Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Parshat Behar 1

good evening we are learning parashat Bihar we are on page 697 of the art scroll hamash and parashat Bihar has 24 minutes what 17 positive and it's seven negative I'm sorry 17 negative seven positive altogether 24. and the first topic is shimita the sabbatical year chapter 25 Hashem spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai Singh when you come into the land that I give you the land shall observe a Shabbat rest for Hashem for six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your Vineyard and you may gather its crop so the Torah tells us that of allowing your land to rest for one year applies only in the land of Israel and the entire land must be worked for six years and the seventh year the entire land is allowed to rest unlike what is done elsewhere which is a good thing to do anyway to rotate crops and allow the land to lie Fallout that it can regain its strength but but by other nations they do it uh piece by piece either there are two options either they plant different plants one plant uses uh one kind of nutrient another plant uses another kind of nutrient one plant affects the land one way another plant affects the land a different way so that's called crop rotation you plant wheat on this field one year potatoes on the different part of the field and then you rotate it or another option is you divide all your Fields into a six into um seven parts and you only use six parts every year the seventh is not worked and then the next year a different seventh part does it doesn't get work and like this the farmer constantly has six sevenths of harvest available to him and um the entire land has opportunity to rest once in seven years but the Jewish idea is not a human idea and therefore it doesn't make sense to humans you have to allow the entire field to rest in the seventh year and the Torah will say that the Jewish people have the right to ask what are we going to eat in the seventh year if we do crop rotation so we have what we eat if we divide the land into seven parts and allow one seventh to rest that's fine we still have six sevenths to eat from but how does the Jewish way make sense and nevertheless Hashem tells us that's what we should do because he's not a human being and therefore he can guarantee that it's going to be okay but in the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land a Sabbath for Hashem your field you shall not sow and your Vineyard you shall not prune both fields and Vineyards have to rest at the same time however verse 5 tells us there are some um plants like trees and bushes that you don't have to plant every year they continue giving fruit and even with wheat during the Harvest some kernels and some stalks fall down and are not collected they get mixed in in a dirt and they will Sprout and they will grow the the seventh year by themselves are we allowed to harvest those and are we allowed to harvest grapes and apples that grow by themselves without us plowing and planting so the verse 5 says the aftergrowth of your Harvest you shall not reap you cannot Harvest whatever Grows by itself in the field of wheat and the grapes you had set aside for yourself you shall not pick it shall be a year of rest for the land so what's supposed to be with those wheat kernels that grow and those grapes and those apples so what the Torah is requiring us is to make our Fields ownerless have care and therefore whoever wants can gather it and therefore if we went we want we can also gather what's the difference between Gathering and harvesting the Torah forbids Harvest because Harvest is done by the owner and we're not the owners we're not allowed to um harvest the entire field by ourselves exclusive rights no we have to allow everyone to come in and take whatever they need to eat for themselves and for their families not to store or not to sell Harvest means I'm gonna harvest the entire field and I'm going to sell part of it and I'm going to store part of it that we're not allowed to do but we are allowed to go through the field and collect the the the um kernels that sprouted we can gather them and eat them we can gather grapes we can gather other fruits that grew for our own consumption but not for business um now verse six the the Shabbat produce of the land shall be yours to eat yes you are allowed to eat what grows in a sabbatical year by itself for you for your slave or for your maidservant for your laborer and for the resident who dwells with you you your family and your workers all can eat fruits and grain that you collect from the field for your own consumption and for your animal you can collect the produce for your domesticated animals and for the Beast that is in your land shall all is crop be to eat but just like you share your um fruits with other people so do you have to share it with the wild animals you cannot set traps on your field to prevent them from eating the fruit you cannot uh chew away birds cannot put fences cannot lock Gates you have to allow deer and birds and other animals come and enjoy now as we said the Nations also understand the value of allowing the land to lie fallow to let the land rest but they do it because it makes sense because it is good for the field to regain its strength so that it gives us more produce after its rest but the Jewish people do it for a different reason they do it because we have to recognize that the land does not belong to us that the land belongs to Hashem he created the universe he created the land and he allowed us to use it he gave it to us for our use however we have to remember that it's still his and we have to have gratitude and we have to acknowledge that he is the boss and therefore for one year we don't touch the land um it so happens that all the Commandments that God gives us are good for us are healthy for our bodies and for our finances and that must be so because if God created the universe and he created our bodies and he is giving us advice he's telling us eat this and don't eat that do this and don't do that of course it's because he designed the laws according to what the truth is according to what the reality is and he is giving us secret information my dear children do this and it's going to be good for you and a smart person will listen to God