Parsahiot B’har/B’chukotai
Rabbi Dr. Y. Luchins
Dateline: Sinai
A Malbim-Guided Study
The weekly Torah-portion opens with specifics of the laws of the mitzva of sh’mita, the Sabbatical year during which the land of the Land of Israel is not to be worked agriculturally (“B’har,” Va-yikra—Leviticus 25:1-24). These laws are introduced by a unique version of the standard, seemingly ubiquitous phrase “va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe laimor—and the Transcendent communicated to Moshe to say...” Here and only here (Va-yikra 25:1), the introductory phrase reads “and the Transcendent communicated to Moshe b’har Sinai—at Mt. Sinai to say...”
On that point of uniqueness, Rashi, the great medieval commentator, echoing the analysis of the much earlier Midrash of Halacha, Sifra, poses the obvious question: “What accounts for the topic of sh’mita being [uniquely] associated with Sinai; were not all the mitzvot said at Sinai?!” Rashi, again echoing Sifra, presents an ostensibly over-reaching answer: “[‘Sinai’ is uniquely specified in the phrase introducing sh’mita to demonstrate] that just as the laws of sh’mita were said at Sinai in general terms…and in their fine details, so too all the laws [of all the mitzvot] were said in general terms and in their fine details at Sinai.” This single instance of laws of a mitzva being introduced with “b’har Sinai—at Mt. Sinai,” is, following Sifra, archetypically indicative of the total comprehensiveness of the communication at Sinai of each and every mitzva.
The archetypical nature of the weekly Torah-portion’s first pasuk—verse (Va-yikra 25:1) uniquely stating “b’har Sinai” lies at the crux of Rashi’s answer and of the Rabbinic Sifra-reasoning reflected therein. Grasp of the cogency and coherency of the answer, elusive and easily misconstrued, may be approached through a firmly based understanding of the question. Several areas of background information—spanning Torah locution, pedagogy and logic, and presented with some precision and depth—may provide a framework for that understanding.
1) In Chumash—the Pentateuch, there are over ninety occurrences of Divine instructions introduced by “va-yidabair Hashem el…”; outside of Chumash, in the over 17000 p’sukim—verses of all the rest of TaNaCh, the phrase “va-yidabair Hashem el…” appears but three times (in specialized instances beyond the scope of the present study). Among the not quite 6000 p’sukim of Chumash, the frequently used phrase is almost always explicitly associated with Moshe (“va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe…”), shared in eleven instances with his elder brother Aharon (“…el Moshe v’el Aharon…”) and in but two instances associated only with Aharon. Sifra takes the shared instances and even the rarer Aharon-only cases as having been conducted exclusively through Moshe. (Even the word-pair “va-yidabair Hashem—and the Transcendent communicated” is restricted throughout TaNaCh almost exclusively to the above cases, reflective of Chumash, but not the rest of TaNaCh, being the repository of Divine information of lasting halachic application.)
In each of the over seven dozen instances in which the phrase “va-yidabair Hashem el…laimor” is used in Chumash introductory to a set of laws, it means that all of the details, implications and ramifications of the message were communicated to Moshe as an integrated prophetic unit of pure mental information (“va-yidabair” being a verbalized form of “davar—the matter,” the very thing, das Ding an sich). The downloaded set of mental information was then “uncompressed” by Moshe, checked for fidelity of reception and comprehension, while being unpacked into discrete concepts and formatted into words (“laimor—to say”) to be communicated to others in writing and in speech. The terse, fixed, formalized written version is referred to as the Written Law; the wordier, more fluid spoken version, as the Oral Law.
A sense of the layered depths of “va-yidabair” may be had by a survey of the breadth of the “laimor” that may be unpacked from an integrated prophetic unit of pure mental information (the davar communicated through va-yidabair; it is noteworthy that the eight occurrences in TaNaCh of “ze ha-davar asher tziva Hashem—this is the matter that the Transcendent commanded” are all in Chumash and all declared by Moshe alone). The Talmudic discussion (Éruvin 54b) of the methodology of the original teaching of the Oral Law, as framed by Rambam (Maimonides, 12th Century C.E.) and Malbim (R’ Meir L. Weiser, 19th Century C.E.), is edifying in its expansion upon “laimor”: Moshe, master of all prophets, received (and carefully reviewed for comprehension) precise all-inclusive multi-level information from the Presence of the Force—“va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe”—and was tasked with transmitting it—“laimor”—to those of lesser prophetic and mental abilities, unpacking it level-by-level from the sublimely esoteric to the mundanely practical. Thus, for each set of laws, with the Written Law thereon serving as outline, Moshe personally and directly spoke through the details. Those explanations were presented in a multi-tiered series of lessons, with the levels expounded—as well as the mode of presentation, and the degree of instructional interactivity and of explicit granularity of detail—appropriate to the audience of each tier:
First, Moshe presented to his brother Aharon, closest to him in prophetic level, mental ability, life-experience and outlook; Aharon’s responses and questions prepared Moshe for the next phase:
Second, in the presence of Aharon, Moshe presented to multiple people of the new generation, to his own nephews, the sons of Aharon; framing answers to the questions of those close disciples prepared Moshe for the next level:
Third, in the presence of Aharon and sons, to the most qualified representatives of each of the 12 tribes, to the 70 Sanhedrin Sages; the Sages’ questions and interactions, from a multiplicity of different minds and views, prepared Moshe for the next presentation:
Fourth, in the presence of all the preceding, to the multitude (with obligatory attendance expected of all members of the tribes’ administrative hierarchies, of the judicial system, of judges, court officers and law-enforcement inspectors—princes of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens [Sh’mot–Exodus 18:24-26]; voluntary attendance, open to all others).
