Reap Without Sowing - Behar Bechukotai 5786
There is nature and there are miracles. We usually think of them as completely separate things. Once in a while a huge miracle happens, like the sea splitting, or when thousands of missiles flew and a relatively tiny (though tragic) number of Jews died. But the sun rises daily and sets, as does the moon. We plough a field and sow it, it rains and the seeds grow into grain, vegetables or trees. Sometimes it doesn’t rain and they don’t grow. It’s the way of the world. It’s a common practice to let the land lie fallow on occasion, like rotating crops, in order to allow the earth to regain its strength, otherwise the amount it produces may drop. I did some research about this and some modern farmers feel that fertilizing the land has the same effect, but certainly this was a practice in earlier times. Many still believe in it today. So then it would make sense that the Torah tells us, in the Parsha we read this Shabbat, to l...