Parshath Bë-Har (Leviticus XXV,1-XXVI,2) 5/13/11

A.

וידבר ד' אל משה בהר סיני לאמר: דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם כי תבאו אל הארץ אשר אני נתן לכם ושבתה הארץ שבת לד': (“And Ha-Shem spoke to Moshe at Mt Sinai to say: Speak to the bënei Yisra’él and you shall say to them, 'For you will come to the land which I am giving you, and the land will rest a shabbath for Ha-Shem”). So begins our parasha.

Rashi famously asks, following the midrash Torath Kohanim: מה ענין שמיטה אצל הר סיני והלא כל המצות נאמרו מסיני אלא מה שמיטה נאמרו כללותי' ודקדוקי' מסיני אף כולן נאמרו כללותיהן ודקדוקיהן מסיני וגו' (“What has shëmitta to do with Mt Sinai? Were not all of the mitzvoth said from Sinai? Rather, just as the generalities and details of shëmitta were said from Sinai, so were the generalities and details of all of them said from Sinai....”). The point seems to be that just as all the details of shëmitta, which had no practical application until after the conquest of the Holy Land had been completed, were stated at Sinai, so, too, were all the details of those mitzvoth more immediately relevant to Israel in the desert enumerated there.

By juxtaposing shëmitta and Mt Sinai, then, the Torah appears to be establishing some equivalency or special link between the circumstances of shëmitta and the rest of Torah as a whole. Such a conclusion would appear to be bolstered a bit later in our parasha, after the discussion of the principles of shëmitta and yovél, the larger cycle of seven shëmittoth, where we read: ועשיתם את לקתי ואת משפטי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם ישבתם על הארץ לבטח: (“And you shall perform My laws [huqqothai] and My judgments [mishpatai] shall you preserve and perform them; and you will dwell upon the land in security”; ibid., 18).

Yet, the fact is that there are many mitzvoth dependent upon residence in the Holy Land or engagement in agriculture: ‘orla, tërumoth u-ma‘sëroth, leqet, shichëha, pé’a, and so on. Why did the Torah single out shëmitta?

B.

The Spinker Rebbe, Rabbi Yitzhaq Eizik Weisz זצ"ל, was also bothered by this question, and offered the suggestion: בפשטות י"ל בטעם ע"פ המדרש דאמרה התורה איש פוני לכרמו איש פונה לזיתו תורה מה תהא עלי', וא"כ כל ימי השנה היו ישראל טרודים בעבודתם ובפרנסתם ולא הי' להם פנאי לעסוק בתורה אלא בשבתות ויו"ט וע"כ נתן השי"ת מצות השמטה שיהי' פנוים מעבודת השדה כדי שיהי' להם פנאי לעסוק בתורה כל השנה (“Simply, one may say concerning the reason for shëmitta according to the midrash, one man turns to his vineyard and another to his olive grove; what will become of Torah? And if so, all the days of the year Israel would be busy with their work and livelihood, and would have no free time to engage in Torah save on shabbath or yom tov; and therefore Ha-Shem gave the mitzva of shëmitta, so that they would be free from fieldwork in order that they would have time to engage in Torah the entire year....”; חקל יצחק, פרשתנו).

This, then, is the relationship between shëmitta and the rest of the Torah implied by its juxtaposition to Mt Sinai: The bënei Yisra’él, who had just spent the greater part of 40 years in what, in modern terms, we would consider a vast kollel, miraculously supported by the man and Miriam’s well, engaged in intensive Torah study, would one day enter the Holy Land, where they would implement what they had learnt. But learning also requires frequent review, lest one forget what one has learnt, and the drudgery of earning a living as a settled, agricultural people would ordinarily leave little time for such review. Thus, the shëmitta was established to provide a venue for continuing education, every seventh year.

C.

Another aspect of this relationship can be grasped by consideration of the famous Talmudic statement: "ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר" א"ר אבדימי בר חמא בר חסא מלמד שכפה הקב"ה עליהם ההר כגיגית ואמר להם אם אתם מקבלים את התורה מוטב אם לאו שם תהא קבורתכם (“‘And hey stationed themselves beneath the mountain’; said Rabbi Avdimi bar Hama bar Hasa, '[This] teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, imposed the mountain upon them like a barrel and said to them, "If you accept the Torah, it becomes good; and if not, there is you grave!"'”; שבת פ"ח.).

Tosafoth note that this is all the more remarkable because it occurred ואע"פ שכבר הקדימו נעשה לנשמע (“even though [Israel] had already placed na‘ase [‘we shall do’] before nishma‘ [‘we shall listen’]”; שם דה"מ שפה עליהם ), that is, they had already declared their full willingness to accept the Torah and observe the Torah before learning what was in it. Rashba resolves the apparent contradiction by suggesting that the na‘ase vë-nishma‘ concerned only the written Torah, and that it was the Oral Torah which required the measure of këfiya, of coercion.

If, as the Spinker Rebbe suggests, the actual purpose of shëmitta is to provide an occasion for intensive study and review once in seven years, it stands to reason that this would involve the Oral Torah and its principles of Talmudic logic, not simply rote memorization of the Humash. If we look again at our initial passage, I believe that an allusion to this appears, in that the gimatriya or numerical value of the words ואמרת אלהם (“and you will say to them”), 723, is equivalent to תורה בפיך (“Torah by means of your mouth”), a count made possible only by the slightly anomalous spelling of אלהם without a yud.

In the second passage quoted, the huqqoth, “decreed laws,” would appear to signify the written Torah, whilst the mishpatim, “judgments,” are those which require the exercise of judgment and reason in discerning and deriving them by means of the Thirteen Principles of Talmudic Logic enshrined in the Baraitha dë-Rabbi Yishma‘él which we recite each morning.

This brings to mind something said by the Bënei Yisaschar in the name of Rabbi Zusia of Anipol (עיי' דרושי ראש השנה שם). He considers the verse כי חק לישראל הוא משפט לאלקי יעקב (“For it is a hoq to Israel, a mishpat to Ya‘aqov’s G-d”; Psalms LXXXI, 5) that even the huqqoth, the “decreed laws,” are matters of judgment to G-d, whether or not we are given to understand them, and in that spirit, whenever there is a time of danger, אזי אומר השי"ת כיון שישראל מקיימין מצות חוקיות בלא טעם כן אושיע אותם בלא טעם מדה כנגד מדה (“then says Ha-Shem, Since Israel are upholding mitzvoth [as if they are] huqqoth, without having a reason, so shall I rescue them without having a reason, measure for measure”); that is, if we recognize and accept all of the halachoth bë-geder hoq, our passage seems to suggest, then Israel will dwell securely in the Holy Land, and the apparent, impending dangers will pass us by.

