7 Festivals Book: Feast of First Fruits

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From:          "Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash"
To:            yhe-parsha@vbm-torah.org
Subject:       PARSHA -33: Parashat Bechukotai

                   YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
      ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
*********************************************************


                   PARASHAT BECHUKOTAI

                 By Rav Avraham Walfish

      The two chapters of our parasha divide neatly into
two separate topics: the blessings and curses of Chapter
26 and the laws of vows and consecrations of Chapter 27.
The first of these topics would seem, upon cursory
reading, to provide a fitting conclusion to the book of
Vayikra, and indeed the concluding pasuk of the chapter
(46) could readily serve as a summary of the book: "These
are the statutes and the ordinances and teachings which
Hashem gave, between Him and the Israelites, at Mount
Sinai by the hand of Moshe." It is puzzling that the
Torah does not conclude Vayikra with this chapter, but
instead chooses to tack on a chapter dealing with a topic
which, has no clear connection to its immediate context
and appears to be a kind of "P.S." (R. Zev Whitman,
Megadim 3, p. 16), providing a rather anti-climactic
finale to the book.

     Let's put this question on hold, for the time being,
and prepare ourselves to grapple with it by examining a
different question. The Torah remarks, at the height of
the "tokhecha" (admonishment = curses, 26:34-35): "Then
shall the land repay (tirtzeh) its shabbatot, all the
days of its desolation, while you are in the land of your
enemies;   then shall the land rest and repay   its
shabbatot. During all the days of its desolation it shall
rest, all that it did not rest during your shabbatot,
when you dwelt upon it." The striking anthropomorphic
image of the land as "owing" sabbatical years which it
needs to "repay" by means of galut is as surprising in
its theological explanation of the galut as in its
personification of the land of Israel. Nothing in the
opening and sequence of the tokhecha would seem to have
prepared us for this single-minded focus on the violation
of Shemitta as the underlying rationale for the curses
and punishments suffered by Israel in this chapter.
Rather, the Torah has explained that the tokhecha results
from Israel's wholesale and thoroughgoing rejection of
all of Hashem's commandments (14-15): "But if you don't
hearken unto Me and don't do all these commandments. And
if you reject My statutes and if your soul abhor My
ordinances, so that you don't do all my commandments, but
abrogate my covenant..."

      If indeed the curses of our chapter result from
rejection of all the commandments and abrogation of the
covenant, why does the Torah, in pesukim 34-35, fasten
upon Shemitta as the focal point of the tokhecha? To
paraphrase Rashi's famous question from the beginning of
parashat Behar: "what is Shemitta doing in the context
(mah inyan Shemitta etzel) of the tokhecha?" Examination
will reveal that the Torah's emphasis on the centrality
of Shemitta in the tokhecha is not an arbitrary or
isolated phenomenon. The Torah has carefully, if subtly,
prepared us for this idea by the way in which it presents
the mitzvot of Shemitta and Yovel, in parashat Behar. Let
us   examine the concluding pesukim of the    Torah's
presentation of Shemitta and Yovel and compare them to
the blessings which open parashat Bechukotai:

Behar 25:18-24
(18) And you shall do My statutes and My ordinances you
shall observe and you shall dwell on
(19) The land shall give its fruit
(20-21) And if you shall say: What will we eat in the
seventh year? Behold we don't sow and we don't gather our
produce! - I will appoint My blessing to you in the sixth
year and it will provide produce for the three years.
(22) and you shall sow the eighth year and eat of the old
produce until its produce comes, you shall eat old.

Bechukotai 26:3-13
(3) If you shall walk in My statutes
(3) and My commands you shall observe
(5) you shall live securely in your land
(4) the land shall give its yield and the tree... shall
give its fruit
(5) you shall eat your bread to satiation
(10) and you shall eat old, long-kept and shall bring out
old from before new

      The passage in Behar establishes clearly that
Shemitta is a mitzvah unique both in its demand and in
its promise (see Study Questions 1 and 2). The demand
that   an   entire society abandon their agricultural
livelihood for an entire year - and when Shemitta and
Yovel come back to back (forty-ninth and fiftieth years),
for two successive years - presents a unique challenge to
the halakhic man of faith, and the Torah responds by
proclaiming a unique promise: Hashem will insure that
those who observe Shemitta and Yovel will not go hungry.
Observance of Shemitta carries with it an iron-clad
guarantee of divine blessing. The divine blessing of the
pre-Shemitta year is similar to the divine blessing
promised   in   Bechukotai to those who observe   the
commandments: overabundant yields of crops, which ensure
continuity between the lengthy consumption of "old"
produce and the arrival of "new" produce.

