{"id":70254,"date":"2020-02-16T16:11:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T14:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=70254"},"modified":"2023-09-14T08:41:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T05:41:57","slug":"rhythms-of-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rhythms-of-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhythms Of Rest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In our chapter, Jeremiah once again castigates the people’s idol worship, faithlessness and perversity, and prophesies dire consequences. A string of specific failings are cited. Interestingly enough, Rashi repeatedly reads into these verses a sin that is not explicitly invoked, flouting the commandment of <\/span>shmita<\/span><\/em>, letting the land rest during the seventh year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rashi’s textual peg for this reading is verse 4. “You will forfeit by your own act, the inheritance that I have given you.” The word for forfeit is<\/span>v’shamateta<\/span><\/em>,<\/span><\/i> the same root as shmita, which is here used in its literal sense of letting go of something. Rashi comments, “You will, of necessity, let go of your land, which you did not allow to rest in the Sabbatical year, as I commanded you.” Letting the land slip away from you, Rashi explains, is the direct result of not periodically letting go of your tight hold on the land as a source of livelihood and allowing its rest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having introduced <\/span>shmita <\/span>through this linguistic connection, Rashi runs with the theme in the following verses. He reads “Cursed is he who trusts in man” (17:5) apparently a general warning about where to place your faith, as “by ploughing and reaping and saying, I will sow and eat in the shmita year.” When the same verse decries one who “turns his heart from God,” Rashi elaborates, “because I said I would command my blessing on the land,” during the shmita year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why does Rashi insist on this underlying theme? No doubt, the connection between losing the land and non-observance of <\/span>shmita <\/span>is partly rooted in the Torah. In Leviticus 26, the prophecies of exile are juxtaposed promises that when the people are gone, the land will enjoy its Sabbaths, making up those it missed because the people ignored <\/span>shmita<\/span>. Right use of the land means letting it rest and sharing its gifts with the poor. The Torah warns that if we treat the land just as a commodity for our own enrichment, we will lose it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of the chapter Jeremiah warns that observing Shabbat is a precondition for the preservation of Jerusalem. \u201cIf you do not obey My command to hallow the sabbath day and to carry in no burdens through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will set fire to its gates\u201d (17:27) Shabbat marks the weekly rhythm of work and rest, that shmita instantiates on a septennial cycle. This may support Rashi\u2019s concept, that respecting these rhythms is a theme running throughout the chapter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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