D.

I have numerous times in the past cited the famous observation of the Shëlah ha-qadosh that there is an intimate connection between the parashoth and the seasons in which they are read (עיי"ש פרשת וישב). This is no less true of our parasha, which is being read during the sëfirath ha-‘omer.

The similarity of the seven times seven count of years in the shëmitta and yovél cycle to the seven “weeks” of seven days each which culminate in Shavu‘oth, the holiday which marks Mattan Torah, is obvious. Last week we discussed the intimate interrelationship between Torah and the earning of an agricultural livelihood, as typified by the second paragraph of the Shëma‘: והי' אם שמע תשמעו אל מצותי כו' ונתתי מטר ארצכם בעתו יורה ומלקוש: ואספת את דגנך ותירושך ויצהרך: (“And it will be, if hearkening you will listen to My mitzvoth.... And I shall give your land’s rain at its time, the early and the late. And you will gather your grain and your wine and your oil”; Deuteronomy XI, 13-15).

Here, too, the Torah reveals another facet of this same intimate interrelationship, that true security in the Holy Land and a bountiful harvest are entirely dependent upon the farmers’, and all of Israel’s, qëvi‘ath ‘ittim la-Torah, establishing fixed times for Torah study and review, on shabbath and yom tov, to be sure, but also to make provision to set aside the intense efforts expended in earning a livelihood, to devote some time to eternal things.

Parshath Bë-Har-Bë-Huqqothai (Leviticus XXV,1-XXVII,34) 5/7/10

A.

לא תעשו לכם אלילים ופסל ומצבה לא תקימו לכם ואבן משכית לא תתנו בארצכם להשתחות עלי' כי אני ד' אלקיכם: את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו אני ד': אם בחקותי תלכו ואת מצותי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם: (“You will not make for yourselves idols, and statue and pillar you will not erect for yourselves, and a carved stone you will not emplace in your land to prostrate yourselves upon it, for I am Ha-Shem your G-d. My shabbathoth shall you keep and My Miqdash shall you fear; I am Ha-Shem. If by My laws you go, and My mitzvoth you keep, and do them”; XXVI, 1-3).

Ḥazal tell us that the apparently repetitious admonition to keep G-d’s shabbathoth is stated here כנגד הנמכר לעובד כוכבים שלא תאמר הואיל ורבי עובד עבודת כוכבים ומחלל שבתות אף אני אעשה כן (“because of [a Jew] who is sold to an idolator, that you not say, 'Since my master worships idols and desecrates shabbathoth so, too, will I'”; תורת כהנים סוף פרשת בהר ועיי' תורה תמימה עה"פ סי' ו'). In other words, the prohibition represents a special case, indeed, the most stringent case, in terms of its possible consequences for the Jewish slave, of the prohibition familiar from two weeks ago, לא תלכו בחקות הגוי וגו' (“You will not go by the laws of the nation[s]….”; XX, 23; cf. also XVIII, 3 and Deuteronomy XII, 30).

What are the precise parameters of this matter of not following the laws of the nations? Which nations and what sort of laws are under discussion?

B.

A survey of the Rishonim reveals that halachic opinion appears to fall into three broad categories:

1) That the prohibition concerns only the practices of the seven Canaanite nations whom Israel was to disinherit and the Egyptians. This seems to find support from Leviticus XVIII, 3: כמעשה ארץ מצרים אשר ישבתם בה לא תעשו וכמעשה ארץ כנען אשר אני מביא אצכם שמה לא תעשו ובחקותיהם לא תלכו (“According to the deeds of the land of Egypt where you dwelt you shall not do, and according to the deeds of the land of Canaan whither I am bring you, you shall not do, and by their laws shall you not go”), as well as from Exodus XXIII, 23-24: כי ילך מלאכי לפניך והביאך אל האמרי והחתי והפרזי והכנעני החוי והיבוסי והכחדתיו: לא תשתחוה לאלהיהם ולא תעבדם ולא תעשה כמעשיהם וגו' (“For my angel will go before you and bring you to the Emori and the Hitti and the Përizzi and the Këna‘ani, the Hivvi and the Yëvusi, and I shall annihilate [them]. You will not prostrate yourself to their gods and you will not serve them and you will not act according to their deeds….”; עיי' למשל ספר יראים סי' שי"ג).

2) Other Rishonim appear to hold that the prohibition refers to the practices of any idolatrous nation, on the grounds that such nations have turned their backs on G-d (עיי' למשל ספר החננוך מצוה רס"ב).

3) And yet others appear to hold that the prohibition applies to the practices of all the other nations, whether idolatrous or not (עיי' שו"ת תשב"ץ ח"ג סי' צ"ד וקל"ג, שו"ת הרשב"א סי' שמ"ה, ושו"ת הריב"ש סי' קנ"ח). This also appears to be the opinion of the Rambam, who writes: הכל בענין אחד הוא מזהיר שלא ידמה להן. אלא יהי' הישראל מובדל מהן וידוע במלבושו ובשאר מעשיו כמו שהוא מובדל מהן במדעו ובדעותיו. וכן הוא אומר "ואבדיל אתכם מן העמים" (“All [these prohibited practices] warns of one purpose, that one not resemble [the Gentiles]; rather, a man of Israel should be distinguished from them and known by his dress and the rest of his deeds, as he is distinct from them in his knowledge and opinions, and so it says: ‘And I have distinguished you from the peoples’ [Leviticus XX, 26]”; הל' עבודת כוכבים פי"א ה"א). It is also the opinion of the Shulhan ‘Aruch (יו"ד סעיף קע"ח סי' א').

