Parashat Behar: Our Symbiotic Relationship

On Mount Sinai, the Lord spoke to Moshe, “Speak to the Israelites.  Say: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord.  For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards and harvest their crops.  But the seventh year shall be to the land a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath to the Lord.  You shall not sow your fields or prune your vineyards; you shall not harvest what grows of itself or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine; it is a year of rest for the land. 

My mother’s maternal side lived in Kraków and, like most Jews, knew very little about farming.  My great-grandfather, Kalman Bienenzucht (the German term for beekeeping) was a wine merchant who travelled from the suburb of Podgórze to Germany to sell wine to monasteries. Farming was strictly out of bounds. Incidentally, Podgórze would later be the location of the Ghetto which was established on 3^rd March 1941and from which the Jews were later deported to several concentration camps including Auschwitz. Nearly every member of his family was murdered although he survived and died of natural causes hiding in Spa, eastern Belgium in 1942.

Few Jews in Poland (unlike their counterparts in Russia) were farmers.  Reading this week’s Parasha, I wonder if they could have countenanced the notion that ‘shmitta’, a set of laws that had been (understandably) neglected for nearly two millennia, would re-enter into our vocabulary as a going concern less than a century later?

He died six decades after the Rabbis in pre-State Palestine re-introduced the concept and six decades after Jews started returning to our ancient homeland in their droves.

Shmitta was now relevant once again but it had to be interpreted in an era that was markedly different to the last time it had been enacted.  When the Jews started returning and working the land, establishing kibbutzim and moshavim (settlements), it was practically impossible to observe the laws of shmitta, granted that they would have had to cease production on the land for a year.  Hence, they cleverly reused an idea that we’ve just employed over Pesach.

In the same way that we sell our chametz to Gentiles to obviate owning it and transgressing another Torah command, they introduced the concept of ‘heter mechira’ which means a ‘sale permit’.  The Jews could sell their land to the non-Jewish inhabitants for a small amount and then employ Gentiles to work that land during the shmitta year.  The farms would be operational and the shmitta produce would be available to all.  This is the model that has been used since (as you may recall last year throughout the latest shmitta).

The laws of shmitta in this week’s Parasha underscore the symbiotic relationship between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.  Hashem tells us that when we observe the laws of shmitta, we will receive a bumper crop in the sixth year of the cycle which will provide enough food to last for three years.  He reminds us that the land is His and we are ‘merely migrants’.  As long as we keep the rules, we deserve to inhabit the land.

The Tanach (Chronicles II, 36 21) quotes Jeremiah who prophesised that the initial exile following the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash lasted for 70 years…

…in fulfilment of the word of the L-RD spoken by Jeremiah, until the land paid back its sabbaths; as long as it lay desolate it kept sabbath, till seventy years were completed. 

The Jews had neglected to observe ten cycles of shmitta and as a result, they were exiled for that precise amount of time.

Throughout the time that we were exiled from the land it regressed.  We only need to look at the help provided by Sir Moses Montefiore to assist the beleaguered Jewish community to see how difficult the situation was.  Without Jewish presence, the land withered and slid into obscurity.  Once our nation returned and reinstated our ancient laws, the agricultural miracle that is the State of Israel came into being.  For Israel to bloom, it must be inhabited by Jews.  For our nation to thrive and survive, we need to inhabit our ancient homeland.

One of the tragedies emanating from the massacres of 7th October, in addition to the murder and abduction of so many people, was the devastation inflicted on the kibbutzim and the flora and fauna therein.  Not to be beaten, Jews from both within and outside Israel came forward to provide invaluable assistance in terms of helping with the harvest, picking fruit and doing everything they could to assist in the vital agricultural work that had been impacted as there are many farms that are struggling to survive.

It could take years to fully recover from the damage that has been done but the Jewish people have a long history of clinging tenaciously to our homeland.

The laws of shmitta are inexorably linked to the idea of freedom.  Working the land for six years allows it to be ‘free’ on the seventh in the same way that we are blessed to have Shabbat as our day of ‘freedom’ from work.

It is not a coincidence that the shmitta year also enabled Jewish slaves to be free and upon the completion of the forty-nine-year cycle, in the fiftieth, Jubilee year, all land and property returned to its original owner.  The Jubilee year can only be celebrated when all twelve tribes return to the Land of Israel.

Nearly a hundred years after the death of my great-grandfather, ancient laws that he might have considered to be obsolete are very much part of our lives.

We can only hope and pray that soon the whole world will come to recognise that our symbiotic relationship with the Land of Israel was not predicated on a UN vote in November 1947.  It can be found throughout the Torah and particularly in this week’s Parasha.

May we merit the coming of Moshiach and the return of our brothers and sisters from the four corners of the world, Amen!

Shavuah Tov.