How to question Authority

 Today is Lag B’Omer.  You can read all about it here.  At its core it is the day when we celebrate the revelation of the deepest mystical secrets of Torah by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.  So I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss a deeper meaning behind a verse in this week’s Parsha taught by the Rebbe, which carries an important message for our generation, connected to the core message of Lag B’Omer.

Following the laws of the Sabbatical year - Shemittah, when fields in Israel must be left fallow, un-ploughed and un-worked, the Torah addresses a question that will, it says, definitely be asked: “When you ask ‘what will we eat in the seventh year, we will not be sowing seeds nor gathering the harvest into our homes?’(Vayikra 25:20)”  The Torah answers that Hashem will provide special blessings in the sixth year and the produce will be enough to last until the next year’s grain is harvested.

Let’s analyze this verse for a moment.  This is the Torah speaking.  The Torah teaches us to have faith in Hashem, to follow His commandments and to recognize that observing Mitzvot will bring us blessings, not only spiritual blessings but also material ones.  This is a theme throughout the Torah.  We learn that it is not possible for observance of a Mitzvah to bring us harm, because the entire purpose of the world’s creation is for the transformation that the light of Torah and Mitzvot brings.  There are many tests and challenges, we are taught, but ultimately, if we commit to follow the Torah, Hashem will give us the means with which to do it.

(Pardon the interruption, and speaking of mystical secrets… We are starting a whole new Decoding Chassidus series this coming Sunday, Decoding Holiness, Angels, and Prayer this Sunday at 6:30. For more information visit chabadpaloalto.com/decoding.)

This same Torah is now saying that we will ask the question “what will we eat” if we observe the laws of Shemittah.  Perhaps the Torah could have phrased it differently – “Do not be worried because Hashem will provide His blessings in the sixth year.”  Instead, it is phrased as a question, what will we eat, implying that it is ok to doubt Hashem’s word that He will provide for us. 

The question is even stronger because the verse before promises: “The land will then yield its fruit and you will eat to satiety.”  So while we could say that the Torah is being realistic and people may have doubts, it does seem strange that the Torah voices those doubts rather than addressing them with the promise of blessings.

Well, there are two types of questions.  There is the skeptical question: “Will we have food if we don’t plant in the seventh year, how will we survive?”  And then there is a curious question: “How is Hashem going to do this wonder that He has promised.”  The Torah is telling us, the Rebbe explains, that it is actually a good thing to be curious about how the miracle will happen, while accepting with absolute faith that it will.  

The reason that we may question how this miracle will happen is because it actually defies logic and the rules of nature.  It is a common practice to rotate crops and to let a field rest once in a while, because the nutrients get depleted year after year.  The most productive year for a field is after it has rested, and the least productive is after it has been worked for several years.  So the sixth year of the cycle should be the least productive year for the fields.  Yet the Torah says that in the merit of the observance of Shemittah, the yield of the sixth year will be double the usual.

So the Torah says, go ahead and wonder!  Indeed, this is not logical.  There is no doubt in our minds that it will happen, but wow, this is not the way nature usually works!  This kind of thinking helps us remember that nature is really Hashem making things happen in a natural way.

We are on the threshold of redemption.  The Zohar states that it is the dissemination of its teachings that will bring us out of exile.  Chassidus has accomplished this, by making the deep, esoteric teachings of Kabbalah accessible to everyone.  So we may ask the question:  How is it possible that in the sixth “year,” meaning the sixth millennium from creation, we will bring about the redemption.  The world seems to be a lot weaker spiritually than it was in earlier generations, in the time the Holy Temples stood and the times of the great saintliness and scholarship of the Talmudic period.  

The Torah tells us not to worry.  Hashem promises to bless our “produce” – the Mitzvot that we do in this “dry and weak” period – and, in a miraculous, non-logical way, to bring about the redemption through Moshiach.