What sort of huqqoth, “laws”, are we referring to? Torath Kohanim (ibid.) speaks vaguely of massoroth and minhagim (“traditions” and “customs”). The Séfer ha-Yëré’im cited above holds that this refers to specific religious practices forbidden in Talmudic times, and indeed the Talmud lists such practices (עיי' שבת ס"ז: וע"ע תוספתא שם פ"ו), but most Rishonim appear to hold that these are practices current in those days, and do not represent the totality of what the prohibition covers. Indeed, העיקר שכל מה שמיוחד להם צריך הישראל להיות מובדל מהם אע"פ שאינו נזכר בדברז"ל כי רז"ל הזכירו הדברים שהיו נוהגים העכו"ם באותן הימים והוא הדין בכל מנהגי העכו"ם שנתחדשו בכל הזמנים שצריך הישראל להיות נבדל ממנהגם במלבוש במנהג הדבור וגו' (“the principle is that the man of Israel must be distinguished from everything which is unique to [the nations], even if it is not mentioned in the words of Hazal, for Hazal mentioned the things which the non-Jews were accustomed to do in those days, and this is the judgment concerning all non-Jewish customs which might be innovated at all times, that the man of Israel must be distinct from their customs in dress, in the manner of speech, etc.”; ב"ח על טור יו"ד שם דה"מ אסור ועיי"ש באריכות ).

C.

One practice which changed over time is our well-known Ashkënazi custom of holding the huppa, the actual wedding ceremony, outdoors. This custom has no apparent source in either the written or oral Torah; the earliest mention I can find is by the Rema, who writes: י"א לעשות החופה תחת השמים לסי' טוב שיהא זרעם ככוכבי השמים (“There are those who say that one should make the huppa under the sky as a good sign that their offspring should be like the stars of the heavens”; שו"ע אה"ע סעיף ס"א סי' א' בהגה"ה).

The Aharonim discuss this custom, and whether, in light of its having been instituted, it is even permissible to hold a huppa indoors in a synagogue, since it has become the prevailing custom amongst our Christian neighbors to hold their wedding ceremonies in church. As a precedent for changing the presumed earlier custom of holding the huppa in a synagogue, they cite Deuteronomy XVI, 22: לא תקים לך מצבה אשר שנא ד' אלקיך (“You will not erect for yourself a pillar which Ha-Shem your G-d hates”), on which Rashi comments: ואע"פ שהיתה אהובה לו בימי האבות עכשיו שנאה מאחר שעשאוה אלו חק לע"א (“and even though [the service with a pillar] was beloved by Him in the days of the patriarchs, now He hates it since [the Canaanites] made it a practice of idolatry”). Since this custom changed with the circumstances, other customs may so change, too.(עיי' חתם סופר ח"א סי' צ"ח, שו"ת מהר"י אסאד או"ח סי' ל"ח, שו"ת כתב סופר אבה"ע סי' מ"ז).

Since we are now approaching the holiday of Shavu‘oth, one more example with a direct bearing on the holiday will suffice. The Rema notes that amongst the customs of the holiday: ונוהגים לשטוח עשבים בשבועות בבית הכנסת ובבתים זכר לשמחת מתן תורה (“and it is customary to strew grasses in the synagogue and in the houses in memory of the joy of Mattan Torah”; שו"ע או"ח סעיף תצ"ד סי' ג' בהגה"ה), to which the Magén Avraham adds: ונוהגים להעמיד אילנות בביה"כ ובבתים ונ"ל הטעם שיזכירו שבעצרת נידונין על פירות האילן ויתפללו עליהם (“and it is customary to erect trees in the synagogue and in the houses, and it seems to me that the reason is that they remind [us] that on Shavu‘oth the fruits of trees are judged, and they should pray for them”; שם ס"ק ה').

That was the dispensation in the 16th and 17th centuries. If we fast-forward to the mid-19th century, we find that Rabbi Avraham Danzig of Vilna reports: הגר"א ביטל מנהג מלהעמיד אילנות בעצרת משום שעכשיו הוא חוק העמים להעמיד אילנות בחג שלהם וגו' (“The Gra abolished a custom to erect trees on Shavu‘oth because now it is the practice of the nations to erect trees on their holiday....”; חיי אדם כלל קל"א סי' י"ג), and the slightly later authority, Rabbi Yëhi’él Michel ha-Lévi Epstein of Novaradok concurs: נהגו להעמיד אילנות אמנם בדורות שלפנינו באלו האילמות והעשבים מטעמים שידעו הגדולים שבדור (“They were accustomed to erect trees, but in the generations before us they abolished the trees and the grasses for reasons which the leaders of that generation knew”; ערוך השלחן או"ח תצ"ד סי' ו'). The custom was changed because the surrounding, prevailing culture had changed.

D.

The consequence of this deliberate separation and distinction of Israel from nations is, of course, that each of us is exposed, “in a goldfish bowl,” as it were. Our purpose is to be the standard bearer of Torah, the sole source of morality in the world. This is the meaning of G-d’s statement that we are to be a mamlecheth kohanim vë-goy qadosh, a “kingdom of kohanim and holy nation” (Exodus XIX, 6). And so we stand out.

אם בחקותיתלכו ואת מצותי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם, Rashi tells us, is couched in a לשון בקשה, an “expression of request.” G-d asks, even begs, that we follow His mizvoth. The initial word, im, more conventionally means “if” (as it was so translated above). If we follow the mitzvoth, we are assured, the rain will fall, the crops will grow, and the holy people will dwell securely in the Holy Land. If not, our parasha warns us: והשמדתי אני את הארץ וגו' (“And I, Myself, will destroy the land....”; ibid., 32). G-d will down the very edifice which He erected in establishing ‘am Yisra’él in Eretz Yisra’él, ואבדתם בגוים ואכלה אתכם ארץ איביכם (“And you will be lost [va-avadtem] amongst the nations, and the land of your adversaries will absorb you”; ibid., 38). If Israel will not live up to the commitment made at Sinai, the normal processes of history will apply, and Israel’s fate will not be different from those of, say, the Assyrians and Babylonians.

With one difference: ואף גם בזאת בהיותם בארץ איביהם לא מאסתים ולא געלתים לכלותם להפר בריתי אתם כי אני ד' אלקיהם: וזכרתי להם ברית ראשנים אשר הותאתי אתם מארץ מצרים לעיני הגוים להיות להם לאלקים אני ד': (“And even with this, whilst they are in the land of their adversaries, I shall not despise them utterly, nor loathe them so as to eliminate them, to overturn My covenant with them, for I am Ha-Shem their G-d. And I shall remember My covenant with the first ones whom I brought out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations to be their G-d; I am Ha-Shem”; ibid., 44-45).

