker [ownerless], and all may eat from God's table.

(Rabbi Josef Bechor Shor, Vayikra 25:6)

 

For you cattle and for the beasts that are with you. The Shmitta year is to remind us that the land is His and we receive it from His hand, and we are His sojourners and temporary dwellers and should not take pride in our wealth, because all is from His hand, and every seventh year the land reverts to its owner, God the master. Therefore is this year called a Sabbath for God, and the produce is for the rich and poor alike, for the stranger and the citizen and the slave and the resident equally, and also for the cattle and beast, because all are equal before God.

(ShaDal, 25:6,7)

 

And for your slave and maidservant - We read 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)

 

 

A time to preserve a time to throw away

Moshe Meir

In Parashat Behar, the great Hebrew year is spread before us. No only the rhythm of the week which concludes with Shabbat, but also the rhythm of six years followed by the Shmittah year, and then, following seven Shmitta cycles, the Jubilee. If this rhythm will be internalized, it will be able to create life which spreads outward and converges inward - years of labor vs. a year of Shmitta and 'letting go', years of servitude and slavery vs. a year of liberty and freedom. Despite the difference, we detect distant echoes of Kohellet:

A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven:

A time for being born                          And a time for dying,

A time for planting                              And a time for uprooting the planted;

A time for slaying                                And a time for healing.

A time for tearing down                      And a time for building up.

A time for weeping                             And a time for laughing.

A time for wailing                                And a time for dancing;

A time for throwing stones                  And a time for gathering stones.

A time for embracing                          And a time for shunning embraces;

A time for seeking                               And a time for losing.

A time for keeping                              And a time for discarding;

A time for ripping                                And a time for sewing,

A time for silence                                And a time for speaking,

A time for loving                                 And a time for hating;

A time for war                                    And a time for peace. (Kohellet 3:1-8)

But in contrast to the tendency to flow with the times and to adjust life its rhythms, there exists another tendency:

And when you sell property to your fellow or buy from the hand of your fellow, you shall not defraud one another. By the number of years after the jubilee you shall buy from your fellow, and by the number of years of yield he shall sell to you. (Vayikra 25:14,15)

If it was necessary to write "Do not defraud", we may assume that there is a power attracting us to fraud. What is this power? The rhythm of the jubilee assigns the field variable value. The price of field bought 30 years before the jubilee is not the price for a field purchased a few years before the jubilee. It is difficult for a person to adjust his life to this rhythm. He would prefer that the price always remain high, always producing a high profit. Therefore he is defrauds, trying to deviate from the rhythm of the jubilee years.

Watch yourself, lest there be in your heart a base thing, saying, "The seventh year, the year of remission is near' and you look meanly at your brother    the pauper and you do not give to him... (Devarim 15:9)

The Shmittah rhythm determines that the further away the loan is from the Shmitta year, the better the chances for its return. If the loan is close to Shmitta, it will probably go into remission. Yet more serious - we love to act. The ideal of Kohellet cannot stand against the forces of our activity; the ideal of Shmitta cannot survive powerful forces which activate us. So much so, that Hillel was forced to formulate the prozbul decree which, in effect, uprooted financial remission - Shmittat K'safim - from the Torah.

Making life compatible with the Torah time cycle necessitates gaining control over that drive which seeks everything here and now, forces us to relax and to contract our primeval desires. Hillel read the sad reality, and suited life to it. The rhythms of Shmittah and Jubilee remain as unrealized ideals, but despite it all, they call upon man not to give in and not to exploit Hillel's decree, and to try and live life according to the pulsating rhythm of the period.

Moshe Meir is involved in education

 

And you shall call a release. 'Release' [d'ror] means freedom. Rabbi Yehuda said: What does 'release' mean. 'one who dwells where he likes and carries on merchandise in the whole country'.

(Sifra, Behar, Parasha 2)

 

The moment Jubilee is proclaimed every person again becomes a "bearer" of possessions, but, himself, ceases to be any longer a possession. It is the restitution of Man to the rights and the dignity of Man, a poignant description of the restoration of a slave to freedom.

(R' Shimshon Rafael Hirsch's commentary to Vayira25:10)

 

"Freedom" is the opposite of subjugation, of slavery and labor; "Release" ['Dror"] is the freedom of subjugation of man to his master.

(Rabbi Shelomo Aharon Wertheimer as quoted in "New Studies in Vayikra" by Prof. Nechama Leibowitz z"l, p.417):

 

Do Not Maltreat... That You May Live Upon The Land In Security - Dwelling in the Land is Dependent Upon the Existence of an Enlightened Society

Rebbi prepared a feast for his disciples. He served them both soft tongues and hard tongues. They began to select the soft tongues, rejecting the hard ones. He said to them: My sons, so should your tongues be soft one with the other. Thus Moses admonished Israel, Do not mistreat one another.

Do not mistreat - Scripture refers to verbal mistreatmen... For example, one should not say to a baal teshuva, a penitent, "Remember your earlier behavior", and one should not say to a convert, "Remember your ancestors' behavior". If a convert comes to study Torah, one should not say to him "Shall a mouth which consumes carcasses and animals torn to pieces and abominations and crawling things come to learn Torah which emanated from the mouth of the Divine Presence?" If one is in agony, or he is burying his progeny, say not to him - as did Job's friends say to him - Is not your piety your confidence, your integrity your hope? Think now, what innocent man ever perished? If donkey drivers ask one to sell them grain, he shall not tell them "Go to so-and-so" - knowing that so-and-so has never sold grain. Rabbi Yehudah says: One should not haggle over price when he has no money, for this a matter known to the heart only, of which it is written Fear your God.

