Our lives are consumed with making a living. Children are pressured to do well in school and savings accounts accumulate college tuition money so they can make it in life. For many it determines where they live, their social circles and their emotional and physical well-being.
This week’s parsha opens with a common Torah refrain guaranteeing the Israelites that they will eventually enter the Promised Land, but this time there is a deeper meaning to the phrase. In the desert all their needs were provided supernaturally. Food fell from heaven, water flowed from a rock and divine clouds protected them from the elements.
Entering into the land of Israel meant a fundamental shift in their lifestyle since the daily miracles would cease and nature will run its course. They will need to grow crops to survive and are taught how to set up their agricultural society in accordance with G-d’s wishes.
“When you come into the Land that I am giving you, the Land should rest a Sabbath to G-d.” (Leviticus 25:2) After six years of sowing and reaping, the seventh year (called Shemittah) is off limits. The land must lay fallow for a complete year.
While allowing a field to rest for a year is good farming practice, it is prudent to alternate between fields. No one in their right mind would abstain from cultivating any of their fields for an entire year. If you don’t plant - you don’t eat. It follows that an entire society putting down the sickle and plough for twelve months is simply ludicrous!
Torah validates the question and provides a fresh perspective on making a living.
“When you will say ‘What will we eat in the seventh year…?’ You should know that I will direct My blessing to you in the sixth year, and it will yield produce for three years.” (Leviticus 25:20-21) No need to worry. Keep Shemita and you will have sufficient supplies to pull you through it.
But there is more to it. Why do you take for granted that you will yield a crop in the first six years? In modern terminology: Is every business venture guaranteed to succeed? Does everyone with a degree land their dream job?
Success is a divine blessing and we need to create a vessel to receive it. But focusing on the perfect vessel while ignoring the source of blessing is like someone who tailors large pockets into their pants to hold money but refuses to go to the bank to draw the cash to fill them.
Therefore the Torah first mentions “the Land should rest” before discussing the six years of work the precede it. When a Jew commits to observing G-d’s instructions from the outset, this causes divine blessing to flow through the vessel - whether it is a field, a job or a business.
Increasing Torah study and Mitzvah observance and strengthening our trust in G-d - the source of all blessing - is the surest path to success.