Kommentar zu Wajikra 25:3

SIX YEARS THOU SHALT SOW THY FIELD. Such is the way of Scripture to state [i.e., it is not a command that is expressed here, but it is merely the style of Scripture], just as it says, Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work;⁶⁰Exodus 20:9. Six days thou shalt do thy work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.⁶¹Ibid., 23:12. According to the way of our Rabbis [the verse is to be interpreted as follows:⁶²Yerushalmi, Kilayim VIII, 1. “Six years thou shalt sow thy field — but not in the seventh year — this being a negative commandment which is derived from a positive commandment, and carries the force of a positive commandment.” Thus he who sows [his field] in the seventh year violates this positive commandment, and also the negative commandment [expressed in the verse, thou shalt not sow thy field].⁶³Verse 4. A homiletic exposition of the Rabbis is as follows:⁶⁴Mechilta, Kaspa 20. “Rabbi Yishmael says: When Israel does the will of G-d, it has to observe only one year of rest [of the soil] in a seven-year cycle, as it is said, Six years thou shalt sow thy field. But if the people do not do the will of G-d, they have to make four ‘years of rest’ of the soil in one seven-year cycle. How so? He plows for one year and cannot sow until the next year, again he plows for one year and cannot sow until the next year. Thus there are four ‘years of rest’ in one seven-year cycle.”⁶⁵The thought expressed is as follows: When Israel observes the law of the Sabbatical year G-d blesses the produce of the Land during the next six years. But if the law of the Torah is not observed, the farmer must leave his field fallow every alternate year in order to preserve the soil. Thus if the law of the Sabbatical year is observed, only one year of rest of the Land is required in a seven-year cycle, but where the law of the Torah is not observed, there must be four years of rest — the first, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. The meaning of the verse, according to this Mechilta [which is, as Ramban calls it here, “a homiletic exposition”], is thus: “six full years you will be able to sow your field without recourse to a rest of the Land, if in the seventh year there shall be a solemn rest for the Land” (Zeh Yenachameinu — a commentary upon the Mechilta).

שש שנים תזרע שדך, the new revelation in this verse is that the land of Israel is so fertile that the same piece of land can remain under cultivation for six consecutive years, although in other countries the land generally is allowed to lie fallow every other year. (compare Baba Batra 36 on this subject.)

שש שנים תזרע, "You shall plant seed for six years, etc." The Torah wanted to phrase the procedure of the farmer seeding his land as a positive commandment, and the pruning of the vines in the seventh year as a negative commandment so that the negative commandment which is a derivative of a positive commandment is also considered as a positive commandment (compare Pessachim 41). Although Maimonides wrote in the first chapter of his treatise Hilchot Shemittah that the positive commandment is based on the words ושבתה הארץ שבת at the end of verse 2, this would certainly not be enough to make the act of seeding and the act of pruning positive commandments. Perhaps what Maimonides had in mind was to make a person who ignores the laws of seeding and pruning guilty of violating two positive commandments instead of merely one.

ואספת, the opposite of abandoning it.

שש שנים תזרע שדך, “you are to sow your field for six consecutive years.” According to Nachmanides the wording is not to be viewed as an absolute commandment, but is similar to the one in the fourth of the Ten commandments ששת ימים תעשה מלאכתך “you shall perform your work on six days, etc.,” meaning that any work which you have to do, you shall do during the six days of the week allocated to the performance of such tasks, whereas on the seventh day you are to rest. (Compare Exodus 20,9) According to our sages the law to abstain from work in the field during the seventh year is in the nature of a negative commandment derived from the restrictive statement that you may only “sow your field for six consecutive years.” [Something known in halachah as לאו הבא מכלל עשה, a negative commandment that is a derivative of a positive commandment. In practice, this means that although the Torah phrased the abstention from such work in the seventh year as a positive instruction, he who fails to observe it transgresses a negative commandment. Ed.]

'שש שנים וגו, for six consecutive years you are to sow, etc;” this verse proves once again that the Torah is not bound to relate matters in a chronological order, else it would have written this verse before the verse about abstaining from agricultural activity during the seventh year. Actually, this paragraph has already appeared in Exodus 23,10, in the chronological order that we would expect. It is only being repeated here on account of the addition of the olive groves that were omitted here.

ואספת את תבואתה, as opposed to the soil in the countries adjacent to the land of Israel.

ושש שנים תזמר, "and for 6 years you shall prune your vineyard." Why did the Torah repeat the words ושש שנים when it could have written: שש שנים תזרע שדך ותזמר כרמך? Our sages explain this in chapter 5 of Massechet Shvi-it by reference to בנות שוח שביעית שלהם שניה, certain kinds of white figs which ripen only once in three years. The shemittah legislation applies starting only with the second year of the cycle. The Talmud explains that in the case of the fruits of that tree the cut-off date is the date they blossom which occurs in the seventh year so that these fruit are harvested in the second year after the shemittah year. In other words, when it comes to the trees, the time the fruit blossoms determines the calculation for when the shemittah year applies. In the case of grains and vegetables however, the time they are harvested determines the application of the shemittah prohibition as we know from Rosh Hashanah 13. There is a good reason then why the Torah had to write the words שש שנים twice, seeing that trees and fields have different six-year cycles respectively, the former determined by the time of the harvest the latter by the time the fruit blossoms.

ואספת את תבואתה, "and you shall gather in its harvest." What need was there for the Torah to write the word ואספת? Perhaps the Torah's use of the expression ואספת את תבואתה is meant to contrast with the ספיחים, the wild growing crop of the seventh year which was not planted which must not be gathered in. The intention of the Torah then would be to add a positive commandment, i.e. the type of positive commandment which is actually a derivative of the negative commandment not to harvest the wild growing crop. This would make the negative commandment not to harvest this kind of crop into a positive commandment with the appropriate halachic consequences for people transgressing it. Possibly the Torah hints that although a piece of land which has been farmed for six years consecutively does not have the strength left to produce a crop in the seventh year, especially seeing it has not even been ploughed or seeded, in this case this is precisely what will happen. The normal procedure is to cultivate a field for a year and then to give that piece of land a year of rest (compare Baba Batra 29). In other words, the Torah praises the quality of the soil in the land of Israel and assures us that observance of the legislation in this chapter will enhance the value of the land. We may even interpret the opening words דבר ואמרת as reflecting this message. The word דבר is normal, the word ואמרת which tones town the harsh דבר hinting at the veiled blessing that the observance of the שמטה legislation will result in an improvement of the yield from the soil.

We may also find a clue to the meaning of our verse in Sanhedrin 26 which reports Rabbi Yannai calling on the people to plant their fields in the seventh year as the government levied a tax on the fields and people could not have met this unless they planted a crop. Tossaphot comment on this: "how could Rabbi Yannai permit something which is forbidden by biblical injunction?" They answer on two levels. Rabbi Yannai spoke of a period when the shemittah legislation applies only because of a rabbinic decree. Alternatively, when a matter of פקוח נפש, physical survival, is involved it is in order to temporarily cancel even a biblical injunction.