(Yalkut Shimoni, Behar, 247: 661)

 

Do not maltreat one another - This is an admonishment against wrongdoing by means of words; one should not taunt his fellow, nor - for the sake of personal advantage - give another inappropriate counsel. And should you ask: Who can tell if one's intentions were not honorable? Therefore it says, Fear your God - He who knows all thoughts knows. Matters known to the heart only, known only to one who thinks about them in his heart, regarding him it says, Fear your God.

(Rashi, Vayikra 25:17)

 

For the land is Mine

Do not resent these laws [of Shemittah and Yovel] for it [the land] does not belong to you.

(Rashi, Vayikra 25:23).

 

It admonishes against permanent transfer of ownership [of land] in the Land of Israel, as it says: And the Land shall not be sold into perpetuity.

(RaMBaM, Sefer HaMitzvot Negative Commandment 227)

 

One reason for the commandment [not to effect changes in the designation of plots in the Levites' settlements and of their fields]: The towns of the Levites were set aside for the needs of all the tribes, because it was the tribe chosen for the service of God, and all their dealings were with wisdom, in that they were not bothered with agriculture as were the other tribes of Israel, and regarding them it is said : They shall teach Your laws to Jacob, and Your instructions to Israel. And because wisdom resided with them, all of Israel constantly had dealings with them. To this add the fact that their towns also serve as cities of refuge for the [inadvertent] murderer, and therefore the eyes of all Israel are upon their towns, for who can foretell what tomorrow will bring. Thus it was reasonable that that these refuges be located in towns where equality reigns; town which, being in the public eye, should be paragons of beauty and pleasantness; they are a source of pride for all Israel, and therefore the prohibition against effecting changes in them, for the Master of Wisdom established them, and perfected them, and set their boundaries, and He saw that thus it was good...

(Sefer HaHinukh, Negative Commandment 343)

 

One who lives in the Land of Israel must always remember that once the land was called Canaan which implies subservience and submission to God... You shall be priviledged to be sojourners in your land, as David said "I am a sojourner in the land" (Psalm 119:9) and then "Sing praises, servants of the Lord" (Ibid, ibid., v.1) . The rule we derive from this is that dwellers in the land must in a state of humility, and, like strangers, should not make permanent dwelling the major principle. This is what our Sages referred to when they said: "And Yaakov dwelt in the land of Canaan" - he desired to dwell in transquility. Said the Holy One, blessed be He, "Is it not sufficient for the saintly that a place has been prepared for them in the world to come"? He will dwell only "in the land where his father dwelt", "I am a stranger", and it shall be "the Land of Canaan"... This is the meaning of "You are sojourning settlers with Me" (Vayikra 25:23) and your aide memoire shall be "A land which devours those who dwell [lit. "sit"] in it" - a land which decimates those who dwell in it in quiet and tranquility and by force, to eat its fruits and only to enjoy it".

(R' Yeshaayahu Hurvitz, Shnei Luchot HaBrit Part. 3, 11, 31)

 

For the Shemitah year also gives rise to solidarity and peace. This occurs because one does not sow seed and grow [crops] while the poor can eat [whatever grows by itself], for one is prohibited from acting as the land-owner and taking hold of the seventh year's grain. All of this doubtlessly causes peace, since all conflicts derive from the trait of "mine is mine," i.e., "it is all mine." All of this is less evident in the seventh year, because while action [i.e. agricultural production] involves inequality, all are equal in inaction, and that is really what peace is about.

(Keli Yakar Devarim 31:12)

 

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)

 

Holiness in life is related to covenant and memory, not to lifeless stones.

"You shall make no idols nor set up a sculpted image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and you shall not put a figured stone in your land to bow over it, for I am the Lord your God. My sanctuary you shall revere. I am the Lord".

(Vayikra 26:1-2)

 

My sanctuary [lit. "my holy place"] you shall revere - This refers to the Jubilee for so it is written "It shall be holy for you".

(Ibn Ezra, ibid. ibid.)

 

The sign which reminds us of My supervision everywhere, is "my Sabbaths"; the place which sanctifies all your life, in order that my Holy Presence dwell among you, is "My sanctuary" - The Sanctuary of My Torah. Therefore, "You shall keep my Sabbaths and venerate My sanctuary, Mine, the Lord's." Not by statue nor by monument; God's supervision is symbolized by the Sabbaths of the Lord. The Sabbaths of the Lord are the Sabbath of Creation and the Sabbaths of the Land - Shabbat, Shmitta, and Jubilee. By teaching the idea of God, they shape all our lives as human beings and as citizens; they demonstrate our submission to God by major acts of offering and thanks. The Sabbaths of the Lord - in a broader context - include the festivals of the Lord. They are times of coming together, in order to remind us of God's supervision. All these Sabbaths of the Lord are a sign for us, covenant and appointed time; they are not hewn from lifeless stone, but they are signs of recognition, covenant and remembrance, woven from the living materials of our actions. They remind us of the supervision of the Lord - not by virtue of themselves - but through their shaping influence upon our behavior. By submission and sanctification of all our lives, they join us and appoint us to the Lord.

(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, ibid., ibid.)

 

Do Not Worship Stones

Do not place figured stones in your land (Vayikra 26:1) - This refers to all other "lands," but in the Sanctuary one is permitted to prostrate oneself one the stones (of the floor), for it says in your land - in your land you may not prostrate yourself on stones, but you may prostrate yourselves on the floor-stones of the Sanctuary. That is why all of Israel customarily lay down mats or straw in synagogues whose floors are made of stone - to separate their faces from the stones. An if one does not find anything to separate himself from the stones, he goes elsewhere to prostrate himself, or bends over to the side so that he does not touch the stone with his face.

(RaMBaM, Hilchot Avoda Zara 6:7)

 

 

 

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