Behar: Abstraction

The  first Rashi of Behar is very famous: 

בהר סיני. מָה עִנְיַן שְׁמִטָּה אֵצֶל הַר סִינַי — What has the matter of the Sabbatical year to do with Mount Sinai  

Why are we told that these laws that deal with an economy based upon land ownership were given at Sinai?  Rashi points out that this information would have been more timely if it were delivered on the plains of Moab, after the Israelites had conquered some territory and were poised to enter the Promised Land, where these laws would actually apply. The entry into the land will not take place for some time to come ( 39 years) the conquest and settlement of the land will take another 14 years.  These laws will not apply for the next 53 years. 


The information about Sinai is not temporal, it is conceptual. It comes to tell us that the practicalities of the situation must yield to the ideal. The law is not ad hoc, it precedes  the problems that it is intended to adjudicate. It is the justice, not the temporal outcome, that is addressed.

But the application of the law has real life consequences.  People descend to poverty, the fear of the Sabbatical year can tighten credit. Can the reassurance that Gd will provide  keep people from acting to avoid a self imposed famine?

These laws about land were given to landless people. Even before the 210  year Egyptian bondage, the ancestral claim to the land, based upon Divine promise and monetary purchase, had been weak. These slaves and desert nomads had no concept  of property value appreciation or employment contracts. They were provided for, first by their masters and then by Gd.  Now, decades before it will be practiced, they are commanded to respect the land, respect each other , establish an economic system in which inherited land  plays a central role. And there is no land and no assignment of acreage.

Perhaps, more significant, this Jewish people, who preserve the law,  not only in Biblical text but in Talmud and discussion, are bereft of a land for most of their history.  Having been taught that a heritable estate is the antithesis of the odious slave state, they live for more than 100 generations as alien bondsmen, their wealth never secure.

The law is independent of its application.  Its concepts permeate life regardless of the circumstances. Respect for persons, respect for the earth, respect for freedom  - the messages of Sinai- are always applicable and the discussion of  their details always important