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Parshahs Behar This week's Torah portion Behar is about the Land of Israel and the strange connection that the Jewish People have to it. The very first directive by G-d to the Jewish People underscores this odd yet special relationship: "G-d spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land that I give to you, the land shall observe a Sabbath rest for G-d. For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard; and you may gather your crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for G-d; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune..." Now we have all heard that crop rotation is good for the land and facilitates soil replenishment. However, the Torah's prescription of a complete sabbatical for the land every seventh year seems a bit drastic. Wouldn't it be wiser to let 1/7th of the land rest each year, or store 1/7th of each year's crop to make up for the lack of agricultural activity in the seventh year? Don't you think the Jewish People will be a little concerned with what they will have to eat in the Eighth year under this plan? In fact, the Torah predicts that there might be a little grumbling by the Jewish People and pre-empts their claims by providing the following reassurance: "If you will say: What will we eat in the seventh year? – behold! We will not sow and not gather in our crops!" A pretty fundamental question! We are going to starve while we keep this symbolic commandment. And get ready for the very comforting answer... "I will direct my blessing for you in the sixth year and it will yield a crop sufficient for the three-year period. You will sow in the eighth year, but you will eat from the old crop; until the ninth year, until the arrival of its crop, you will eat the old." Don't worry; you'll get a triple crop in advance! A very absurd promise indeed if a man or group of men wrote the Torah. Only G-d could possibly deliver on such an outlandish claim. If men wrote this in the Torah, the religion would last approximately 6 years, or since Jews are indeed such long-suffering people maybe it would last 13. Beyond the fact that this type of law lends credence to the position that the Torah was indeed given to the Jewish People by G-d, it also underscores a fundamental principle of our religion; that the primary force in the universe is G-d, not the law of nature. The Sabbatical Year law unmasks the law of nature and reveals that just as the Jewish people are above the normal rules of the natural world, so too is the land of Israel. And if you have and inkling into what the Jewish People's role in the world is you can probably figure out the role of the Land of Israel. As we've highlighted on numerous occasions, the Jewish People is to be a light to the nations, bringing morality into the world. As Paul Johnson has described us, we are G-d's pilot project for civilizing humanity. The fortunes of our People throughout history have turned on how well or poorly we were fulfilling this role. If you ask what is the role of the land of Israel in this process, it could best be described as an organic litmus test for our moral impact upon the world. If we fulfill our destiny and bring G-dliness into the world through our Torah, we flourish and the land flourishes with us. If we don't we are exiled from our land and the land withers, physically reflecting our spiritual fall. And this idea is clearly presented in the continuation of the Sabbatical law: "You shall perform my decrees (Sabbatical Year for the Land) and ordinances (return of ancestral lands and slaves); then you will dwell securely on the land." If not, you will suffer exile from the land and the land will be decimated. Isn't it amazing that the land of Israel responds to the moral stature of its inhabitants? In the book of Exodus when G-d informs the Jewish People that they will be entering the land of Israel, he warns them not to imitate the immorality of their predecessors because they too will be vomited out of the land. One of the explanations given for why the spies gave a bad report about the land because they didn't want to enter a land which would offer such immediate moral scrutiny of their actions. They didn't want G-d that close, so to speak. Imagine the land of America going fallow and turning into a desert because the white man kicked the American Indians off the land? Those amber plains of grain turned into swampland. In the times of the Roman occupation of Israel around the turn of the millennium, Josephus the famous Jewish historian commented that Israel was a fertile, lush and productive land where hardly an inch wasn't under cultivation. In the late 1800's Mark Twain commentated that the landscape was as dreary and mournful as can be imagined. And the holier and closure to Jerusalem he came the more moribund it seemed. He lamented that the land sits in sackcloth and ashes waiting for the return of her people and its former glory. Maimonides tells us seven hundred years earlier; there can be no clearer sign of redemption than when the land begins to bloom. Watch the land and you'll know when the end is near. The state of the land, the dawn of the Messianic era and the building of the Third Temple are up to us. Not, as some would lead you to believe, through the strength of the Israeli army or the disengagment plan of Prime Minister Sharon. Just like G-d can promise a triple crop in advance He can figure out a way to solve our seemingly intractable internal and external problems. However, G-d waits for us to make the first move. If we don't act we limit the arena of His intervention. Therefore, resolution of these issues is up to us; it can only happen through a unified Jewish People committed to bringing a high standard of morality into the world through our Torah and making this land of ours not and American rip-off but a good old fashioned Jewish Classic. And through it all the magical land of Israel will react to our actions and the thoughts of our hearts and will ultimately herald the dawn of a new day. Good Shabbos!! |
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