Dvar Torah on Behar-Bechukotai
This week's parasha Behar-Bechukotai speaks of the requirement for the agricultural Land of Israel to be left at rest every seven years (shemittah) and every fifty years (yovel), and the potential tragic consequences if the Jews do not conform to that mitzvah. This article speaks of my personal connection to that mitzvah.
Around 1905 my Grandpa's family (Rubenstein) moved from Romania to Rosh Pina, a small long-forgotten village purchased from the local Arabs in the Galil by Baron Rothschild. Rosh Pina is in the Galilee mountains in Israel's North, about 10 minutes from Tsfat and 20 minutes from Tiberias. My Grandpa was born in a house over the top of a large cave containing an ancient winepress.
Between the years 1850-1950 was the period of aliyot to Palestine. Jews left behind the persecution in Europe and the Middle East as they emigrated to the relative safety of the 'Land of Israel', Palestine. They were pioneers settling throughout the land, known as chalutzim, and they set up various forms of agriculture in order to survive and earn an income.
The family of my other grandfather, my Zaida, also arrived in Israel around 1900 and moved into a house in urban Jerusalem, in the Mea Shearim neighbourhood. My Zaida (Steinberg) reputedly ended up as a freedom fighter with the Nili espionage team.
But up in the North of Israel, setting up the agricultural foundations of the future Israel was arduous work. There was little or no welfare in the country and Jews were a sub-class to the Arabs in the Ottoman Empire. You had to work to live and the land was hard and sometimes unforgiving. There was little machinery and one can imagine the aching muscles and filthy conditions, not to mention disease and squalor that they endured.
Our parasha Behar explicitly details the requirements for owning and working the Land when you come to Israel, followed by the harsh rebuke from God in Bechukotai if these mitzvot of the land are not followed. The land will vomit you out and you will eat your children are a couple of such unforgiving terms used by God for lack of adherence.
When my grandfathers were still children in Israel, there was a new Rabbi who arrived to soon become the Rishon LeZion (the first of Zion - the Chief Rabbi of Israel), Rav Kook. Rav Kook had been known in Warsaw as an advocate of ensuring that the Land of Israel was settled in concert with mitzvot of the Torah. In particular was shemittah, adjuring farmers to stop working their land once every seven years.
It was generally regarded as preposterous to the mostly secular pioneer farmers to not work the land for an entire year. It was a death sentence. How on earth could newly immigrated settlers forego their work on the land and put their faith in God to provide for them upon arrival to their everlasting homeland?
This issue was part of Rav Kook's agenda when he arrived in Israel (Palestine at the time) and he set out to give the matter his serious attention. He was aware of a novel Torah loophole called heter mechira concocted by some halachic authorities to subvert the law of shemittah. By temporarily selling their land to a gentile (normally a local Arab), a Jew could halachically continue farming during the shemittah year. Rav Kook was not among the proponents of this idea.
However Rav Kook was reputedly a Rabbi of the people. He decided to leave the confines of Jerusalem and go on tiyulim (tours) throughout the land visiting the chalutzim. He wrote about these visits in his letters and stories are told of the wonderment of his 'visitations' to outlying communities. Rav Kook in his hareidi black garb would drink and dance and chat with the Amei Haaretz, the people of the land (normally a term used disparagingly).
Rav Kook wanted to understand their mindset and get a feel for their health, physical and spiritual well-being. As part of this relationship one of his major concerns was to attempt to kindle the pioneers' interests in Torah and mitzvot observance.
Through these liaisons it became clear to Rav Kook that many of these pioneer agriculturalists were suffering, some to breaking point. Some regrettably left the country because of the hardships, my Grandpa's family included (some relatives remain in Rosh Pina still today).
Parasha Behar begins with a common Torah phrase but with an unusual addition: And God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai saying. Why bother with the extra words at Mount Sinai? Various great Jewish commentators such as Rashi and Ramban offer their explanations. I would like to offer my own insight into this curiosity.
This first and second sentence of Behar need to be looked at in conjunction, in order to fully understand that the laws of Mount Sinai apply in different contexts. 1And God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai saying. 2When you come to the Land [of Israel]… Mount Sinai is juxtaposed with the Land. This address by God to Moses could just as well as have been directed at Rav Kook. God is telling them there is a difference between the mountain and the land.
Rav Kook, when he was living in the 'heights' of Warsaw, was thinking according to the strict black & white observance of shemittah, but out of touch with the reality of the situation of the ordinary people in the Land itself. When he finally arrived and visited them and got to know them his attitude changed.
Rav Kook, a Rabbi in touch with his community now understood that heter mechira was a necessary and valid requirement for his time. Over the next hundred years the established farmers of Israel have been able to slowly adjust to keeping shemittah and observance has grown tremendously. I think Rav Kook would be happy with the current status of shemittah as well as the charitable organisations set up to help farmers today.
Sometimes you have to come off the lofty mountain and go to the lowest part of the land. To me this is a striking metaphor that as a Rabbi, or any leader, one must not always take a high and mighty attitude. Every leader needs to personally understand all the needs of each individual in the community. Thus we can find the appropriate way that Torah has within it the mechanisms for observance at all levels.
Good Shabbos