and the foolish person will say you know maybe I'll try it my way maybe it's going to be better than what God says and of course if we understand that God is infinite in his power and in his wisdom and his kindness for us is Beyond any limitations he loves us and wants our benefit so then we will understand that anything that he may say or command us is for our benefit and it's the best possible outcome for us the best possible way to follow so again the Jewish people follow the the same laws of letting the land lie fallow not not working the land for different reasons and therefore the way we do it is different now there is a cycle of seven years six years of work seventh year rest and now the tour introduces a greater cycle and that is called jovel the Jubilee year a 50-year cycle verse 8 you shall count for yourself seven cycles of sabbatical years seven years seven times similarly to what we are counting now we're counting the Omer just now we had the 33rd day of the Omer we're counting the days and we're counting the weeks and um we count seven weeks and the 50th day is the holiday so too in our greatest cycle of years we count seven years seven times that's 49 years and the 50th year is Jubilee is yovel the years of the of the seven cycles of sabbatical years shall be for you 49 years you shall sound a broken blast on the shofar in the seventh month on the 10th of the month on the day of atonement you shall sound the shofar throughout the land so during Jubilee during Yeovil the 50th year on Yom Kippur of that year we sound shofar usually we sound so far only on Rosh Hashanah what we do on Yom Kippur is just an announcement that the fast is over it's a custom but on the Jubilee year the 50th year Yom Kippur we are obligated to sound shofar um according to Torah Commando now we'll pay on page 699 verse 10 you shall sanctify the 50th year and Proclaim Freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants so now we know that um on Jubilee year we do so far two things number one will blow so far and number two we Proclaim freedom to all the people of the land that means that slaves Jewish slaves go free even those that stayed beyond their six-year work commitment they decided to stay until the Jubilee until the 50th year even those Jewish slaves when the 50th year comes they must go back to the families they are not allowed to continue serving their master it shall be the Jubilee year for you you shall return each man to his ancestral heritage so another thing each man even if he sold his land gets it back she goes back to his ancestral heritage land that the Jewish people deceived when they entered and they divided the land among their families is called ancestral land the land that yahushua gave to each Jewish Family that land cannot be sold it can only be leased for 49 years maximum and if you lease it in the middle of the cycle then you only have 25 years of lease when the 50th year comes the new owner has to return it to the original owner for free and you shall return each man to his family that's the previous Mitzvah that every Jewish slave has to go back to his family verse 11 it shall be a jubilee year for you this 50th year and the laws of Jubilee here as far as working the land is concerned are the same as shimita as the sabbatical year you shall not so you shall not Harvest its after growth and you shall not pick what was set aside of it for yourself for it is a jubilee year it shall be holy to you from the field you may eat its crop if you are gathering for food that is permissible in this Jubilee year you shall return each man to his ancestral heritage so there can be a situation that we have two years in a row when we cannot work the land that is 49th year which is sabbatical for the last seven year cycle and then the 50th year 49th year shmita 50th year is Yeovil for two years in a row we cannot work the land and uh next on the next page we're gonna address what are the Jewish people gonna eat during that year of shemitah or those two years Smith and Yeovil in the meantime we have some laws about the sale of the ancestral land in Israel verse 14 when you make a sale to your fellow or make a purchase from the hand of your fellow do not aggrieve one another what does it mean it refers generally that if um you sell items you cannot overcharge more than one-sixth of the market market price unless you inform the the buyer I have to let you know that the regular market price is uh much cheaper if you want you can go to different store I happen to sell it more expensive because of convenience or or whatever um reason and if he agrees he knows that you're selling it more expensive and he has option to go buy it somewhere else and he chooses to pay you more that is fine however if he thinks that that's the market value and he thinks he's paying a fair price for it that is considered um cheating that's considered hurting someone financially and in in our paragraph it specifically refers to sale of land since you cannot sell ancestral land in Israel you can only lease it therefore you as a as the owner have to inform the buyer that Yeovil is coming soon and therefore he will not be able to use the land for so long and therefore you're charging him less but let's say a a person came from America to Israel and he doesn't know this law and he goes and he buys a piece of land and they tell him oh for this land this is the price they want to take advantage of him and he's okay makes sense nice piece of land and then 10 years later the owner comes and says okay I came to take back my land and he's surprised what do you mean I bought it for so much he says yeah but don't you know in Israel we don't sell and we only lease it I listed you for 10 years and he says I didn't know why didn't you tell me so therefore the Torah says do not aggrieve one another don't hurt one another financially when you sell land in Israel you have to tell him exactly how many years you're selling it for and therefore charge him accordingly in verse 6 and verse 15 clarifies it according to the number of years after the Jubilee year shall you buy from your fellow according to number of years you have to buy that means the the buyer himself also has to be honest and not say to the owner oh it's only a few years left I'm gonna pay you very little no he has to