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.
To subscribe to Netvort, send a message
with subject line subscribe, to Netvort@aol.com. To unsubscribe,
send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the same
address.