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Earth Day
Six years work your field, the seventh is shmitta. Six days we work and rest on the seventh. Are the two connected?
The Malbim suggests that on Shabbos we cease work. We don’t work our servants or animals either. But our fields get no rest; even on Shabbos they continuing growing. This is rectified by Shmitta, when the lands loaf about, doing as they please.
A day in human terms is the revolution of the sun. But what is a day to Earth, who sees that sun all the time?
Earth-Day is the sun’s revolution in regard to itself – when the sun goes from North to South. Each year the Sun revolves the Earth from North to South. A day in the earth’s experience is a year, a full revolution.
Seven earth-days are seven years; the seventh is Earth-Shabbos!
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You And Real Estate
A field can be redeemed until Yoval, when it reverts to its original owner. Same with a house in an un-walled city.
But in a walled city only one year is given to redeem the home, thereafter it belongs forever to the buyer. This applies to cities that are not Levite cities, those, however, can be redeemed forever because ‘they are their inheritance’. Why the difference?
A field is unlike a city home; while man’s field is completely his own, his a home is a partnership – a partner in the city and its institutions. This has its many advantages, – such as busing, a library, police and fire services – but it means that he is not exclusive owner of his home. A neighbor is within his rights to build and expand his home next-door, causing hardship, noise and disturbance. Had one wished a place all to oneself, he can build a house in the forest. Choosing to live in a city means living with others, sometimes with expense.
Perhaps this provides framework for the laws here; ownership in the city means less than owning in the fields. Accordingly, city rights are only one year of buyback. But Levi’im are different, for their cities are their only inheritance, so they they can always buy back what they have sold.
One side notation: the Torah values having an homestead, a parcel of land belonging to him forever. He has extraordinary rights on that land, enabling him to buy it back against the wishes of the buyer.
Man is wired to worry about his future parnassah. Someone with land to support him feels some security in his life. This is important in being a whole, healthy person.
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Family Matters, or Family Matters!
Israel was parceled out to the original settlers according to families. Certainly within few generations, as the original portions were divided and subdivided, whole clans were living together. And someone who sold his lot when finances pressured him to essentially left the group.
When Yoval came around each man returned to his field. Clans reunited. People became whole. (Perhaps this is an additional level to ‘and each to his family return’ i.e. He will return to his family group)
Families living together is a Torah value, a beautiful sight that Hashem loves!
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What Exactly Was Given At Sinai?
‘…just as Shmitta was said with all it’s detail at Sinai, so were all the Mitzvos given in all their detail at Sinai’ (- Rashi)
Some Mitzvos, such as writing a sefer Torah and the laws of inheritance, the laws of kashering non-kosher vessels and so on, seem to have been definitely given later on. They were said in response to certain situations that first arose years later. The Torah indicates that new laws were given in response to the situation, laws that Moshe did not know.
So was it really all given in detail at Sinai?
Perhaps Rashi refers only to those Mitzvos repeated in the Torah; were these Mitzvos done in installments, was the general Mitzvah said at first and the details later, or was it all laid out at Sinai and later merely repeated? Rashi explains that those that were said at Sinai were given in full detail. But perhaps other Mitzvos were not said at Sinai at all.
Any ideas?
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Jewish Monopoly
A. If one buys a field, it reverts back at Yoval. B. A slave goes free at shmitta, and C. it is the buyer’s obligation to provide for the family of the slave in the interim. D. We must leave the fields free for all every seventh year and D. lend money for no charge. E. We are prohibited from making large profits (ona’ah) and F. houses are only bought with the stipulation that they can be redeemed at the buying price. And so on.
These are some of the economic limitations the Torah places on amassing a monopoly. The Torah blocks against anyone gaining unusual wealth. It seems that the Torah ideal is that instead of one person making it big, everyone should be able to make ends meet.
The message seems to be; more is not better. Just as a pack-rat is simply a junker collecting stuff he will never use, so is someone collecting too much money collecting baggage he will never use. Life’s focus ought to be on collecting virtue, and collecting chessed. The Torah is keeping us focused by discouraging excessive money-making.
Another aspect is social: big money means control. Why ought one person control an entire neighborhood? And simply by virtue of his being rich? Is that wise?
A third is that money makes money. Eventually the rich get richer and the poor poorer. That is not social equity.
There are many more things involved here. Our point here is merely that the Torah is actively preventing monopoly. There are many good reasons why…
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Un-Achievement
What does Shmitta really mean? It means that we are willing to cease producing. We self-negate, cease self-actuating and creating, and relinquish being useful. We do nothing in this year, and this is submitting to His rule.
For an accomplished man, the hardest thing is to stop achieving. Tell a gadol to stop learning Torah, and it is torture. Yet that too – even the drive to learn – is personal ego. And crowning Hashem means surrendering all.
Surrender is not depressing. On the contrary, it is exceptionally liberating, freeing a person from the weight of thinking that all depends on himself.
And that is the work of the Shmitta year.