Ulpana Girls Academy - Kiryat Arba
"Hashem spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai saying:"
(Vayikra 25,1)
"On Mount Sinai"
The mention of Mount Sinai in the opening of our Parsha baffled our Sages Z"L as they asked "What does Shmita have to do with Mount Sinai?" Why? For in the beginning of Sefer Vayikra it is written "and Hashem spoke to him [to Moshe] from the Tent of Meeting saying." (Vayikra 1,1). This simply meant to them that all of the Portions of this book were told to Moshe in the 'Ohel Moed' (Tent of Meeting) in Midbar Sinai (the Sinai Desert) and not while he spent 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain itself (Rashbam, BaMidbar 1,1); and if this was so, why should there suddenly be a mention of "Mount Sinai" at the end of the book when dealing with the Mitzvot of Shmita and Yovel (the Fallow Year and the Jubilee Year)? On this puzzling issue, Chazal and others offered their solutions and we too will attempt to explain the matter in our own way.We need to realize that when B'nei Yisrael were camping in Midbar Sinai near the mountain at which they merited the great G-dly relevation it was for them a sort of perfectional experience (a type of Gan Eden). Their livelihood and all their physical needs were cared for without any inconvenience so that they could learn Torah from Moshe, their Rav, ("the man of G-d") and to enjoy the presence of the Shechina openly residing among them. Any people aiming to reach lofty spiritual heights would be satisfied remaining with such an experience without any desire to change it with any other existence.
Nevertheless, the Divine plan was to move B'nei Yisrael from Midbar Sinai to Eretz Canaan (a journey of 11 days according to Devarim 1,2) and to give them a more natural-earthy type of existence which would require them to work the land and to earn their living with the type of toil and labor which wears one out physically and degrades him spiritually. All this so that Am Yisrael could bring the nations of the world closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu; for without an earthy type of existence we could not possibly prove to the Nations of the World the advantages that people have even in a natural framework as subjects of G-d's Providence as opposed to the worshippers of idols.
And yet what is the solution for the spiritual erosion which is inherent with the settling of the land? Hashem's answer to this is the Mitzvot of Shmita and Yovel. The observance of these Mitzvot have the power to bring Am Yisrael back to its spiritual elevation which it reached on Mount Sinai.
This is the conceptual connection existing betwen Shmita and Mount Sinai and from the technical standpoint the portions dealing with Shmita and Yovel were actually given to Moshe on Mount Sinai itself in order to be written in the "Sefer HaBrit" from which Moshe read to the nation even before he ascended to the mountain for 40 days (see Mechilta, Mishpatim, Shmot, Chapter 24).
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shalom Horowitz
Rabbi Horowitz is a Rav Mechanech at the Ulpana
Girls Academy - Kiryat Arba
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