There is always, throughout the long night of our exile, the faithful remnant of Israel, loyal to Torah, maintaining the necessary distinctions between themselves and the nations amongst whom their brethren have been “lost”; in their merit, and the merit of their fathers, they, too, will be redeemed, as the prophet sings: ובאו האובדים בארץ אשור והנדחים בארץ מצרים והשתחו לד' בהר הקדש בירושלם (“And those lost [ha-ovdim] in the land of Ashur, and those exiled in the land of Egypt, will come and bow down to Ha-Shem on the holy mount, in Jerusalem”; Isaiah XXVII, 13) soon, in our day.

Parshath B’Har/B’chuqqothai (Leviticus XXV,1-XXVII,34) 4/15/09

A.

This week’s double parasha considers the Torah’s example of “tough love,” the institution of the ‘eved ‘ivri, or “Hebrew servant.”

Should it ever happen that a member of klal Yisra’él becomes so destitute that he has no idea where his next meal is coming from, or such that he is driven to steal property for which he is unable to pay restitution when he is caught, it is possible for him to be sold into ‘avduth. The laws governing such a person are such that the master who purchases him would only do so in a spirit of redemptive rehabilitation, so that the poor fellow will be accustomed to regular work habits, will acquire a skill or trade so that he is never again reduced to such and, on his release, is provided with the tools, etc., necessary to practice that trade.

The typical period for which an ‘eved ‘ivri is sold is six years; however, under extreme circumstances in which such an ‘eved refuses to accept his freedom and insists on remaining with his master, the ‘avduth can be extended to the next yovél, when, every fiftieth year, the freeholds are returned to the original families who owned them. In such a year, the ‘eved has no choice (cf. Deuteronomy XXV, 12-18, קידושין י"ב: וי"ד).

Our passage, ends with: כי לי בני ישראל עבדים עבדי הם אשר הוצאתי אתם מארץ מצרים אני ד' אלקיכם (“For to Me are the bnei Yisra’él servants, My servants are they, whom I brought forth from the land of Egypt; I am Ha-Shem your G-d”; XXV, 55). This verse is immediately followed by: לא תעשו לכם אלילים ופסל ומצבה לא תקים לכם ואבן משכית לא תתנו בארצכם להשתחות עלי' כי אני ד' אלקיכם: את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו אני ד': (“You will not make for yourselves idols and statue[s], and a plaque shall you not erect for yourselves, nor shall you place a stone upon which to prostrate yourselves, for I am Ha-Shem your G-d. My sabbaths shall you observe and My sanctuary shall you fear; I am Ha-Shem”; XXVI, 1-2).

But of course the Torah has told us all of this before; the prohibition against idolatry and admonition to observe shabbath are part of the ‘asereth ha-Dibbroth (cf. Exodus XX, 2-5, 8-11).

Why must they be repeated here? And why the constant drumbeat of Ani Ha-Shem?

B.

It is evident from the above that Torah considers a servile relationship between one human being and another repugnant, infra dignitatem humanam. The Talmud puts it explicitly in explaining why it is that a recalcitrant ‘eved ‘ivri who refuses to be freed has a hole bored into his earlobe: מה נשתנה אוזן מכל איברים שבגוף? אמר הקב"ה אוזן ששמע בהר סיני כי לי בני ישראל עבדים ולא עבדים לעבדים והלך זה וקנה אדון לעצמו לפיכך נרצע (“How is the ear different from all [the other] limbs in the body? Said the Holy One, Blessed is He, An ear which heard on Mt. Sinai ‘For to Me are the bnei Yisra’él servants’, and not servants of servants, and [then] went and acquired a lord for himself; therefore [that ear] is bored”; קידושין כ"ב:).

The bnei Yisra’él were freed from such servitude forever at the Exodus from Egypt, as the Talmud tells us elsewhere, and as we dutifully recite at the séder every Passover: חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאלו הוא יצא ממצרים (“A person is obligated to see himself as if he [personally] has come out of Egypt’: פסחום קט"ו:).

Of course, even though there have been enough periods in our history when the average ben Yisra’él has, unfortunately, known all too well how it feels literally to be liberated from, e.g., Nazi or Communist slavery, this is not true for all generations and certainly not for most of us alive today. Chazal pointedly link liberty to Mattan Torah, the event to which Israel were heading fifty days out from the Exodus, and tell us: "חרות על הלחות", אל תקרא "חרות" אלא "חרות" שאין לך נן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתלמוד תורה, וכל מי שעוסק בתלמוד תורה הרי זה מתעלה שנאמר "וממתנה נחליאל ומנחליאל במות (“‘Engraved on the tablets’ [Exodus XXXII, 16], read not ‘engraved’ [charuth] but ‘freedom’ [chéruth, spelt identically], for no one is a free man save one who is engaged in Torah study, and anyone who is engaged in Torah study is exalted, as it is said, ‘from Mattana [‘Gift’, an allusion to the giving of the Torah] to G-d’s heritage [Nachli’el], and from Nachli’el to Bamoth [i.e., ‘High Places’; Numbers XXI, 9]”; אבות פ"ו ברייתא ב' וע"ע פי' ר' עובדי' מברטנורה ורוח חיים לר"ח מוואלאזשין שם).

Clearly whatever issues the ‘eved ‘ivri needs to resolve in his life, he will not have a problem with idolatry or Sabbath observance whilst in the service of his beneficent Jewish master. However, as has already been noted supra, there have been times when Israel have been in bondage to hostile and inimical foreigners. So, Rashi tells us, our admonitions are כנגד זה שנמכר לנכרי שלא יאמר, הואיל ורבי מגלה עריות אף אני כמותו, הואיל ורבי עובד ע"א אף אני כמותו, הואיל ורבי מחלל שבת אף אני כמותו לכך נאמרו מקראות הללו וגו' (“concerning one who has been sold to a foreigner, that he not say, Since my master performs sexual improprieties, I, too, am like him; since my master serves foreign gods, I, too, am like him; since my master desecrates the Sabbath, I, too, am like him; for this reason, these Scriptures were said”).

Hence, the repetition of Ani Ha-Shem: כל המשעבדן מלמטה כאלו משעבדן מלמעלה; one must always remember that G-d runs the world, and that slavery down below was decreed up above; therefore, the opportunity to resist degradation of these sorts will present themselves to faithful Israel.