calculate exactly how many and uh do a proportion out of 49 years and the market value for those 49 years is such let's say it's 49 gold coins so for 30 years I'm paying you only 30 gold coins according to the number of crop years shall he sell to you the more years the greater the price verse 17 repeats the the Commandment each of you shall not aggrieve his fellow and you shall fear your God I am Hashem your God and I'll say just derive from this that besides hurting another human being financially we're also not allowed to hurt him verbally verbal abuse is and negative commandment it's forbidden according to Torah and it says for I am Hashem your God whenever the Torah says I am Hashem your God it means that there is a possibility that you might trick each other because the other person doesn't know your intention and the Torah says don't forget the other human being might not know your intention but I Hashem know it don't forget I'm Hashem your God I see everything for example if you make a joke God forbid jokes are forbidden by the way according to Torah you can have a sense of humor about um situation that happened just a nice a nice irony but you cannot make fun you cannot make jokes about any human being not even about yourself so uh you might wanna hurt someone and make a cruel joke about him and then when he gets hurt and he says why did you say such a bad thing you might say oh no I didn't realize that's not what I meant I meant something else and pretend that you didn't mean it but when in fact you did mean it and Hashem says don't forget I'm Hashem I know what you meant I can see through you and therefore don't aggrieve your fellow and similarly you might charge him more and then pretend oh I didn't know oh I forgot to count um Hashem says I see your intention now Verse 18 you shall perform my decrees and observe my ordinances and perform them why what's the reward besides of course we have to because Hashem is our Master but Hashem tells us a guarantee Hashem tells us that if we don't follow his ways something will happen What will that be perform my decrease observe my ordinances and perform them then you shall dwell securely in the land if we want to achieve peace in the land of Israel there's only one promise only through Mitzvah observance and by the way that is why for the last 70 years four years already passed and we still don't have peace and it gets worse and worse every year and the answer is this verse Hashem says do you want to leave do you want to live peacefully in your land I'm asking you one thing just listen to me do what I ask you to do keep my mid sport and unfortunately majority of the citizens in the land of Israel don't follow the laws of God and as a direct consequence of that they don't have peace and therefore we cannot blame anyone not God not the Arabs not the United Nations we can we can only blame ourselves for not observing the the laws of Hashem now return to page 701 verse 19 the land will give its fruit and you should you will eat your fill and you will dwell securely upon upon it so here we learned that when the Jewish people observe Torah laws they will also have Prosperity not only peace but you will have a lot of fruit and you will eat your fill now in verse 20 Hashem says what if you will become nervous what are we gonna eat if you will say what will we eat in the seventh year behold we will not sow and not Gather in our crops so Hashem says don't worry I will take care of you how I will ordain my blessing for you in the sixth year and it will yield a crop sufficient for the three-year period surprisingly Hashem gives us a promise seven sixth year will produce abundant crop bumper crop year one normal year two normal year three four and five are all regular all of a sudden towards the end of the cycle when the land is the weakest Hashem says not only it will produce the same amount but it will produce abundant crop it will be enough for three years what does it mean for three years Schmidt is only one usually the land produces for one year now one year we're not going to work so you need two years and also you need to wait until the Harvest of the next year is going to be um harvested so it ends up being about two and a half years the total cost at three years and I'll say just say sometimes it can be even four years because 49th year and the 50th year that's two years plus the the year that you're producing it for for next year and the time that it takes two so and to wait um for the Harvest and then you will sow in the eighth year but you will still eat from the old crop until the ninth year until the arrival of its crop you will eat the old so Hashem being that he's the master of the rain and of the Earth and of the fruits he can promise and he can command the Earth to yield its produce if he can command the rain to come at the right time he can command that all the colonels should Sprout none of them should rot none of them should be eaten by rodents and the the the the stocks that are produced from those kernels that fell into the ground are healthy robust and they have a lot of kernels on them more than usual something that no politician can promise and this is one of the proofs that the Torah is true and that it is the word of God because throughout centuries and Millennia that the Jewish people lived in the land they witnessed it otherwise it would be an easy test we are observing shemitah the sabbatical year and we're starving there's no crop they would stop immediately and they would question the entire Torah but we see the Jewish people remain loyal must be the promise was fulfilled in fact we don't have any reports that say otherwise we don't have any complaints in throughout history it is true that the Jewish people often ignored this law and and did work the land and they were punished for it but they did it not because they didn't see a blessing in the past rather because either they wanted more wealth and they said you know we got produce all six years why not also get the seventh or because they wanted to rebel against God these are two possibilities so Hashem says don't worry follow my laws and I will perform a miracle for you that during the weakest year the sixth year I will give you abundant crop that will be enough for that here the next year and the following year um