Parshah Summary – P’sha
The parshah opens on Mount Sinai (b’har – “on the mountain”) with the laws of the Sabbatical year: every seventh year, all work on the land should cease, and its produce becomes free for all to take, human and beast alike. Seven Sabbatical cycles are followed by a fiftieth year-- Yovel, or “Jubilee” year, on which, in addition to ceasing work on the land, all indentured servants are set free, and all ancestral estates that have been sold revert to their original owners. Additional laws governing the sale of lands, and the prohibitions against fraud and usury, are also given.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יי אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בְּהַ֥ר סִינַ֖י לֵאמֹֽר׃ דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם כִּ֤י תָבֹ֙אוּ֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י נֹתֵ֣ן לָכֶ֑ם וְשָׁבְתָ֣ה הָאָ֔רֶץ שַׁבָּ֖ת לַיי׃ שֵׁ֤שׁ שָׁנִים֙ תִּזְרַ֣ע שָׂדֶ֔ךָ וְשֵׁ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים תִּזְמֹ֣ר כַּרְמֶ֑ךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ֖ אֶת־תְּבוּאָתָֽהּ׃ וּבַשָּׁנָ֣ה הַשְּׁבִיעִ֗ת שַׁבַּ֤ת שַׁבָּתוֹן֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָאָ֔רֶץ שַׁבָּ֖ת לַיי שָֽׂדְךָ֙ לֹ֣א תִזְרָ֔ע וְכַרְמְךָ֖ לֹ֥א תִזְמֹֽר׃ Hashem spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land that I give to you, the land shall rest a sabbath of Hashem. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath for Hashem: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard… - Vayikra (Leviticus) 25:1-4; Parshat Behar
The Kotzker Rebbe (Polish Hasidic leader, 1787–1859) once surprised a group of learned men with the question: “Where is God?” They laughed at him, assuming that he must be thinking of God as a limited being that would exist in once place and not in others. “Of course, God is everywhere! As it says, מְלֹ֥א כׇל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ m’lo kol ha’aretz k’vodo – “The whole world is filled with the Divine Presence!” (Isaiah 6:3)
“No,” replied the Kotzker, “God is wherever you let God in.” The brilliance of the Kotzker’s answer is that, at first glance, he seems to be articulating a great heresy: human beings have the supreme power of “letting God in,” and without their permission, God cannot enter? The irony is that the “learned men” in the story were mystics, from the community of hasidim that was already considered heretical by the mainstream rabbinate of that time. The ordinary understanding, like today, was of God as a supreme entity who “dwells” in certain holy places, and not in other more profane places. The mystical hasidim, on the other hand, understood everything to be part of God, and they quoted a pasuk from scripture as a prooftext for their view: The whole world is filled with the Divine Presence – meaning, God is not a limited entity, but is rather the very substance of Reality, ever-present as the Ground of Being. But the Kotzker takes it a step further, and in so doing, changes the meaning of the word “God” from being ontological to being descriptive of a relationship; “God” is not something we can describe in the third person as an objective reality, but It rather comes into being in the second person as a relational reality. How do we “let God in?” How does God “come into being” by the way we relate to Realtiy? שַׁבָּ֖ת לַיהֹוָ֑ה שָֽׂדְךָ֙ לֹ֣א תִזְרָ֔ע וְכַרְמְךָ֖ לֹ֥א תִזְמֹֽר – a Sabbath for Hashem: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard… One way is by giving a Shabbat, a rest, to the land which feeds us, with the intention of recognizing God as the Giver of all sustenance. אֵ֣ת סְפִ֤יחַ קְצִֽירְךָ֙ לֹ֣א תִקְצ֔וֹר וְאֶת־עִנְּבֵ֥י נְזִירֶ֖ךָ לֹ֣א תִבְצֹ֑ר שְׁנַ֥ת שַׁבָּת֖וֹן יִהְיֶ֥ה לָאָֽרֶץ׃ The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not harvest, and the grapes you set aside for yourself you shall not pick; a year of Shabbat it shall be for the land.” In this verse, a “Sabbath for the