C.

The Be’er Moshe discerns a deeper but still related meaning to our passage. He begins by quoting the séfer Sha‘arei Ora of Rabbi Y. Giktilia: דע כי כשהאדם שומר שבת כהלכתו נעשה כמו כסא ומרכבה להשי"ת לפיכך נקרא השבת מנוחה מלשון נח כי שמו ית' נח על האדם ושוכן עליו כמלך על כסאו וסימן "וינח ביום השביעי" (“Know that when a person observes the Sabbath according to halacha he is made like a throne and vehicle for Ha-Shem, may He be blessed; therefore the shabbath is called ‘rest’ [m’nucha] from the verb nach, for His blessed Name comes to rest [nach] upon the person and dwells upon him like a king sitting upon his throne, and the sign is ‘and He rested [va-yanach] on the seventh day”).

The Rebbe זצ"ל sees an allusion to this phenomenon in the Sabbath morning liturgy: לא-ל אשר שבת מכל המעשים ביום השביעי נתעלה וישב על על כסא כבודו תפארת עטה ליום המנוחה, ענג קרא ליום השבת, זה שיר שבח של יום השביעי שבו שבת א-ל מכל מלאכתו ויום השבת משבח ואומר, מזמור שיר ליום השבת טוב להודות לד' וגו' (“To G-d, Who rested from all the acts [of Creation] on the seventh day, arose and sat upon His throne of glory [kissé’ kvodo], vested the day of rest [yom ha-m’nucha] with beauty, [and] called the Sabbath day a delight. This is a song of praise of the seventh day, on which G-d rested from all His creative labor, and the Sabbath day [itself] gives praises and says, "A hymn of the Sabbath day – it is good to thank Ha-Shem....“), wherein we see that shabbath is called both a kissé’ and m’nucha.

וזה שאמר הכתוב "את שבתתי תשמרו ומקדשי תיראו" והסמיך שבת למקדשכי גם ביה"מ נקרא בשם כסא כדכתיב "כסא כבוד מרום מראשון מקום מקדשנו" והיינו שע"י השבת זוכים להיות כסא ומרכבה לשמו ית' כדוגמת ביה"מ שהשרה הקב"ה שכינתו (“And this is why the Scripture says, ‘You will keep My Sabbaths and My Sanctuary shall you fear’, and juxtaposed shabbath to the miqdash, for the Béyth ha-Miqdash, too, is called kissé’, as it is written, ‘A throne of glory [kissé’ kavod] on high from the beginning [is] the place of our Sanctuary’ [Jeremiah XVII, 12], that is, by means of the Sabbath one merits to be a throne and vehicle for His blessed Name according to the example of the Béyth ha-Miqdash which the Holy One, Blessed is He has infused with His Presence”).

Thus, even ba-zman ha-zeh, in our time, every Jewish home is potentially a Divine Sanctuary, every Sabbath or holiday table (for yom tov is also called shabbath; cf. XXIII, 11, גור ארי' שם) a sacrificial altar if we but will it, and observe the sabbath and holidays in that spirit. Though the nations enslave us down below, they can’t take that away from us. As Rashi notes, G-d has said שטרי קודם, “My deed of ownership has precedence.”

D.

A bit later on in our double parasha, we read ונתתי משכני בתוככם ולא תגעל נפשי (“And I shall place My dwelling amongst you, and My soul will not loathe you;” XXVI,11). This, too, applies to our generation, as the Ha‘améq Davar writes: אע"ג שבכל עת היותר טובה יש בקרב ישראל אנשים פרטים שמעשיהם מתועבים, מכ"מ בזכות כל ישראל השכינה בקרבם וגו' (“Even though at the best of times there are in the midst of Israel individual people whose deeds are unworthy; nonetheless, in the merit of all [the rest of] Israel, the Divine Presence is amongst them....”).

Even in our present debased state, those who study and observe the Torah (in general) and the Sabbath (in particular) serve to exalt all of Israel, and make it possible, when he is ready, even for “one whose deeds are unworthy” to aspire to become a throne and a vehicle for His blessed Name.

Parshath B’Har (Leviticus XXV,2-XXVI,2) 5/16/08

A.

דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אליהם כי תבאו אל הארץ אשר אני נתן לכם ושבתה הארץ שבת לד': (“Speak to the bnei Yisra’él and you shall say to them, "For you will come to the land which I am giving you, and the land will rest, a shabbath la-Shem;” XXV, 2).

At first blush our verse seems repetitive and unnecessary, especially in light of the next two verses, in which we discover that we are to sow and reap crops for six years, and tend our vineyards for six years, ובשנה השביעית שבת שבתון יהי' לארץ שדך לא תזרע וכרמך לא תזמר (“And in the seventh year the land will have a sabbath of resting, your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not tend”). Under the circumstances, how does our verse add to the content?

A second issue is opened a bit later in our parasha, where we find: ועשיתם את חקתי וגו' (“And you shall carry out My laws....” v. 18), on which Ramban comments: יזהיר בחוקים מפני השמטה והיובל הנזכרים וגו' (“[G-d] warns us about [His] laws because of the shmitta and yovél mentioned [beforehand]....”). In other words, shmitta and yovél are the chuqqim, the laws, concerning which He is here admonishing us.

This becomes very interesting in light of what Chazal tell us concerning the first verse in next week’s parasha: "אם בחקותי תלכו", בנוהג שבעולם מלך ב"ו גוזר גזירה, אם רצה לקיימה הרי הוא מקיימה ואם לאו סוף שמקיימה על ידי אחרים. אבל הקב"ה אינו כן, אלא גוזר גזירה הוא מקיימה תחלה וגו' (“’If you will go according to My laws;’ In the world’s practice, if a flesh-and-blood king issues a decree, if he wishes, he keeps it, and if not, it is kept by others. Not so the Holy One, Blessed is He; rather, the One who issues the decree keeps it first....” ויק"ר פל"ה סי' ג', ועיי"ש במתנות כהונה).

Torah sources abound with examples of G-d observing His own mitzvoth: For example, He lays t’fillin (ברכות ו.); He observes the sabbath (ב"ר פי"א סי' ה'); He comforts mourners (סוטה י"ד.); He visits the sick (ב"מ פ"ו.), and so on. If shmitta and yovél are amongst the mitzvoth which G-d Himself observes, it is worthwhile trying to discern the form that observance takes.