     Furthermore, the passage in Behar opens (18) with an
admonition to do and observe "statutes" and "ordinances"
(chukkim   u-mishpatim), phrased   in   generic    terms.
Regardless of whether we understand chukkim u-mishpatim
in this pasuk in a restrictive context-bound sense,
referring to Shemitta and Yovel alone, or see Shemitta
and Yovel as instances of chukkim u-mishpatim (see Study
Question 3), it seems clear that the Torah views Shemitta
and Yovel as somehow representing, or summing up, the
totality of mitzvot. Paradoxically, the Torah declares,
our secure dwelling in the land is guaranteed not by
intensive economic activity, but rather by refraining, at
Hashem's behest, from exploitation of the land.

      Why has the Torah singled out Shemitta and Yovel in
this way? I believe that the answer resides in the
Torah's conceptual summary of the laws of Shemitta and
Yovel (see Study Question 4), at the conclusion of the
passage we cited above (25:23): "and the land shall not
be sold in perpetuity, because Mine is the land, for
aliens and settlers (gerim ve-toshavim) are you with Me."
(For analysis of similar pesukim, see Study Question 5).
Two conclusions emerge from the Torah's characterization
of the Jewish people as gerim ve-toshavim on Hashem's
land:

      (a) Our right to exploit and dispose of the land is
restricted, inasmuch as we are not the full owners, but
rather tenants on land whose title is retained by Hashem.
The laws of Shemitta and Yovel express these limitations
in the fullest and most dramatic fashion (parashat
Behar).

     (b) Our very presence on the land is contingent upon
our fulfilling the conditions of our "lease", namely the
mitzvot which Hashem has commanded us. Hence the ultimate
punishment for violation of the mitzvot is exile, leaving
the land desolate (26:32 = Bechukotai). Thus Behar and
Bechukotai embody two different ramifications of the idea
that Israel are gerim vetoshavim on Hashem's land.

     If we examine the matter in greater depth, we can
arrive at a fuller understanding of the blessings and
curses, as well as the centrality of Shemitta and Yovel.
The Torah's depiction of the mitzvot connected with the
Shemitta   year presents a further, very interesting
parallel to the berakhot, as well as to the kelalot:

Behar 25:7

and for your animals and for wild beasts in your land,
and all the produce shall be for them to eat

Bechukotai 26

(6) and I shall abolish evil wild beasts from the land
(22) and I shall send upon you wild beasts of the field
and shall bereave you.

Just as the Torah taught us that, paradoxically, we must
refrain from exploitation of the land in order to secure
our hold upon it, so here the Torah teaches an equally
paradoxical lesson: in order to free our land from the
danger of wild beasts we must refrain, every seventh y
from closing our fields to domestic animals and wild
beasts.

     The Torah's perception is that man may achieve
completely harmonious relations with his environment, as
described in detail in the berakhot of Bechukotai: "and I
will give peace in the land" (26:6) refers both to the
absence of human enemies and to the banishing of evil
wild beasts. In the berakhot of Bechukotai, the land,
vegetation, wild beasts, and human society are all at
peace within the land of Israel (see Study Question 6).
The Edenesque ambience of the berakhot, in which man
lives in harmony with his environment, is reinforced by a
literary allusion: "and I will walk (vehithalakhti) among
you and I will be your God and you will be My people"
(26:12). The verb hithalekh, meaning "walking here and
there [without a specific destination], lingering here
and there in order to examine things encountered along
the way" (R. David Z. Hoffman), is normally used by the
Torah to refer to how man acts out his relationship with
Hashem (for example: Bereishit 6:9, 17:1). Only in Eden
has the Torah applied this verb to divine activity,
expressing the intimacy of Hashem's relations with man
(see Study Question 7). The complete harmony between
Israel   and   their environment, in the holy    land,
culminates in a harmonious relationship between Israel
and Hashem. Hashem can mithalekh only in a setting in
which man and his environment are at peace, just as Adam
in primeval Eden lived at peace with the land, as well as
with its flora and fauna.

     The harmony promised by Bechukotai between man, his
environment, and Hashem is bestowed by divine blessing
upon the people which have carried out the divine
precepts. Of these precepts, the mitzvot of Shemitta and
Yovel exemplify the harmony between man and environment
which is promised in the berakhot. In the Shemitta year
man allows the earth to rest: "and the land shall keep a
shabbat for Hashem" (25:2), refraining from working the
land and exploiting its produce. All men and beasts are
afforded   equal access to the free-growing Shemitta
produce (25:6-7). In the Yovel year, all land is returned
to its rightful possessor - and all possessors return to
their land and family (freeing of slaves - 25:41) -
because we recognize, just as Adam did in Eden, that we
are not truly landowners, but only custodians of land
belonging to Hashem. The Shemitta is also called "shabbat
for Hashem", because the Shemitta harmony between man,
land, and his fellow creatures is rooted in the same
premise: the land is Hashem's, and He periodically
requires us to surrender our custodial rights and express
His sovereignty by effacing the barriers which symbolize
our human control over the land (See Study Question 8).