land” means, it seems, not only to stop farming, but also to not take anything from its bounty. But then we read: וְ֠הָיְתָ֠ה שַׁבַּ֨ת הָאָ֤רֶץ לָכֶם֙ לְאׇכְלָ֔ה לְךָ֖ וּלְעַבְדְּךָ֣ וְלַאֲמָתֶ֑ךָ וְלִשְׂכִֽירְךָ֙ וּלְתוֹשָׁ֣בְךָ֔ הַגָּרִ֖ים עִמָּֽךְ׃ וְלִ֨בְהֶמְתְּךָ֔ וְלַֽחַיָּ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּאַרְצֶ֑ךָ תִּהְיֶ֥ה כׇל־תְּבוּאָתָ֖הּ לֶאֱכֹֽל׃ The Sabbath of the land shall be for you to eat; for you, and for your servant, and for your maid, and for your hired servant, and for the stranger who sojourns with you, even your animals and the even the wild animals that are in the land – all of its crops shall be for eating. It sounds like a contradiction. First it’s saying you can’t pick or harvest anything, then it’s saying not only are you allowed to eat it, but everyone else is allowed to eat it too! But let’s look at the verse more carefully: אֵ֣ת סְפִ֤יחַ קְצִֽירְךָ֙ לֹ֣א תִקְצ֔וֹר – The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not harvest… The distinction here is not whether you are allowed to eat the crops or not, but whether you are allowed to consider them as your crops alone. And this hints at the inner meaning of Shabbat in realtion to ownership .What does it mean to own something? It means viewing the world through our own mental constructs of the world, rather than simply seeing things as they are. Ownership, after all, doesn’t really exist outside of the idea of ownership that we impose on the world. And when we impose our ideas onto reality, not just the idea of ownership but all of our judgments and opinions, it requires a tremendous amount of energy and ultimately creates a sense of separation between “me” and “the world,” between what is “out there” and the “me” who is seeing it, interacting with it, and judging it. רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר אִישׁ בַּרְתּוֹתָא אוֹמֵר, תֶּן לוֹ מִשֶּׁלּוֹ, שֶׁאַתָּה וְשֶׁלְּךָ שֶׁלּוֹ. וְכֵן בְּדָוִד הוּא אוֹמֵר (דברי הימים א כט) כִּי מִמְּךָ הַכֹּל וּמִיָּדְךָ נָתַנּוּ לָךְ Rabbi Elazar of Bartotha said: give to Him of that which is His, for you and that which is yours is His; and thus it says with regards to David: “for everything comes from You, and from Your own hand have we given you” (I Chronicles 29:14). When we see the world not only as coming from God and as part of God, but we also offer ourselves in relationship with God, realizing that everything we offer is also God, then we can really rest from imposing our dualistic, self-centered ideas about ownership, as well as all other ideas .This sense of offering, together with the deep restfulness that comes from letting go of duality, are the essence of prayer and meditation, and they also comprise the inner dimension of Shabbat. As in the normative practice today, Shabbat is definitely not a resting from eating, but a resting from the separate “me” that believes it owns things. On Shabbat, everything is as it really is – part of One Reality – and our observance of Shabbat is understood to be a serving of that One, while our ability to observe Shabbat is received as a gift from that One. In this way, Shabbat is both a mutual act of love between us and the Divine, a way of “letting God in,” and also a way of transcending duality altogether – מְלֹ֥א כׇל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ – the whole world is filled with the Divine Presence. How do we accomplish this? וּלְתוֹשָׁ֣בְךָ֔ הַגָּרִ֖ים עִמָּֽךְ – and for the strangers who sojourn with you… We accomplish it through the great mitzvah of hospitality, through Shabbat as a time to welcome people into our homes and share meals together. On the deepest level, the mitzvah of hospitality is both an expression and a cultivation of our inner hospitality, of welcoming this moment as it is, right now; this is the Path of ב Bet.
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Ronald Kafker
5/24/2024 04:20:50 pm
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