B.

The sfarim ha-qdoshim (עיי' למשל ספר נחלת בנינין מצוה פ"ה סי' ב', פרדס יוסף פרשתנו סי' י"ד, ודברי יהונתן לר' יהונתן אייבעשיץ, ריש פר' ויצא) assert that the year of Creation was a yovél, such that the heavens and the earth were created in Elul of the yovél, and man’s advent occurred on Rosh ha-Shana of the following year. Therein, they tell us, lies the root of the mitzva of yovél: The earth, when it came into existence, was ownerless (since man had not yet made his appearance); in commemoration of that fact, then, the Patriarchs counted the yovél, and every fifty years the land returned to its pristine, ownerless state.

The Talmud records a dispute concerning the counting of the yovél: ורבנן שנת חמשים אתה מונה ואי אתה מונה שנת חמשים ואחת לאפוקי מדרבי יהודה, דאמר שנת חמשים עולה לכאן ולכאן, קא משמע לן דלא (“And the Rabbis [hold], You count the fiftieth year and do not count the fifty-first year, to detract from the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda, who said, "The fiftieth year counts for both [the yovél and the first year of the next cycle]," so it comes to tell us that it does not;” ראש השנה ט.).

In other words, for the Rabbanan, the yovél cycle constitutes a full fifty years and the next cycle begins with the fifty-first year, while for Rabbi Yehuda, the fiftieth year is both the yovél and the first year of the next cycle; in effect, for Rabbi Yehuda, each yovél cycle consists of forty-nine years (עיי' רש"י שם).

Elsewhere, the Talmud establishes concerning everything said by the Tanna’im, that אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים (“Both [sides of a dispute] are the living words of G-d”; גיטין ו: וערובין י"ג: וע"ע חידושי הריטב"א שם). In other words, G-d somehow reconciles both opinions. In this case, I think, this means that we must look for the very first yovél which would be able to coincide with both opinions, the year 2450, either forty-ninth yovél according to the Rabbanan, or the fiftieth according to Rabbi Yehuda to discern Divine observance.

Now, elsewhere the Talmud tells us that the Exodus occurred in the year 2448 after Creation (ע"ז ט.), and that the sin of the m’ragglim, the “spies” (cf. Numbers XIII) occurred on the night of 9 Av of the second year of the Exodus, i.e. 2449 (תענית כ"ט.). Had the m’ragglim not committed their fateful error, therefore, and brought about the panic in Israel which extended their sojourn in the desert, they presumably would have begun to cross into the Holy Land to take it over on the morning of 9 Av 2449.

Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, commenting on Numbers XIII, 2, tells us that the m’ragglim entered the Holy Land from the southeastern corner. This tells us both the position of Israel at the time, and that Israel would have had to proceed diagonally across the face of the country in order to reach its northwestern corner.

Rashi (ibid., v. 25) tells us that the area of the Holy Land is 400 x 400 parsa, and that to cross it from east to west on foot is an effort of 40 days, 10 parsa being the distance a normal man can travel on foot in a day. The Talmud tells us (סוכה ח.) that the diagonal of a square one ama on a side is approximately 1 and 2/5 ama. Therefore, to cross from corner to corner of Eretz Yisra’él would take 2/5 longer than the forty days necessary to cross from east to west, or 56 days.
However, as Tosafoth point out (שם ד"ה כמה), this figure is only approximate, and the true value is slightly larger, closer to 56 and 1/2 days. Then, too, we must note that the tribe destined to take possession of the northwestern corner of the country was Dan (cf. Deuteronomy XXXIII, 22, Rashi ad loc.) and Dan was Israel’s rearguard in the desert (Numbers X, 25). Therefore, Dan had to traverse the entire area occupied by the rest of Israel in order to complete the occupation of their part of the country. The Talmud tells us that the camp of Israel occupied an area of 3x3 parsa (עירובין נ"ה:), so add another half-day (roughly) for the very last member of Dan to arrive on site, bringing us to 57 days.

Next, from Joshua I, 11, we can discern that to prepare to move out, Israel required three more days. Therefore, the total number of days in our calculation rises to 60.

Now consider: Had they received the order to move on 9 Av, there would have been 22 more days in Av (שאב תמיד מלא, עיי' רמב"ם הל' קידוש החודש פ"ח הל' ד'-ה'), another 29 days in the month of Elul, and nine more days in Tishrei until Yom Kippur 2450, when the yovél would have been decreed. This, then, is what the verse with which we started is coming to tell us: That the Divine intent was for Israel to arrive in the Holy Land during the Great Yovél, the first year that would have been a yovél according to everybody, and take possession of the land quickly and painlessly, since the Canaanites’ “ownership” would have been negated. The next verses, then, refer to the interval until the next shmitta year following that initial yovél.

But, as we know, it did not happen that way. The m’ragglim faltered, Israel panicked, and they spent 40 years in the desert.

So what did happen?

C.

The Talmud tells us: ת"ר לפי שראה אדם הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך אמר אוי לי שמא בשביל שסרחתי עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו ובוהו כו' כיון שראה תקופת טבת וראה יום שמאריל והולך, אמר מנהגו של עולם הוא וגו' (“The Rabbis taught: When adam ha-rishon saw the days growing shorter [immediately after his creation, in the autumn]. he said: 'Woe is me, perhaps because I sinned the world is growing dark because of me and returning to chaos.' When he saw [the winter solstice] and the days began to grow longer, he said, 'It is the way of the world....'” ע"ז ח.), whence we learn that, because at first he did not understand what was going on, the first man did not begin his count of the years until the first Rosh ha-Shana after his creation, i.e., the beginning of his second year (עיי' רמב"ם הל' קידוש החודש פ"ו ה"ח, פירוש שם).

In other words, the first man did not begin to count to the first yovél until the second year of Creation; thus, the first yovél according to the human accounting occurred in year 51. It is from this point, then, that the dispute between the Rabbanan and Rabbi Yehuda takes effect, the Rabbanan counting fifty years to the next yovél (101), and Rabbi Yehuda counting forty-nine (100).

