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The Secret of Seven
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Shmitta: The Secret of Seven
Since shmitta occurs every seven years, it
should come as no surprise that the inner secret of shmitta lies within
the number seven.
by Rabbi
Doniel Baron
The cycle of seven is the key to connecting back to
the ultimate reality
We are
overwhelmed by emails, text messages, faxes, flyers, coupons, telemarketer
calls, ringtones of sundry themes, and most of all, news from every medium
possible.
Newspapers,
the internet, messages and stock quotes glide in lights outside buildings, and
now, even on flatscreens in the office building elevator, broadcasting to its
captive audience.
Most
of the news doesn't affect us, a good percentage of the calls are unnecessary
and intrusive, and the ads pushy, imposing, and non-reflective of our values.
Historically
there may have been fewer daily stimuli, but they were just as overwhelming.
Things
we take for granted today such as plumbing, electricity, easy shelter
solutions, prepared food, and of course disposable goods, involved arduous
tasks.
Daily
life itself was both difficult and distracting for most human beings on the
planet.
In
different forms, man has always been overwhelmed by pressing tasks or needs.
While
they may have metamorphosed from things necessary for survival to entertainment
and the thirst for information, things that appear urgent are always competing
with things that are truly important.
Imagine
a Pause…...
Imagine
if there was a way to leave it all behind for just a while. What would we do?
We
might find ourselves helpless and bored, and perhaps faced with the fact that
without the sensory overload we are utterly alone.
That
without an ipod, newspaper, radio or laptop, a commute is a nightmare.
Alternatively,
we could choose to focus on the things that we deem truly important when
there's time to think about things that really matter.
It
could be an opportunity to ask ourselves what we really care about and believe
instead of letting commercial and social enterprises with subtle or obvious
agendas dictate our thoughts.
In
time such a space exists.
Weekly
it is called the Shabbat, and in the cycle of years, it
is Shmitta, the sabbatical year, the land's Shabbat.
It is
a time when normal planting and harvesting activities in the land of Israel,
which for most of history was primarily an agricultural society, cease.
The
land lies fallow and people look inward. Worries about sowing, pruning,
maintenance, reaping, market prices and other concerns become irrelevant.
Shmitta is a time which goes beyond its historical
significance.
Since shmitta occurs
every seven years, it should come as no surprise that the inner secret of shmitta lies
within the number seven.
Sevens
Everywhere
Sevens
abound in Judaism. There are seven cycles of seven leading up to yovel,
the jubilee year.
There
are seven heavens according to Jewish tradition.
The
national birth of our nation on Passover is followed by seven weeks of seven
days, culminating with our receiving the Torah following their conclusion.
King
David, the very symbol of the Jewish monarchy and the messianic era his
descendent will usher in, was the seventh son of Yishai and married Bat Sheva,
literally, the daughter of seven.
Seven
days of celebration follow a wedding, with each meal accompanied by seven
special blessings.
We
similarly mourn the dead for seven days.
There
are seven days of the week in virtually every society to this day, a phenomenon
rooted in our tradition.
Why
the fuss about seven?
Homonyms
and other linguistic similarities in Hebrew are no coincidence.
A hint
to the answer lies deep within the Hebrew language, as revealed in a biblical
exchange between our forefather Abraham (whose seventh generation descendent
was Moses, who took the Jews out of Egypt) and the Philistine king Avimelech.
The
Torah describes in detail how Abraham and Avimelech entered into a covenant
which would also serve as testimony that Abraham's shepherds had dug a specific
well whose ownership had been disputed.
Abraham
presented Avimelech with seven – sheva -- lambs, which
he described as testimony that he had dug the well.
The
two entered into an oath, called a shavuah in Hebrew,
and the place was therefore called Beer Sheva (Beersheba) on account of both
the sheva lambs and the shavuah.
What
was the point of seven lambs and how can we explain the similarity between the
word sheva meaning seven and shavua meaning
oath (as well as the seven-day week and a complete seven year cycle), which is
comprised of almost the same Hebrew letters?
