Commentaire sur Le Lévitique 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.