Go Tell It On The Mountain

This week’s Torah reading famously declares that the Mitzva of Shmitah was given on Har Sinai. Why is it significant that the laws of leaving fields fallow once every seven years were taught while the Jewish nation was still encamped in the shadow of Har Sinai? The most famous answer (given by Rashi in the name of the Midrash) is: Shemittah’s rules and details were ordained on Mt Sinai! So, were all commandments with their rules and their details ordained on Sinai.

Okay, so Shmittah becomes the BINYAN AV (prime example) for all Mitzvot and that they all were transmitted at Sinai. Which, of course, brings us to the critical question: Why? Why is Shmittah the prime example for all Mitzvot? 

The Netivot Shalom gives an inspiring answer: It is written:

All Your Mitzvot are trustworthy (EMUNAH, reliable or ‘source of faith’, Tehillim 119:86). We understand from the verse that all Mitzvot are based upon EMUNAH…For the experience at Sinai is the source of our EMUNAH…The unique nature of Shmitah is that it is the pinnacle of EMUNAH, for in this Mitzva the Jew forgoes planting for an entire year, the basis of his family’s livelihood. He does this in spite of the fact he doesn’t know from where he will eat. This is the brightest example of faith in God…

Cool! Shmitah is our paradigm for Mitzvot because it is our prime example of EMUNAH. So, whatever we derive from Shmittah can reasonably be extended to all Mitzvot.

There are other ways to express the prime position of Shmitah in our Mitzva system. Rav Kook compares Shmitah to Shabbat. There is a weekly Shabbat for Jews and a seven year cycle of ‘Shabbat’ for the Land. Both are associated with a higher spiritual state, called NESHAMA YETERA (a more complete soul). Both are statements of our faith in God’s continual creation and sustenance of the universe. And both result in a closer relationship with God.  

The Ohr Hachayim adds that the Mitzva of Shmitah is so special because it represents the idea that gifting Eretz Yisrael to the Jewish people was conditional on the people observing the Mitzvot given at Sinai. In the TOCHACHA (section of chastisement, Vayikra 26:14-45), we’re told that the Land will demand its Sabbatical Years (v. 34 & 43). In other words, Shmitta represents both the keeping of the Mitzvot and dwelling in the Land, which are the dual bedrocks of our Covenant with God.

Plus, at the end of the TOCHACHA we return to the ‘mountain’. In chapter 26 verse 46, the text declares: These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Eternal  made between Himself and the Children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moshe. In other words, not just the laws surrounding Shmitta were referenced back to the ‘mountain’, but so, too, were all the blessings and curses in this extended narrative.

 All of this is very fascinating and informative about the Mitzvot transmitted on the ‘mountain’, but what is this concept of ‘mountain’. Why are we so focused on the ‘mountain’? Are we so focused on Sinai, a mountain that we have no idea how to locate or that we have visited in thousands of years?

Nope! We’re really focused on a different mountain: Har Tziyon. Mount Sinai served its purpose during its brief period of sublime sanctity. But there’s another mountain which witnessed the AKEIDA (abortive offering of Yitzchak, Breihsit 22:4 & 14) and the SULAM (Ya’akov’s dream of the Ladder, Breishit 28:11). In Psalms, we say: Exalt the Lord and prostrate on the Mountain of His holiness (99:9), and In Yeshayahu: And in that day, a great ram’s horn shall be sounded; and the strayed who are in the land of Assyria and the expelled who are in the land of Egypt shall come and worship the Eternal on the Holy Mount, in Yerushalayim (23:13).

Ultimately, all this talk of hilltops is about HAR HaBAYIT, the Temple Mount. Yes, for one brief shining moment, we adulated God on Mt. Sinai, but it was only a temporary stand-in for HAR HaBAYIT. We are, indeed, a religion of history, and we will soon commemorate the epiphany at Mount Sinai on Shavuot, but (and this is a very large ‘but’) our view of history is really about continuity and expectation of a glorious future, which will outshine anything in the past.

As that great Jewish entertainer, Al Jolson, used to declare: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Bearing all this history and prophecy in mind, we can’t ignore the moment when, with the Blessing of God, we regained this most sanctified, most hallowed piece of real estate, 28 Iyar 5727, which we will commemorate this Sunday night into Monday, Yom Yerushalayim.

It is the anniversary of that day when Gen. Motta Gur declared over the crackling, military radio, ‘HAR HA-BAYIT B’YADEINU!’ (‘The Temple Mount is in OUR hands’, for the first time in 1897 years). All of us who love going to the Old City and davening at the KOTEL (or ‘KOYSEL’) must take this opportunity to thank God (and, yes, the IDF) for this privilege. 

It’s on occasions like this, when so many (including many who daven at the KOTEL) ignore this miracle for the ages, that I remember the words of Rav Soloveitchik:

Woe unto the beneficiary of a miracle who does not recognize it for what it is, and whose ear is deaf to the echo of the imperative that arises out of this metahistorical event. Pity the one who benefits from the miracles of the Master of the Universe but the spark of faith is not kindled in him, and his conscience is not stirred by the sight of this singular event. When a miracle does not find its appropriate echo in actual deeds, a lofty vision dissipates and is squandered, whereupon Divine Justice indicts the ungrateful recipient of the miracle.

Happy Yom Yerushalayim!! Please, celebrate our Holy Mountain!