Homonyms
and other linguistic similarities in Hebrew, a language which our tradition
maintains is of Divine origin, are no coincidence, especially when they are
comprised of virtually the same Hebrew characters.
For
example, the Hebrew word for ear is ozen. It was relatively
recently that science discovered that one's ear does more than hear but also
controls balance.
Not
surprisingly, the Hebrew word for balance is, and for thousands of years has
been, izun, which not only sounds like the word ozen but
is comprised of almost the same letters.
The
key connection between sheva and shavua lies
in the meaning of a shavua.
A shavua,
oath, which is typically found in court, is essentially an affirmation that
one's statement today accurately describes a past event.
In the
case of Abraham, the oath and the city named for it to this day, would forever
verify the covenant between Avimelech and Abraham.
In
Judaism the number sheva does the same thing. It is the
thread that fuses things to their source.
The
Seven Day Week
Shabbat
and the seven-day week illustrate this.
It is
nothing less than a wonder that the only temporal system for counting days that
has survived history in a meaningful way is the seven-day week that all
governments use today.
Unlike
days which follow the earth's rotation on its axis, months which follow the
moon's cycle, and years which parallel the earth's revolution around the sun,
the seven-day week has no natural parallel or astronomical basis.
It
seems to come from nowhere. Though used by the Hindus, Babylonians, Chinese,
Romans and Egyptians, and later Christians and Moslems, who shifted the Sabbath
to different days, the universal seven-day system derived from Jewish practice.
Shabbat
connects us back to the source of everything.
Its
message according to our tradition is clear: six days parallel active creation
of the world and the seventh parallel's God's "rest" from creation.
Shabbat,
therefore, attests to creation. It connects us back to the source of everything
-- the beginning. Indeed, the word sheva itself comes
from the word shav, to return.
The
mystics describe the same concept in space. In a three-dimensional plane, a
point can expand in six opposite directions at ninety degree angles – right or
left, back or front, up or down.
Yet it
is the point in the center, where the x, y, and z axis meet, that binds them
together.
In
days that point is Shabbat, and in years, Shmitta.
Shmitta
Like Shabbat, Shmitta is
a means for connecting everything back to its source.
As we
grow farther in time from the point of creation, we need Shmitta to
bring us home.
Just
when creation seems a faded memory and we feel that mankind runs the world and
that our brilliance has brought us whatever bounty humankind has
achieved, shmitta brings a Shabbat to the land that
changes everything.
According
to Jewish law, fruits that grow during the special year in the land of Israel
are public domain, and anyone, rich or poor can eat them.
We are
reminded that any personal property we have is nothing more than a Divine loan.
Classic
laws of property that give us comfort and delude us into thinking we run the
world are suspended as debts are forgiven, and on the yovel following
the culmination of seven shmitta cycles, land sales
revert and property goes back to its tribal apportionment from the time Jews
entered the land of Israel.
Shmitta gives us the opportunity to melt away the distance
between ourselves and creation, and to give the land back to God, thereby
returning it to its source.
On a
deeper level, Shmitta is a time for us to return to
ourselves.
On one
hand, it reminds us of our inherent smallness and ineptitude, challenging our
sense of ownership of the world.
On the
other, it underscores our greatness by providing a bridge that, when we
contemplate the inner meaning of the year, connects us back to the awesome
moments of creation and provides us with the opportunity for intimacy with our
Creator.
One
who internalizes the deeper meaning of Shmitta has the
tools to escape the cacophony of stimuli that crowd our day.
We
can't block out the clamor for an entire year, but we can put it into
perspective.
Once
we contemplate the meaning of abandoning ownership of our own produce, and
understand that by looking to our Creator for sustenance, the significance of
the sensory overload that clutters our day fades.
Shmitta and the message of the patterns of seven that
permeate all of Jewish life provide us with a unique chance to come home.
Rabbi
Doniel Baron is a senior lecturer at
Aish HaTorah's Discovery Seminar. He received his law degree from NYU School of
Law and practiced law at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. He presently lives
in Jerusalem with his wife and children.
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