Agriculture brings upon trust?

B"H

Vaikra (Leviticus) Ch. 25:3-4 reads as follows:
שש שנים תזרע שדך ושש שנים תזמר כרמך ואספת את תבואתה
ובשנה השביעת שבת שבתון יהיה לארץ שבת להשם

Loosely translated:
Six years you shall seed your fields, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and you shall collect its harvest. And on the seventh year shall be a sabbatical of the land, a sabbatical to the L-rd.

The Torah here speaks of a seven-year cycle wherein the Jewish farmers would work the land for six years and then abstain from any cultivation on the seventh year, giving the land a good shabbos.

Rashi (on Ch. 25:1) explain that the reason the laws dealing specifically with working the land (known as "Shmita laws") are given in this Torah portion (i.e., Behar) is to teach us that just as shmitah laws were given in their entirety, all other laws were given in their entirety right there at the Mountain (=Behar) Sinai.

The obvious question is: "Why did he Torah single out specifically shmitah laws and not some other ones for Rashi to make his comment about?"

An explanation:
This cycle of six years that a person cultivates and harvests the land and rests on the seventh comes to teach simple wholesome אמונה (pron. emunah = belief & trust) in the Almighty:

There is a level of emunah that a person experiences when he/she plants the field that stems from their awareness that the Almighty created nature and instilled in it a certain behavior: if you plant a seed, give it water and protect it from the elements, it will grow and flourish and you can expect to harvest and benefit from your effort.

A much higher level of emunah is that a person experiences knowing that the Almighty expects us to
plant the field (שש שנים תזרע שדך) and do other type of effort, but ultimately it is the Almighty is the one that provides the harvest by actively being involved in the produce-growing.

These two levels of emunah both relate to working within the framework of nature: In the first level of emunah a person places his/her trust in Hashem that nature will continue to function "naturally", the way it always does because Hashem made it so. So by planting the seed, nature will take its course, with G-d's help, there will be produce. In the second level of emunah a person places their entire trust in G-d, however there must still be some activity within the framework of nature -- namely plating the seed, but in reality Hashem takes a proactive role.

Comes the seven-year cycle and teaches yet a higher form of emunah, one which does not even require a person to take action within the framework of nature. In fact, shmitah laws state that any such activity on the seventh year is strictly prohibited. (It is said that the First-Temple 70-year exile occurred partly because the Jewish farmers neglected to let the land rest every seventh year!)

This type of total and complete rest required the Jewish farmers to produce on the sixth year of the cycle enough produce to have enough food on the sixth and seventh years of the cycle, plus on the first year of the following 7-year cycle -- a total of 3 years!

So a farmer may say: "I cannot! It's unreasonable! How can it be?!?! Surely the land cannot produce enough crop to feed us for 3 whole years!" (See Ch. 25:20) To which the answer is "emunah!" Trust the the One who instituted the laws of nature and set it in motion, and indeed keeps it functioning each and every-day is also able to sustain you and your beloved for three whole years -- without any action on you own. (See Ch. 25:21) In other words, the One who created the laws of nature also created shmitah laws and they surely complement each-other, and certainly there's no conflict.

Jewish mysticism attaches a significance to the number 7. Seven days of creation. 7 year shmitah cycle, etc... The number 7 signifies the working of nature, natural progression etc. So, in a sense Torah is expecting the Jew to work within the framework of nature, by planting, pruning and harvesting the natural way and yet it expects a Jewish farmer to go beyond nature and having trust in Hashem that plentifulness will come from a level that's above nature.

We can also note that the original verse can be understood to mean that the purpose of the six years on which person works the land is indeed to arrive at the seventh year on which he/she shall exhibit total emunah.

This is a general motif in performance of all 613 mitzvot (=commandments): a person should act within the boundaries of nature (and indeed utilize nature), but at the very same time be aware that he/she is connection to- and tapping into G-dliness that goes beyong (and indeed transcends) nature. Indeed the performance of the 613 mitzvot is suppose to cultivate within us total and complete trust in G-d Almightly.

This motif, then, is the connection between the laws of shmita and their appearance specifically here at Mt. Sinai (Behar) as they exemplify our performance of mitzvot.


In a wider sense the laws of shmitah also teach more about our daily conduct:
Just as working for six years is a means to get to the seventh year of rest, so too working for six days in the office (שש שנים תזרע) is a means to get to Shabbos (ובשנה השביעת שבת).

Moreover, a soul comes down to this earth (i.e, gets born) to live and toil (שש שנים תזרע) but ultimately it prepares for itself a nice nest in heaven once a person passes on (ובשנה השביעת שבת).

And finally, for nearly six thousand years we're been toiling to repair this פארשטינקינע גלות (=unbearable exile, שש שנים תזרע) and with every additional mitzvah we do, with every act of kindness, and every coin we place in the charity box, we are getting this much closer to the ultimate redemption (ובשנה השביעת שבת) also know as יום שכולו שבת.


May we all merit ובשנה השביעת שבת this very week!