When Sinai Meets the Soil
In English, when you want to express that a point is irrelevant to the conversation, you might say: “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” In modern Hebrew, it would be very common to say: “What is the connection between the Sabbatical and Mount Sinai?”
“What is the connection between the Sabbatical and Mount Sinai?” is the resounding question the Midrash asks about the opening statement of our Torah portion, where the Torah introduces the Sabbatical year, the commandment to let the land of Israel lie fallow and rest every seventh year. In the introduction to this commandment, the Torah states that this commandment was given at Mount Sinai:
And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying,
Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land shall rest a Sabbath to the Lord. (Leviticus 25:1-2)
At first glance, Sinai and the land of Israel seem to be polar opposites. At Sinai, the Jewish people were completely separated from civilization, sheltered from the pressure to earn a living and survive in the natural order. In the land of Israel, by contrast, the Jewish people would dedicate most of their time to farming and agriculture, exposed to the pressures to maximize profit, to the extent that the Torah must remind a Jew to stop and take a break. To refrain from taking advantage of the poor, and to ensure that ultimately, every person would return to their land in the Jubilee year. So while Sinai evokes spiritual serenity, the land of Israel represents the challenges of daily life.
So yes, indeed, the question is sound: “What is the connection between the Sabbatical and Mount Sinai?”
The answer, of course, is that precisely because they are so different, they are tied together. The entire purpose of Sinai, of spiritual connection to G-d, is not to escape physical reality, but rather to sanctify it. Not to transcend to heaven but rather to bring holiness to earth. The entire purpose of Sinai, then, is expressed by the Sabbatical year, that the earth itself is sanctified: “The land shall rest a Sabbath to the Lord”.
Adapted from the Sfas Emes