Summary
- God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites that in every seventh year, the land shall observe a Sabbath of complete rest: Fields should not be sown and vines should not be pruned. (25:1-7)
- After forty-nine years, a jubilee year is to be celebrated when all the land that had been sold during that time should be returned to its original owners and slaves are to be freed. (25:8-55)
- God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites not to make idols, to keep the sabbath, and to venerate the sanctuary of the Eternal. (26:1-2)
- God promises blessings to the Children of Israel if they follow the law and warns about the curses that will befall the people if they do not observe God's commandments. (26:1-46)
- Gifts made to the Sanctuary whether by conditional vows or by unconditional acts of pious gratitude are discussed. (27:1-34)
Special Focus: Leviticus 25:1-7
(1) The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: (2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the LORD. (3) Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. (4) But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of the LORD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. (5) You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. (6) But you may eat whatever the land during its sabbath will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound laborers who live with you, (7) and your cattle and the beasts in your land may eat all its yield.
Question: According to Rashi, what is the pshat; simple explanation of this text?
Rambam, Guide for the Perplexed 3:13, 452
It should not be believed that all the beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes.
Kli Yakar on Devarim 31:12
The year of Shmita...promotes a sense of fellowship and peace through the suspension of cultivation, even for the needy of your people, for one is not allowed to exercise private ownership over any of the seventh year produce. And this is undoubtedly a primary factor in promoting peace since most dissension originates from the attitudes of 'mine is mine,' one person claiming 'it is all mine' and the other also claiming 'it is all mine.' But in the seventh year all are equal, and this is the real essence of peace.
Rabbi Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz (1550-1619) was a rabbi, poet and Torah commentator. He is best known for his Torah commentary, Kli Yakar.
Question: According to the Kli Yakar, what is the purpose or consequence of Shmita? Can you imagine it playing out in this way?
Rabbi Zvi Hirscher, Sefer Habrit, Parshat Behar
[The Shmita year] teaches us further that the rich should not lord it over the poor. Accordingly, the Torah ordained that all should be equal during the seventh year, both the rich and the needy having access to the gardens and fields to eat their fill...Yet another reason: in order that they should not always be preoccupied with working the soil to provide for their material needs. for in this one year, they would be completely free. The liberation from the yoke of work would give them the opportunity for studying Torah and wisdom. The unlettered (illiterate) will be occupied with crafts and building and supplying these needs in Eretz Yisrael. Those endowed with special skills will invent new methods in this free time for the benefit of the world.
Rabbi Kalischer (1795-1874) was an Orthodox German rabbi and one of Zionism's early pioneers in Germany.
Question: What additional reasons are given here for Shmita observance? Which of the reasons given so far are most compelling to you personally?
שש שנים ולשבת בשביעית, ובכן לא תפרד לעולם הענין מבין עינינו תמיד, והוא כענין שאנו מונין ימי השבוע בששת ימי עבודה והשביעי יום מנוחה. ולכן צוה ברוך הוא להפקיר כל מה שתוציא הארץ בשנה זו מלבד השביתה בה כדי שיזכר האדם כי הארץ שמוציאה אליו הפרות בכל שנה ושנה לא בכחה וסגלתה תוציא אותם, כי יש אדון עליה ועל אדוניה, וכשהוא חפץ מצוה עליו להפקירם. ועוד יש תועלת, נמצא בדבר לקנות בזה מדת הותרנות, כי אין נדיב כנותן מבלי תקוה אל הגמול. ועוד יש תועלת אחר [ת], נמצא בזה שיוסיף האדם בטחון בשם יתברך, כי כל המוצא עם לבבו לתת ולהפקיר לעולם כל גדולי קרקעותיו ונחלת אבותיו הגדלים בכל שנה אחת ומלמד בכך הוא וכל המשפחה כל ימיו, לא תחזק בו לעולם מדת הכילות הרבה ולא מעוט הבטחון.
by counting six years and resting on the seventh so that this matter will never depart from between our eyes for all time. And this is similar to the manner in which we count the days of the week [by dividing them] into six days of work and the seventh is a day of rest. Therefore, He, blessed be He, did command to render ownerless all that the land produces in this year - in addition to resting during it (i.e. during the year) - so that a person will remember that the land which produces fruits for him every year does not produce them by its [own] might and virtue. For there is a Master over it and over its master - and when He wishes, He commands him (i.e. the master of the land) to render them (i.e. the fruit) ownerless. And there is another benefit in this matter - to acquire the trait of letting go (i.e. of one's possessions), for there is no one more generous than he who gives without hope for recompense. And there is another benefit - the outcome of this is that a person will add to his trust in God, may He be blessed, since anyone who finds it in his heart to give and abandon to the world all of the produce of his lands and his ancestral inheritance for an entire year - and educates himself and his family through this for all of his days - will never have the trait of stinginess overcome him too much, nor will he have a deficient amount of trust.
