From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 2:43 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Behar - Bechukosai, 5764

 

                                   
                        
                          This Land is My Land, This Land is Your Land

             By Rabbi Joshua (topographically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


Parshas Behar begins with a command to observe the laws of shemittah, the sabbatical year, when we are commanded not to work our fields in Eretz Yisroel, in recognition that it belongs to God. The Torah tells us that God told these laws to Moshe at Mt. Sinai. Rashi cites the midrash which asks, why are the laws of shemittah, specifically, connected to Mt. Sinai? The midrash answers that this connection was made in order to teach us that just as the laws of shemittah were in all their details were given at Sinai, so, too, were all the laws of the Torah given, with all their details, at Sinai. We need to understand, however, why shemittah is used as the prototype for the rest of the Torah. Rabbi Moshe Sofer, known as the Chasam Sofer, explained that leaving the land fallow for a year requires a great deal of faith and trust in God, and these elements are fundamental to observance of the Torah, in general. I would like to offer an alternative explanation to the connection between shemittah and the Torah as a whole, based on an analysis of the ideological underpinnings of the laws of shemittah.

The Sefer haChinuch writes that the purpose of the mitzvoh of shemittah is to remind us that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day.  Ramban writes that just as Shabbos serves as a reminder of the creation during the other six days, so too does shemittah serve as a reminder of creation in terms of the years that the world exists. Rabbi Aharon Dovid Goldberg, in his Shiras Dovid to parshas Behar, after citing the comments of the Chinuch and the Ramban, notes that Rashi, in the beginning of his commentary to the Torah, writes that our claim to Eretz Yisroel is based on our recognition of the fact that God created the world, and can give it to whomever He wishes. It was, indeed, because the nation ceased observing the laws of shemittah that they were exiled, as we read in parshas Bechukosai. The Torah there, after describing the travails that the nation will go through in its exile, concludes, "then the land will appease its shemittah years" (Vayikra 26:34).


Actually, however, there is an additional reason for the exile, which is mentioned at the very beginning of the section which foretells it. Parshas Bechukosai begins by saying, "If you will walk in My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them, then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce, etc." (Vayikra 26:3-4). Later, we are told that if we do not follow this formula, we will be punished, and, eventually exiled from the land. Rashi writes that when the Torah says, "If you will walk in my statutes," it refers to laboring in Torah study in order to perform the mitzvos, as mentioned in the continuation of the verse. Thus, failure to engage in Torah study properly leads to a lack of observance, and, eventually, to exile. Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Lunshitz, author of the famed commentary Keli Yakar, writes, in his lesser known commentary, Sifsei Da'as, that there are a number of sources that point to neglect of Torah study as a cause of exile. Neglect of Torah study, in fact, leads to a neglect of Torah observance, as Rashi points out, so that it was really a neglect of all the mitzvos which caused exile. However, the Torah explicitly points to the neglect of shemittah as the cause of exile. How , then, can we reconcile the sources which say that neglect of shemittah causes exile, with the sources that point to a neglect of Torah in general, and consequently lack of mitzvoh observance in general, as the cause of exile? I believe that a closer look at Rashi in the beginning of parshas Bereishis can provide us with an answer.
  

Rashi's comment that our claim to Eretz Yisroel is based on our recognition of God as the Creator is taken from a midrash, in answer to a question of Rav Yitzchok. Why, he asks, does the Torah begin with the book of Bereishis, which records the creation of the world and the subsequent events in the lives of the first human beings, and, later, of the forefathers? The Torah is, after all, a book of divine instruction for the Jewish people, and should have begun with God's command of the first mitzvoh to the Jewish people as a collective. The midrash answers that the accounts in the book of Bereishis are meant to establish the validity of the Jewish people's claim to the land of Israel, in that God created the world and can give the land to whom he wishes. Thus, although He originally gave the land to the people of Canaan, He later took it from them and gave it to the nation of Israel. While the message carried in this answer is important, it is difficult to see how this idea resolves the original question. We still need to understand the connection between the accounts recorded in the book of Bereishis and the fundamental purpose of the Torah, which is to teach us the mitzvos that we must perform. I would like to present two explanations of how this answer does, in fact, explain that connection, and then demonstrate how these two explanations merge into one.

The Ramban, in his commentary to parshas Acharei Mos, writes that the mitzvos are meant to be performed mainly in the land of Israel. This applies, according to the Ramban, not only to agricultural mitzvos such as terumah and ma'aser which relate specifically to the soil of Eretz Yisroel, but even to mitzvos such as tefillin and tzitzis, which are mitzvos that relate primarily to the person. Rabbi Eliyohu Meir Bloch explained that even though, in turns of our obligation to perform these mitzvos, there is no difference between the land of Israel and the lands outside of it, in terms of the effect that the mitzvos have on those who perform them there is a difference. Since God's presence is more intense and evident in Eretz Yisroel, the effect that the mitzvos performed there have upon us is also greater. Thus, since all the mitzvos are enhanced when performed in Eretz Yisroel, it seems appropriate that before the mitzvos are commanded to the Jewish people, its claim to the land, which is the natural place for those mitzvos to be performed, be clarified.

Another explanation, found in the Keli Yakar, is that our claim to Eretz Yisroel needs to be clarified because otherwise the nations of the world would challenge the Torah itself. How, they could claim, can Moshe tell the Jews in Egypt to avoid theft and take a lamb of their own to serve as the Passover sacrifice, when He did not care that the Israelites were going to rob other nations of their land? In order to show that God's laws are based on justice, the claim of the people to the land needed to be clarified and firmly established. For this reason, the Torah begins with the book of Bereishis to demonstrate that the land of Israel does, indeed, belong to the Israelite nation.

I believe that the two answers we have presented, one based on the Ramban, and one taken from the Keli Yakar, are complementary to each other. Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, has pointed out that any unauthorized use of God's world on our part constitutes theft. God created the world, and it belongs to Him. Man is allowed to make use of that world only on the condition that he follow God's rules in doing so. If man sins, then his use of the world constitutes theft. The Torah, then, is the Jewish people's guide to the proper use of God's universe, instructing them how to avoid any misappropriation of it. Within this context, it is important to demonstrate that the Jewish people has not misappropriated the land of Israel, the optimum location for the performance of the mitzvos. That is why the Torah begins with an account of the creation of the world and the subsequent events, which eventually led to God's taking the land back from the Canaanites and giving it to the Jewish nation (for more on this topic, see Netvort to Bereishis, 5760, available at Torahheights.com).

Based on our explanation of Rashi in Bereishis, we can understand that neglect of the mitzvoh of shemittah is symptomatic of a refusal to recognize God as Creator and owner of the universe, which is the underpinning of all the commandments of the Torah. The nation's neglect of the shemittah laws was thus symptomatic of a larger neglect of the entire Torah, which led to exile. Therefore, in the beginning of parshas Behar, when the Torah presents us with the laws of shemittah, we are told that they were given on Mt. Sinai, indicating that all of the mitzvos were given there, because the concept underlying the mitzvos of shemittah are at the core of the entire Torah.

                             

Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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