    Shemitta and Yovel, periodically re-create within the
land of Israel an Edenesque relationship between man, his
environment, and Hashem. This periodic return to Eden
ensures the reception of an Edenesque blessing from
Hashem, who guarantees that man will constantly enjoy
harmonious relations with his environment and that He
will mithalekh among us. More than any other mitzvot,
these two mitzvot demand of man the fullest recognition
and expression of the divine sovereignty, which is the
source of all the mitzvot, as well as all the berakhot
which Hashem has promised. Transgressing these    two
mitzvot is a double failure: a failure to recognize the
true nature of his relationship with Hashem, as well as a
failure   to   understand the relationship    with   his
environment which is thereby implied. Hashem will punish
Israel for their failure to relinquish control    by
releasing the forces of the environment from human
domination. First human enemies (26:17, 25 ff.), then
crop failures (26:20), then wild beasts (26:22), and
finally the land itself (26:34) will exact payment from
Israel for failing to live in proper harmony with their
environment The Torah personifies the land: Israel must
allow it to observe a shabbat for Hashem (25:2, 4), or
else it will exact repayment by lying desolate while
Israel is scattered among the nations (26:34-35). This
personification gives powerful expression to the idea
that the Torah is trying to convey: man is not master of
his environment. As custodian of God's land, he needs to
maintain a dialectical relationship with his environment,
of control and surrender, acted out in the rhythm of six
work years and one Shemitta, seven Shemittot and one
Yovel.

     The closing pasuk of the berakhot u-kelalot clearly
indicates both their profound relationship to parashat
Behar and the role that parashiyot Behar and Bechukotai
play in the book of Vayikra as a whole (26:46): "These
are the statutes and the ordinances and the instructions
which Hashem gave between Him and the Israelites, at Mt.
Sinai by the hand of Moshe." The mention of Sinai is
puzzling, inasmuch as the book of Vayikra opens in Ohel
Mo'ed, where all the commandments of Vayikra were given.
However, parashat Behar opens with the same formula
(25:1): "Hashem spoke to Moshe on Mt. Sinai, saying..."
Clearly the parashiyot of Behar and Bechukotai form one
unit, located by the Torah on Mt. Sinai in order to
indicate that the mitzvot of Behar and the covenantal
conditions of Bechukotai form the conclusion of the
Sinaitic covenant (See Study Question 9). Here we return
to the opening remarks of this shiur: after this powerful
concluding portion of the Sinaitic covenant, why does the
Torah tack on a group of laws dealing with vows and
consecrations (Chapter 27), concluding once again with a
closing summation (27:34): "These are the mitzvot which
Hashem commanded Moshe [to convey] to the Israelites, on
Mt. Sinai."

     The repeated mention of Mt. Sinai in this pasuk
indicates that Chapter 27 is connected to Chapters 25-26.
A further connection of this chapter to Chapters 25-26 is
the repeated reference to Yovel, and indeed the Bible
scholar M.Z. Segal (Mavo Hamikra, p. 94) suggested that
Chapter 27 serves as a kind of appendix to the laws of
Yovel - redemption of objects, persons, or land which
have been consecrated, rather than sold to a person (see
critique of his view by Rav Yehudah Shaviv, in Megadim 6,
p. 14). Other scholars have suggested explanations of the
location of our chapter, within the context of Vayikra as
a whole, rather than the context of chapters 25-26. Rav
S.R. Hirsch suggests that the optional mitzvot of Chapter
27 serve as a fitting supplement to the mandatory mitzvot
of the rest of the book (see Study Question 10). In a
similar vein some contemporary scholars (Rav Shaviv, pp.
15 ff.; D. Raviv, Netuim 3, pp. 35-36) have suggested
that the theme of Chapter 27 is the ability of man to
create   new obligations, supplementing the divinely-
ordained mitzvot of Vayikra with the humanly-created
"mitzvot" listed in the chapter.

      A brief comment by Rav D.Z. Hoffman points to a way
of understanding the placement of our chapter which will
account both for its relationship to Chapters 25-26 and
for its relationship to the book of Vayikra as a whole.
Rav Hoffman (p. 269) suggests that our chapter comes as a
"supplement to the statutes of holiness, laws were given
regarding people and things which were consecrated to the
Temple..." We may note that "the statutes of holiness"

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