When a Hebrew-speaker wants to show the exasperation in the English phrase “what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” they translate it as “Mah Inyan Shmitta Etzel Har Sinai?” -- what does Shmitta have to do with Mt. Sinai? That is Rashi’s phrase, from the Midrash, at the beginning of the Parasha. But that’s not exactly what Rashi means. He is saying that we learn from Shmitta that all of the Mitzvot were given at Har Sinai not as headlines but with details as well. But why is Shmitta chosen as the Mitzva through which we learn this fact? Why is it emblematic of the Sinai experience?
Over the years, there have been those who say that Shmitta is an enlightened agricultural policy. Just as there is crop rotation, so there is field rotation. Each year, one of the fields grows grain, and one grows legumes and one is left fallow. This way, the fallow field comes back even stronger the next year. But this kind of rotation means just that: While one is off, another is on.
That’s not what we’re doing here in the Shmitta year. Every field is taking off the year. And that is compounded when we get to the Yovel year. Then it’s two years in a row. Crop rotation began, it is thought, with the Far East and then came into Europe during the middle ages. It was a great advance. But no one would ever come up with that on their own.
Because there is no Mitzva imaginable like Shmitta, it is a good choice to represent what happened at Har Sinai. It certainly comes from Har Sinai because it could not come from anywhere else. It is completely beyond human imagination.
One can go further. The Maharal says that there is no Mitzva more difficult than Shmitta. It strains one’s belief because it strains one’s security about the role of human endeavor in producing one’s livelihood. People are generally uncomfortable with a “trust fall” with their livelihood at stake and that’s what the Shmitta requires.
Because of this, it is a great test. Great tests are dangerous, but they can bring out things that people would never imagine in themselves. From where do we have such endowments? I think it comes from Avraham Avinu. This week is chapter four of Pirkei Avot for us. But for the many Israelis who are here, it is chapter 5. That chapter opens with lists. There are 10 generations from Adam to Noach, and 10 more generations from Noach to Avraham. There are 10 tests for Avraham Avinu. That’s how those first two Mishnayot read: the first one is “Avraham” and the second one is “Avraham Avinu.” Why the change? If we’re just talking about who was born when, it’s just Avraham the person. But if the Mishna is talking about the tests, it is Avraham “Avinu” because those tests endowed us with a legacy. R’ Chaim of Volozhon on this Mishna says that the Jews’ obsession with Eretz Yisrael comes from Avraham in Lech Lecha. When someone wakes up suddenly with the notion of going to Eretz Yisrael, an urge that their parents and their siblings lack, he says it comes from Avraham. Remarkably, he wrote this in 1810, not 1910 or 2010, and he’s talking about people suddenly waking up with the urge to go to Israel.
The sense of Eretz Yisrael is behind Shmitta. Not a sense of just going there, but of living as guardians of the Kedusha of the land. This is from Avraham Avinu. There is a Mishna that lists 10 levels of Kedusha, of holiness. That is a long ladder. R’ Soloveitchik used to say that there are multiple levels because Jews have an innate striving for Kedusha, and the levels give us the opportunity to keep climbing. It is less of a destination and more of a living ladder. I’ve mentioned that the month of Iyar is full of a sense of Eretz Yisrael. But not just in terms of conquering. It’s supposed to be about climbing the ladder.
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