22 Iyar 5759 / May 8, 1999 Parshat Behar-Bechukosai

G-d told Moses all of the mitzvos on Mount Sinai. Why, then, does the verse specifically mention that the mitzvah of shemitah, letting the land lie fallow every seventh year, was told to Moses ‘on Mount Sinai'? Weren't the rest of the mitzvos also told to Moses on Mount Sinai?

One of the effects of the mitzva of shemitah is to plant in the hearts of the Jewish People the idea that G-d, for all His Transcendence, nevertheless supervises every last detail of this world. Each person knows when the sixth year comes, that G-d will bring enough produce to sustain them for the coming three years. Shemitah teaches us that G-d provides for our needs even though we are seemingly but a small dot in intergalactic space.

It is not ‘beneath His dignity,' as it were, to involve Himself in this lowly physical world. For ‘in the place of G-d's greatness, there is His humility.'

G-d chose as the place of His revelation, not Everest, not the highest mountain in the world, but rather the lowly Mount Sinai. It was on Mount Sinai that He chose to reveal to us His Torah. For all G-d's ineffable Majesty and Transcendence, humility and lowliness of spirit are dear to Him.

That's one connection between shemitah and Mount Sinai: Just as shemitah demonstrates that G-d is involved with this the lowliest of worlds, so He revealed the Divine Presence to us on Sinai, the lowliest of mountains.

An imaginary conversation: "Sol, let's invent a religion. In this religion we tell people that every seven years they have to stop working the fields, put down their tools, do no planting or harvesting. But we promise them that they'll miraculously get a bumper crop the previous year, the sixth year, which will keep them going for that year, the next year and the eighth year. Because, of course, seeing as nothing was grown in the seventh year, there will be nothing to harvest in the eighth year."

"Irv! Are you crazy?! How can you predict the future?! Your religion is going to fall flat on its face in the first seventh year when everyone starts starving and there's no bumper crop and nothing to eat!"

This week's Parsha starts with the words "And G-d spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai." Why, specifically, does the Torah recount that it was ‘on Mount Sinai' that G-d told Moses about the mitzvah of shemita? Weren't all the mitzvos told to Moses on Mount Sinai?

Another reason that the Torah connects Mount Sinai specifically with the mitzvah of shemita is to tell us that just as shemita demonstrates the veracity of the Torah &emdash; for it would be impossible to invent a religion with such a commandment &emdash; so too the rest of the Torah, which was given on Mount Sinai, is authentic in both its generalities and specifics.

Selections from classical Torah sources which express the special relationship between the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael Ashdod One of the five major Philistine cities, Ashdod was the site of the temple of the idol Dagan, where the Holy Ark was brought after its capture from the vanquished Israelites. In the book of Samuel I there is a description of the disgrace visited upon the idol, and the suffering of the city's inhabitants, as punishment for their treatment of the Ark. This perennial thorn in the side of Israel was the object of many prophetic curses, and was finally conquered by King Uzzia of Judea. Modern Ashdod, established in 1957, contains one of the country's major ports and is a growing city with a large immigrant population, religious communities and yeshivot, alongside some large industries.

"Don't judge a person till you've reached his place," say our Sages in Pirkei Avos. And even when you've reached his place, do you know fast he had to go to get there? Take the case of the...

These days, it is not uncommon for police cars to have video cameras mounted on their dashboards.

I recently had the opportunity to see one of these videos in which the police were in a very high speed pursuit of a car that did not pull over when they signaled for it to do so. The police chased the car for miles at speeds approaching 100 mph. The car was weaving in and out of lanes. It sideswiped several cars and trucks, but it would not stop. The police radioed for help. More speeding. More hair-raising weaving through traffic. Finally the driver of the car lost control and crashed into a guardrail.

The police car pulled up behind him. The cop jumped out with his gun drawn. Cautiously he approached the driver, yelling for him to put his hands on his head.

What crime could this person have committed to risk his life (and the lives of so many others) in such a dangerous escape attempt? Kidnapping? Murder? Bank robbery?

Well, it turned out that the driver was an elderly man with Alzheimer's disease who had no idea who or where he was, or how he'd gotten there. If not for G-d's beneficent protection, he could have easily been killed in the chase or by the policemen.