Nature of the Pre-Shemittah Blessing of the Produce/1/en

Nature of the Pre-Shemittah Blessing of the Produce

Introduction

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What is So Difficult?

Vayikra 25 is devoted entirely to the laws of Shemittah and Yovel.  Hashem anticipates that a ban on all agricultural work for a full year will cause deep anxiety for the people, and He reassures them that the crops of the sixth year will sustain them for three years:

EN/HEע/E

(כ) וְכִי תֹאמְרוּ מַה נֹּאכַל בַּשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת הֵן לֹא נִזְרָע וְלֹא נֶאֱסֹף אֶת תְּבוּאָתֵנוּ. (כא) וְצִוִּיתִי אֶת בִּרְכָתִי לָכֶם בַּשָּׁנָה הַשִּׁשִּׁית וְעָשָׂת אֶת הַתְּבוּאָה לִשְׁלֹשׁ הַשָּׁנִים.

(20) And if ye shall say: 'What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we may not sow, nor gather our crops';
(21) then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for the three years.

This blessing makes the reader wonder why Shemittah proved so difficult for the nation to observe.  The verses in Divrei HaYamim state that non-observance of Shemittah was a cause of the nation's ultimate exile,¹ proof that the commandment was not fulfilled by a large proportion of the nation.  Yet, if the people received a three-fold blessing of grain even before the seventh year began and their needs were already provided for, why was it so difficult for them to fulfill the mitzvah of Shemittah?

Blessings as Reward?

Usually, when Hashem gives a blessing in Tanakh, it comes as recompense for observance.  Thus, Hashem promises that only after the people bring tithes to the Mikdash, will they receive a blessing of rain.²  Similarly, He tells the nation that if they give loans to the poor He will bless all their work.³ The blessing in our verse stands in stark contrast to these examples, as it is given before, not after, observance.  Moreover, it is a response not to a show of faith, but to a lack thereof!  What about the mitzvah of Shemittah makes its blessing unique?

Additional Questions

The above verses also raise several textual questions which might bear on the above issues:

• "וְכִי תֹאמְרוּ" –  Does the word "כִי" mean  "if /lest" or "when"?  What does that suggest about who is asking "what shall we eat"?  Is Hashem preempting a question that the Generation of the Wilderness might have wanted to ask as they received the laws of Shemittah?  Or, is He speaking about a real scenario that might happen in the future as farmers worry during each Shemittah cycle?⁴
• "מַה נֹּאכַל בַּשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת" – This question seems to be somewhat imprecise. In the seventh year, the people should have few concerns about food since, as every year, they could eat of the previous season's harvest. Should they not instead be questioning what to eat in the eighth year?
• Evaluating the concern – Hashem simply allays the people's anxieties, without passing judgement over whether they are appropriate or not. How, though, should the people's questioning be viewed?  Is their concern a natural and valid one, or should it be understood negatively as an expression of lack of faith, and thus as an unwarranted complaint?

¹ See also the blessing and curses of Vayikra 26, which admonish the nation regarding Shemittah specifically, suggesting that it was a prohibition which had a high likelihood of not being observed.  In fact, according to Rashbam, all of the blessings and curses of Vayikra 26 relate to only Shemittah and Yovel!  See Blessings and Curses – Over Which Commandments? for elaboration on his approach.

² See Malakhi 3:10.

³ See Devarim 15:1-10.

⁴ The phrase "וְכִי תֹאמְרוּ" appears elsewhere in Tanakh, including in Devarim 7:17-20, Devarim 18:21-22, Melakhim II 18:22, Yirmeyahu 5:19 and Yirmeyahu 13:22.  In each of these cases the speaker is preempting a question that he thinks his contemporary audience will ask.  This might suggest that here too it is  the people of the Wilderness who will be asking, "What shall we eat".