Desolation Road

By Rabbi Joshua (iconically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

This week's parshas begns by saying that God will reward us if we walk in his statutes and observe his laws. Rashi explains that walking in His statutes refers to toiling in His Torah. We are later told, in the section of rebuke, or tochcha, that if we do not listen to God, we will be punished. Rashi explains this to mean that if we do not toil in the Torah, we will be punished. This warning raises a question, because after the punishments that will come are mentioned, we are told that the desolation of the land will come about as a result of not having the land rest during shemittah. What, then, is the cause the real cause of the punishment? One answer can be that since, as we mentioned last week, in the name of Rabbi Meir Juzint, the purpose of leaving the land fallow during shemittah is in order to spend the time toiling in Torah, then if we do not toil in Torah during that time, we will not be fulfilling the purpose behind the laws of shemittah observance, and will therefore be worthy of punishment. However, this answer requires more elaboration, because the Torah actually spells out that the punishment comes for not resting the land, so that if the land actually did rest, even though the purpose behind it resting was not fulfilled would seem incongruous to merit such a sever punishment as a result. Perhaps, however, we can understand this punishment by understanding the link between Torah study and shemittah observance, as we began to explain in last week's message.

We pointed out last week that in order for the laws of shemittah to be observed properly, which entails declaring the land and its produce as being ownerless, canceling debts, and the like, there is a need for a sense of unity and mutual caring among the people. This approach to the shemittah comes from a recognition of the importance of the land to the nature of the Jewish people. The Maharal of Prague and others point to the sense of national unity that the land of Israel itself brings about, and, as we have mentioned often in the past, the Zohar in parshas Emor says that it is only in the Holy Land that we are one peel. Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, in the beginning of his work Orot, writes that there is an intrinsic connection between the land of Israel and the essence of the Jewish people. This sense of the importance of the land to the Jewish people should generate the kind of national unity im observance of the shemttah laws, to preserve the national life of the Jewish people on its land.

Torah study, as well, is an intrinsic part of the nature of the Jewish people. The Talmud in Nedarim, citing a verse which says that the land lays desolate because the people abandoned the Torah, explains that the people did not recite the blessing over the Torah before learning it. Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook explained that in this blessing, we than God for choosing us from among all the nations and giving us His Torah. Failure to recite this blessing before learning delivers the message one learns the Torah for his own personal reasons, but not because it constitutes the spiritual core of the Jewish soul. Thus, the proper study of Torah, with is sense of its nature as Israel's collective soul in mind, will strengthen one's commitment to the Jewish nation as a whole, and reinforce his commitment to observing the laws of shemittah, as well. The loss of this commitment to the collective, through learning Torah for one's own purposes weakens commitment to the nation as a whole, and leads to a weakening of shemttah observance, which is the ultimate cause for the punishments mentioned in the section of rebuke.