Now, 1656 years after the Creation, another cataclysmic, transcendent event occurred: the Mabbul. Chazal are at pains to tell us that the laws of nature were suspended during that event, and so the year of the Mabbul was also not included in the count by subsequent generations (ירושלמי פסחים פ"א ה"א, ב"ר פכ"ה סי' ב', ילקוט שמעוני נ"ז, וע"ע ביאור הגר"א לחושן משפט בהשמטות לסי' ס"ז).

With this in mind, we note, then, that the first yovél to meet the criteria of both the Rabbanan and Rabbi Yehuda according to the count of mortal man is 2502, forty-nine cycles of fifty years from the first yovél for the Rabbanan, or fifty cycles of forty-nine years each for Rabbi Yehuda. This is the date Torah sources assign to the final allocation of Eretz Yisra’él amongst the tribes of Israel (Joshua XVIII, XXI, סדר עולם רבה).

D.

This affords us a rare glimpse of how Divine Providence functions behind the scenes of history.

Had the m’ragglim not presented the report that they did, and/or had Israel not received it and panicked as they did, had they instead faithfully proceeded, trusting in Ha-Shem’s promise that He was giving them the Holy Land (as He had repeatedly said), it seems, that they would have taken possession of it with the minimum amount of fuss, at the beginning of 2450, the Great Yovél according to the Divine count.

As it was, they spent forty years in the desert, until nearly all of the yotz’ei Mitzrayim, had perished in the desert. Then, in 2488, under Yehoshua bin Nun, they finally entered Eretz Yisra’él. But condemned by their failure to use primarily human resources, it took fourteen years of difficult warfare to accomplish what could have been done in minimal time on the Divine cheshbon.

This year is a shmitta year, and also the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the modern state of Israel. It is, in light of the above, a fitting occasion to reflect on the extremely difficult history which led up to the founding of that state, as well as subsequent events, in light of the Zionist pioneers’ wholsesale abandonment of their patrimony, the Torah, in contrast to what, perhaps, might have been.

By all accounts, this is also the most widely observed shmitta in the history of the state, thank G-d. In its merit, may we be zocheh to see and understand, very soon, the resolution of this Divine cheshbon, too.

Parshath B’Har (Leviticus XXV,2-XXVI,2) 5/16/08

A.

דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אליהם כי תבאו אל הארץ אשר אני נתן לכם ושבתה הארץ שבת לד': (“Speak to the bnei Yisra’él and you shall say to them, 'For you will come to the land which I am giving you, and the land will rest, a shabbath la-Shem;'” XXV, 2).

At first blush our verse seems repetitive and unnecessary, especially in light of the next two verses, in which we discover that we are to sow and reap crops for six years, and tend our vineyards for six years, ובשנה השביעית שבת שבתון יהי' לארץ שדך לא תזרע וכרמך לא תזמר (“And in the seventh year the land will have a sabbath of resting, your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not tend”). Under the circumstances, how does our verse add to the content?

A second issue is opened a bit later in our parasha, where we find: ועשיתם את חקתי וגו' (“And you shall carry out My laws....” v. 18), on which the Ramban comments: יזהיר בחוקים מפני השמטה והיובל הנזכרים וגו' (“[G-d] warns us about [His] laws because of the shmitta and yovél mentioned [beforehand]....”). In other words, shmitta and yovél are the chuqqim, the laws, concerning which He is here admonishing us.

This becomes very interesting in light of what Chazal tell us concerning the first verse in next week’s parasha: "אם בחקותי תלכו", בנוהג שבעולם מלך ב"ו גוזר גזירה, אם רצה לקיימה הרי הוא מקיימה ואם לאו סוף שמקיימה על ידי אחרים. אבל הקב"ה אינו כן, אלא גוזר גזירה הוא מקיימה תחלה וגו' (“’If you will go according to My laws’; In the world’s practice, if a flesh-and-blood king issues a decree, if he wishes, he keeps it, and if not, it is kept by others. Not so the Holy One, Blessed is He; rather, the One who issues the decree keeps it first....” ויק"ר פל"ה סי' ג', ועיי"ש במתנות כהונה).

Torah sources abound with examples of G-d observing His own mitzvoth: For example, He lays t’fillin (ברכות ו.); He observes the sabbath (ב"ר פי"א סי' ה'); He comforts mourners (סוטה י"ד.); He visits the sick (ב"מ פ"ו.), and so on. If shmitta and yovél are amongst the mitzvoth which G-d Himself observes, it is worthwhile trying to discern the form that observance takes.

B.

The sfarim ha-qdoshim (עיי' למשל ספר נחלת בנינין מצוה פ"ה סי' ב', פרדס יוסף פרשתנו סי' י"ד, ודברי יהונתן לר' יהונתן אייבעשיץ, ריש פר' ויצא) assert that the year of Creation was a yovél, such that the heavens and the earth were created in Elul of the yovél, and man’s advent occurred on Rosh ha-Shana of the following year. Therein, they tell us, lies the root of the mitzva of yovél: The earth, when it came into existence, was ownerless (since man had not yet made his appearance); in commemoration of that fact, then, the Patriarchs counted the yovél, and every fifty years the land returned to its pristine, ownerless state.

The Talmud records a dispute concerning the counting of the yovél: ורבנן שנת חמשים אתה מונה ואי אתה מונה שנת חמשים ואחת לאפוקי מדרבי יהודה, דאמר שנת חמשים עולה לכאן ולכאן, קא משמע לן דלא (“And the Rabbis [hold], You count the fiftieth year and do not count the fifty-first year, to detract from the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda, who said, 'The fiftieth year counts for both [the yovél and the first year of the next cycle], which comes to tell us that it does not;” ראש השנה ט.).

In other words, for the Rabbanan, the yovél cycle constitutes a full fifty years and the next cycle begins with the fifty-first year, whilst for Rabbi Yehuda, the fiftieth year is both the yovél and the first year of the next cycle; in effect, for Rabbi Yehuda, each yovél cycle consists of forty-nine years (עיי' רש"י שם).

Elsewhere, the Talmud establishes concerning everything said by the Tanna’im, that אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים (“Both [sides of a dispute] are the living words of G-d”; גיטין ו: וערובין י"ג: וע"ע חידושי הריטב"א שם). In other words, G-d somehow reconciles both opinions. In this case, I think, this means that we must look for the very first yovél which would be able to coincide with both opinions, the year 2450, either forty-ninth yovél according to the Rabbanan, or the fiftieth according to Rabbi Yehuda to discern Divine observance.

