{"id":84102,"date":"2020-11-25T18:02:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=84102"},"modified":"2020-11-25T18:02:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:02:38","slug":"vayetze-the-meaning-of-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/vayetze-the-meaning-of-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"Vayetze: The Meaning of Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"84102","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":84106,"related_cahpter":"1124","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Shmita is a lesson in tempering our fear of lack by establishing systems of abundance","content":"<header><\/header>\n<section class=\"entry\"><\/section>\n<p>Shmita is the seventh year, following six regular years \u2014 and numbers in the Torah are not incidental, but rather a channel for meaningful ideas. The first, and most renowned, appearance of the number seven is obviously the seven days of creation. Later, Noah invites seven couples of the pure animals to come to the ark, exactly seven days before the flood (Genesis 7:2-4); the ark rests on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Genesis 8:4); Avraham forges an alliance with Avimelech by giving him seven female lambs and calling his well \u201cBe\u2019er Sheva\u201d (literally: \u201cwell of seven\u201d, Genesis 21:28-32); his son Yitzhak reaffirms the alliance in Be\u2019er Sheva as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will work for you seven years for Rachel\u201d says Ya\u2019akov to Lavan, his uncle, in our parsha (Genesis 29:18). He is then deceived into marrying Leah, Rachel\u2019s sister, and only gets to marry Rachel in exchange for an additional seven years of labor. Later, Rachel appears to be infertile, while her sister Leah gives birth to no less than six sons in a row, followed by a seventh\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and final \u2014 daughter (Genesis 30:21). Only then does her younger sister become fertile.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In both cases \u2014 the seventh year and the seventh child \u2014 marks the end of a cycle. It is the climax of a long and exhausting, yet fruit bearing, process, and is followed by a new cycle of production. Following the same line of thought, the Torah presents the <em>shmitah<\/em> year as the year which closes a cycle of six productive years by leaving the land fallow in the seventh.<\/p>\n<p>The same idea is reiterated in Kabbalistic thought, which divides the seven lower <em>sefirot<\/em> (a <em>sefira<\/em> is a channel of divine consciousness through which the creator expresses itself), into two groups: the first six, which are considered masculine, and the seventh one \u2014 <em>Malchut<\/em> \u2014 which is considered feminine (paralleling Leah\u2019s children). But more importantly, the seventh <em>sefira<\/em> resembles the world of <em>Asiyah<\/em>, of doing, the final purpose which all other <em>sefirot<\/em> are working towards. Shmitah, then, is the purpose of the six years that precede it, and it gives them their meaning, like Shabbat gives meaning to the six days of doing.<\/p>\n<p>The next shmitah year begins next Rosh Hashanah 2021, almost a year from now. We have time to prepare. As we move through 5781 we invite you to join us in preparation for the upcoming Shmitah year \u2013 a sabbatical year for the Earth but also for ourselves, our communities, and our world. Each week we will share thoughts on how the weekly parsha can help guide our thinking around Shmitah themes of work and rest, wealth and debt, responsible land use, fair labor practices, private and public property ownership, and physical and spiritual revitalization.<\/p>\n<p>Join us for the journey.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hazon.org\/shmita-project\/hazon-shmita-blog\/\">See here for more information on the Hazon Shmita project, and its blogs.<\/a><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":81608,"id":81608,"title":"shmita","filename":"shmita.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/shmita.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/bereishit-the-sabbatical-paradigm\/shmita\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"shmita","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":81605,"date":"2020-10-15 14:26:00","modified":"2021-02-01 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New Weekly Series: The \"Shmitah Parasha\" Blog","main_caption":"Vayetze: The Meaning of Seven","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"in conjunction with Hazon.org","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":81608,"id":81608,"title":"shmita","filename":"shmita.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/shmita.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/bereishit-the-sabbatical-paradigm\/shmita\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"shmita","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":81605,"date":"2020-10-15 14:26:00","modified":"2021-02-01 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