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The relevance of Torah in our lives today can only be enhanced if we allow ourselves to be taken "back to Sinai" and share in the awe and power of that moment of Revelation. Lessons for Today
The Eternal spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter into the land that I will give you, the land shall observe a Sabbath of the Eternal. 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 of the Eternal: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. (Leviticus 25:1-4)
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Pinchas Peli (z"l) explains:
Ma inyan shmita etzel har sinai? - what are the sabbatical laws doing at Mount Sinai? ask the ancient rabbis.
One possible explanation is that by the introduction at this point in the scripture of the law pertaining to the land, namely, that of the Sabbatical and Jubilee year, emphasis is being laid on the fact that the revelation at Sinai, where we received the Torah and the commandments, had one aim: the building of a model society by the people of Israel in their only real, sovereign land.
The exalted moral code of Mount Sinai was not intended to guide a rootless cosmopolitan individual, but a whole people living in its land and cultivating it. The juxtaposition, after a long interval, of the event at Sinai and the life of the land serves as a twofold reminder: firstly, that the ideals of the Torah must not remain in the lofty realm of the abstract, but should be realized on the soil of the land itself; and secondly that this land is more than a mere geopolitical or agro-economic entity - it is also capable of celebrating the Sabbath, and expected to do so.
From Pinchas H. Peli, Torah Today - A Renewed Encounter with Scripture (Washington: B'nai B'rith Books, 1987), p.147-148.
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The Chatam Sofer deals with the exact same question as did so many of the ancient and more contemporary commentators: why does the Torah mention Sinai in relation to the Sabbatical year? But, starting from the teaching of Rashi, his final answer reflects a completely different perspective. For him, this apparent non sequitur becomes a foundation of faith. He teaches:
"What does the Sabbatical year have to do with Mount Sinai? Rashi: Why does Scripture feel compelled to state specifically that this commandment of all the commandments was spoken on Mount Sinai? Were not all the commandments given at Sinai?
Why does Scripture specify that the Sabbatical year of all things was given on Sinai?
One possible answer is that this weekly Torah portion that deals with the Sabbatical year offers instruction regarding the Torah, which came from Heaven. How would it be possible for mere human beings to know for sure: "And I ordained my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years" (Leviticus 25:1). This is a matter surely beyond the natural order, and yet it is possible to trust its veracity.
From Kushner and Olitzky, Sparks beneath the Surface - A Spiritual Commentary on the Torah (New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1993), p.155.
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Rashi first asked the rhetorical question, and then all commentators since have had to weigh in with their answers: what are the sabbatical laws doing at Mount Sinai? As Rabbis Kushner and Olitzky interpose in their compendium of Chasidic commentaries, Sparks beneath the Surface - A Spiritual Commentary on the Torah, "In Hebrew, the juxtaposition of Mount Sinai with the Sabbatical year is considered a paradigm non sequitur, as, for example, in English, 'But what does that have to do with the price of tea of China?'"
But Pinchas Peli puts the question into context for us. In his introduction to his commentary, he notes, "The marvellous event at Mount Sinai is well behind us. The biblical narrative has, since then, covered a long and trying road: the tabernacle has been built and dedicated and numerous laws have been introduced in detail. Now, quite unexpectedly, as we reach the 25th chapter of Leviticus, the Torah brings us back to Mount Sinai...."
Back to Sinai. That's the point. In the narrative, the Israelites have not yet left Sinai. They spent two busy years there before they set out into the wilderness. Camped at the foot of the mountain, that great geographic out-cropping served as a daily reminder to the people that all the work they were doing, and all these new laws they were learning to incorporate into their daily practises and behaviours, came to them directly from God. This "mixed multitude" of former slaves were involved in the process of creating something new, extraordinary and revolutionary: a nation that existed in covenantal relationship with God. The imposing presence of the Sinai continuously affirmed to all encamped at its base that each of these new commandments that they received, whether they made sense or not, connected them to the Eternal One.
But for us readers of the Torah, lost in the narrative flow of the text from week to week, it is easy to forget the setting, and therefore the context. Caught up in the laws themselves and the effort to understand how they apply to us, it is easy to miss the cues that literally stood right before our people as they themselves stood at Sinai. Therefore, at a particularly poignant moment in the text, the Torah slips us a not so subtle reminder.
As Peli so clearly points out, the laws relating to the Sabbatical and Jubilee years are laws that come into effect when the Israelites enter into the Promised Land. They emphasize the connection between God, the People of Israel, and the Land of Israel, and are fulfilled in relation to one another. For those who personally stood at Sinai, even though they don't know it yet at this point in the text, entry to the land is still a long way off, and many of them will never actually make it themselves. Yet, as a people, they will enter the land, and at that time, many miles and years away from Sinai, they must remember the laws they committed themselves to at Sinai. It is easy to remember the powerful experience of the revelation of Torah when one still stands at the foot of the mountain where it happened. But, generations later, faced with the prospect of settling a land and establishing a nation, it is much harder to induce that same feeling. Yet, the text brings them, and us, back to Sinai. By invoking Sinai, the Torah reminds them (and us) that the laws given at Sinai are specifically about creating a just and moral society in the land. Distance of time and expanse only strengthen their importance, not weaken it.
Lessons for Today
The message for us today is no different then it was for the Israelites at the time they entered into the Promised Land, or even five minutes after they left Sinai. For us, thousands of years later and removed from not only Sinai, but also the Promised Land, it is harder still to remember that even the obscure laws given to those who stood at Sinai still have meaning for us today. Especially during this period of the Omer, the weeks leading up to Shavuot and the commemoration of the time of the giving of the Torah at Sinai, it helps to have reminders that we too, in spirit, stood at Sinai and accepted the Torah and all that it contains. The relevance of Torah in our lives today can only be enhanced if we allow ourselves to be taken "back to Sinai" and share in the awe and power of that moment of Revelation. We often try to over-intellectualize and rationalize the mitzvot, especially those that seem irrelevant to us today. However, the experience of those who experienced the Revelation first hand is not beyond us today. Sinai was an experience of people who were unsure and afraid, trembling in awe and uncertainty. I think that is an experience to which we can all relate. Yet Sinai was also an experience of people who were willing to make a commitment as an act of faith. That's tougher for us today. But it can be no less rewarding.
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