Question: What are the four reasons for Shmitta given in the Sefer HaChinuch?
Rav Kook, Introduction to "Sabbath of the Land"
The treasure of the nation, the Divine blessing that is implanted in it, the order of the world, the righteous and good life, lived in harmony with justice and honesty, peace and tranquility, grace and courage, permeated by the all-embracing contemplation of the Divine purpose, as it exists in the national soul -- none call be activated in the day-to-day life. The very nature of this life obfuscates the spiritual majesty of the Divine soul (which dwells in the nation) and prevents its bright and shining light from penetrating the profane reality.
Life can only be perfected through the affording of a breathing space from the bustle of everyday life. The individual shakes himself free from ordinary weekday life at short and regular intervals -- every Sabbath... What the Sabbath achieves regarding the individual, the Shmita achieves with regard to the nation as a whole.
A year of solemn rest is essential for both the nation and the land, a year of peace and quiet without oppressor and tyrant...It is a year of equality and rest, in which the soul reaches out towards Divine justice, towards God who sustains the living creatures with loving kindness. There is no private property and no punctilious privilege but the peace of God reigns over all in which there is the breath of life.
Sanctity is not profaned by the exercise of private acquisitiveness over all this year's produce and the covetousness of wealth stirred up by commerse is forgotten. for food -- but not for commerce.
Avraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) was the first Ashkenzi Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine. He was a kabbalist, poet, legalist, and hugely influential religious leader.
Questions:
- What would you say are Shmita's key values or themes, based on these texts?
- What feels most challenging about Shmita practice? What feels most liberating?
We Need to Lie Fallow too!
“Bring Back The Sabbath” by Judith Shulevitz (NYT Magazine, Jan 2, 2003)
What was Creation's climactic culmination? The act of stopping. Why should God have considered it so important to stop? Rabbi Elijah of Vilna put it this way: God stopped to show us that what we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so. The implication is clear. We could let the world wind us up and set us to marching, like mechanical dolls that go and go until they fall over, because they don't have a mechanism that allows them to pause. But that would make us less than human. We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.
Something miraculous happens when we stop. We get to experience the power that nature knows called dormancy. Dormancy, that which is holding; the heartbeat that rests; the hibernating animals, all of winter; waiting and waiting…There are seeds inside each and every one of us, inside this culture, that cannot emerge because we do not know that dormancy does not mean death, resting does not mean disappearing. What keeps us from stopping is that we are terrified of resting. We are afraid of the imaginative terrible things we will feel in the quiet. We fear that when we stop, even for a moment, the sheer enormity of our lives will overwhelm us. Our outspoken nd unspoken fears, they speed up our lives. Like a stone being thrown over a lake, we've learned to skip so we don’t get too wet, and we are terrified that if we let the stone fall, we will disappear. And so we think that our speed will save us from the void. We dance around the security that is offered from touching what is underneath the speed. Can we let go of the obsession of finishing what can’t be finished?
– Rabbi David Ingber, Shabbat Behar sermon, Romemu
It is difficult not to be impressed by the profundity of the idea that moves cautiously between the desire to preserve private property and the wish not to see property as the be-all and end-all. Shmita is a call to set apart a bubble in time, which slows economic activity down, and which fosters care, compassion and even partnership between all those who share the earth, including animals. The race will resume in the eighth year, because humanity needs it, but the idea and its memory will linger on beyond the confines of the sabbatical year, to the other six years of feverish productivity.
– Avi Sagi and Yedidya Stern, Rest, Share, Release, Ha’Aretz, Sept 24, 2007
The Shmita Project
Reimagine Society. Renew Jewish Life.
The Shmita Project is working to expand awareness about the biblical Sabbatical tradition, and to bring the values of this practice to life today to support healthier, more sustainable Jewish communities.
The Shmita cycle presents a cultural system rooted in local food security, economic resiliency and community empowerment. The first step in reaching towards this holistic and wide-ranging vision is in exploring shared ethics and values. We might consider this as the ‘operating system’ of the Shmita paradigm, the source code with which we may use to design businesses, community centers, schools, governance, etc. aligned with the Shmita vision. The more we can find a common language to celebrate a shared cultural value system, the easier the process ahead will be. So let’s ask ourselves: If we are to create such a society grounded in equality, fairness, creativity and abundance, what values must we embody along the way?
2. Local Health; Local Culture
12. Equal Access & Fair Distribution
17. Apply Self-Regulation & Invite Accountability
https://hazon.org/commit-to-change/educational-materials/shmita-resources/