Now, elsewhere the Talmud tells us that the Exodus occurred in the year 2448 after Creation ("ז ט.), and that the sin of the m’ragglim, the “spies” (cf. Numbers XIII) occurred on the night of 9 Av of the second year of the Exodus, i.e. 2449 (תענית כ"ט.). Had the m’ragglim not committed their fateful error, therefore, and brought about the panic in Israel which extended their sojourn in the desert, they presumably would have begun to cross into the Holy Land to take it over on the morning of 9 Av 2449.

Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, commenting on Numbers XIII, 2, tells us that the m’ragglim entered the Holy Land from the southeastern corner. This tells us both the position of Israel at the time, and that Israel would have had to proceed diagonally across the face of the country in order to reach its northwestern corner.

Rashi (ibid., v. 25) tells us that the area of the Holy Land is 400 x 400 parsa, and that to cross it from east to west on foot is an effort of 40 days, 10 parsa being the distance a normal man can travel on foot in a day. The Talmud tells us (סוכה ח.) that the diagonal of a square one ama on a side is approximately 1 and 2/5 ama. Therefore, to cross from corner to corner of Eretz Yisra’él would take 2/5 longer than the forty days necessary to cross from east to west, or 56 days.
However, as Tosafoth point out (שם ד"ה כמה), this figure is only approximate, and the true value is slightly larger, closer to 56 and 1/2 days. Then, too, we must note that the tribe destined to take possession of the northwestern corner of the country was Dan (cf. Deuteronomy XXXIII, 22, Rashi ad loc.) and Dan was Israel’s rearguard in the desert (Numbers X, 25). Therefore, Dan had to traverse the entire area occupied by the rest of Israel in order to complete the occupation of their part of the country. The Talmud tells us that the camp of Israel occupied an area of 3x3 parsa (עירובין נ"ה:), so add another half-day (roughly) for the very last member of Dan to arrive on site, bringing us to 57 days.

Next, from Joshua I, 11, we can discern that to prepare to move out, Israel required three more days. Therefore, the total number of days in our calculation rises to 60.

Now consider: Had they received the order to move on 9 Av, there would have been 22 more days in Av (שאב תמיד מלא, עיי' רמב"ם הל' קידוש החודש פ"ח הל' ד'-ה'), another 29 days in the month of Elul, and nine more days in Tishrei until Yom Kippur 2450, when the yovél would have been decreed. This, then, is what the verse with which we started is coming to tell us: That the Divine intent was for Israel to arrive in the Holy Land during the Great Yovél, the first year that would have been a yovél according to everybody, and take possession of the land quickly and painlessly, since the Canaanites’ “ownership” would have been negated. The next verses, then, refer to the interval until the next shmitta year following that initial yovél.

But, as we know, it did not happen that way. The m’ragglim faltered, Israel panicked, and they spent 40 years in the desert.

So what did happen?

C.

The Talmud tells us: ת"ר לפי שראה אדם הראשון יום שמתמעט והולך אמר אוי לי שמא בשביל שסרחתי עולם חשוך בעדי וחוזר לתוהו ובוהו כו' כיון שראה תקופת טבת וראה יום שמאריל והולך, אמר מנהגו של עולם הוא וגו' (“The Rabbis taught: When adam ha-rishon saw the days growing shorter [immediately after his creation, in the autumn]. he said: Woe is me, perhaps because I sinned the world is growing dark because of me and returning to chaos. When he saw [the winter solstice] and the days began to grow longer, he said, It is the way of the world....” ע"ז ח.), whence we learn that, because at first he did not understand what was going on, the first man did not begin his count of the years until the first Rosh ha-Shana after his creation, i.e., the beginning of his second year (עיי' רמב"ם הל' קידוש החודש פ"ו ה"ח, פירוש שם).

In other words, the first man did not begin to count to the first yovél until the second year of Creation; thus, the first yovél according to the human accounting occurred in year 51. It is from this point, then, that the dispute between the Rabbanan and Rabbi Yehuda takes effect, the Rabbanan counting fifty years to the next yovél (101), and Rabbi Yehuda counting forty-nine (100).

Now, 1656 years after the Creation, another cataclysmic, transcendent event occurred, the Mabbul. Chazal are at pains to tell us that the laws of nature were suspended during that event, and so the year of the Mabbul was also not included in the count by subsequent generations (ירושלמי פסחים פ"א ה"א, ב"ר פכ"ה סי' ב', ילקוט שמעוני נ"ז, וע"ע ביאור הגר"א לחושן משפט בהשמטות לסי' ס"ז).

With this in mind, we note, then, that the first yovél to meet the criteria of both the Rabbanan and Rabbi Yehuda according to the count of mortal man is 2502, forty-nine cycles of fifty years from the first yovél for the Rabbanan, or fifty cycles of forty-nine years each for Rabbi Yehuda. This is the date Torah sources assign to the final allocation of Eretz Yisra’él amongst the tribes of Israel (Joshua XVIII, XXI, סדר עולם רבה).

D.

This affords us a rare glimpse of how Divine Providence functions behind the scenes of history.
Had the m’ragglim not presented the report that they did, and/or had Israel not received it and panicked as they did, had they instead faithfully proceeded, trusting in Ha-Shem’s promise that He was giving them the Holy Land (as He had repeatedly said), it seems, that they would have taken possession of it with the minimum amount of fuss, at the beginning of 2450, the Great Yovél according to the Divine count.

As it was, they spent forty years in the desert, until nearly all of the yotz’ei Mitzrayim had perished in the desert. Then, in 2488, under Yehoshua bin Nun, they finally entered Eretz Yisra’él. But condemned by their failure to use primarily human resources, it took fourteen years of difficult warfare to accomplish what could have been done in minimal time on the Divine cheshbon.

This year is a shmitta year, and also the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the modern state of Israel. It is, in light of the above, a fitting occasion to reflect on the extremely difficult history which led up to the founding of that state, as well as subsequent events, in light of the Zionist pioneers’ wholsesale abandonment of their patrimony, the Torah, in contrast to what, perhaps, might have been.

By all accounts, this is also the most widely observed shmitta in the history of the state, thank G-d. In its merit, may we be zocheh to see and understand, very soon, the resolution of this Divine cheshbon, too.