Then, Moshe Rabbainu—our master teacher, in a truly masterful act of pedagogy, withdrew from the assembly, leaving Aharon in charge of the proceedings. Aharon, in the presence of the preceding sets of attendees, personally and directly presented the already fully explained details of the given set of laws within the context of and as contained implicitly in the words of the Written Law. Aharon’s presentation of the Oral Law—being from a much beloved, proactively social-interactive personality, and being to an already informed audience—was characterized by a wholly different tenor of delivery and could allow for a completely different level and proximity of questioning than attainable in the presentations of Moshe. Aharon then withdrew and his sons presented, with attendant multiplicity of shifts of tenor, level and proximity; Aharon’s sons then withdrew and the Sanhedrin Sages presented, with attendant multiplexed shifts of tenor, level and proximity.
Thus, all tiers of the Nation would have had access to at least four layered presentations per lesson-series of the details of the Oral Law’s teachings on each instruction-set of the Written Law (such multiple presentations constituting, also, striking demonstrations of the craft of effective information-transmittal). Many of the Laws were applicable in the desert, throughout the sojourn in which such lesson-series were conducted periodically, with ongoing examination of fresh practical and theoretical applications generated by millions of people living the Law; court sessions, also, handled realities of practical applications. All tiers of the Nation studied and discussed all the teachings, irrespective of immediacy of application, annotating for themselves the inner meanings and outer applications of the Written Law. Those notes, unique to each note-taker, were revisited by each individual for review and revision, but were not used as the formal basis of oral instruction or discussion; the formal referent was the wording of the Written Law. Such oral instruction and discussion maintained the dynamic of audience-appropriate, articulate, effective, personal and direct presentation established by the original multi-tiered series of lessons. (It was not until some 1500 years later, five centuries after the close of prophecy, that formalization was officially brought to the medium of transmission of the Oral Law. In response to an accelerating decay in the societal-historical-geopolitical circumstances of Torah scholarship under post-Temple Roman rule, those notes—time-worn, time-expanded, and increasingly somewhat fractured and then painstakingly, if desperately, reconstructed—on the halachic sections of the Oral Law and its application over the generations, were tightly organized, distilled and formalized into the corpus of Mishna.)
2) Mattan Torah—the Revelation at Sinai, some seven weeks after the first Pesach night in Egypt, was swiftly followed by the tragic incident of the Golden Calf and the ensuing events. It was not until some four months after Mattan Torah, at the conclusion of the third and final Sinai-based 40-day period, that Moshe descended Mt. Sinai with the second set of Tablets of the Law and with instructions for construction of the Mishkan—Tabernacle. After the construction and dedication of the Mishkan a half-year later at the beginning of the second year in the desert, all official communication from Hashem to Moshe took place in the Mishkan (communication during the intervening months having been conducted off-site). A major series of communications covering all 613 mitzvot was then conducted by Hashem to Moshe in the Mishkan during that second year; Moshe Rabbainu transmitted the Sinai-communications and those post-Sinai-communications to the Nation in multi-tiered series of lessons, as outlined above.
Thirty-eight years later, during the last year of our extended desert sojourn, Moshe reprised all of the intervening decades of explanatory lessons. To the generation poised to enter Eretz Yisrael without him, Moshe Rabbainu presented an intensive review of all 613 mitzvot with all the fine detail and depth of the Oral Law, each mitzva showcased within the framework of relevant Written Law p’sukim. Representative parts of the Written Law topics of that latter series of lessons constitute much of Sefer D’varim—the Book of Deuteronomy.
As Ramban (Nachmanides, 13th Century C.E.) and others conclusively demonstrate, all of Sefer Va-yikra was communicated during the second year of the desert sojourn, starting with the initial construction of the Mishkan, even before its official dedication (see Malbim on Va-yikra 1:1).
Therefore, the opening of this week’s Torah portion, near the end of Sefer Va-yikra, was part of the communication series presented by Hashem to Moshe in the Mishkan during the second year in the desert. Thus, the very beginning of our Torah portion is actually stating “and the Transcendent communicated to Moshe in the Mishkan in the year following Mattan Torah, reviewing a set of laws given previously during Mattan Torah b’har Sinai—at Mt. Sinai, to say…” Sifra’s question, echoed by Rashi, can now be understood as “during the Mishkan-based review process, why were the laws of sh’mita singled out as having been said earlier at Sinai; were not all the mitzvot said earlier at Sinai?”
Given the above framework for the question within the contexts of Torah locution and pedagogy, we can turn to outlining the logic of both the question and the answer.
3) In Chagiga 6a-b, we find a disagreement on a historical matter between two great Tannaitic scholars of the Mishna era, R’ Ákiva and R’ Yishmáel. Both scholars accept that each “va-yidabair”-information-transfer to Moshe in the Mishkan-based communication series contained, in compressed packed mental-information form, both general terms generative of the terse outline-headings of the Written Law and extensive and intensive details generative of the Oral Law. Moshe’s “laimor”-uncompressing of each mental-information download then proceeded to unpack the communication along those two major interlinked paths, producing the formalized Written Law and the more fluid Oral Law. (Sifra, in fact, points to the frequently encountered inter-parasha gaps in Chumash as reflecting time-intervals provided Moshe for contemplation and mental processing of the information input.)
What R’ Ákiva and R’ Yishmáel disagree about is the nature of the Sinai-based compressed packed information-transfer communication covering all 613 mitzvot (and much non-mitzva information). In the view of R’ Ákiva, the mitzva-contents of the Sinai-based information-transfer were essentially those of the later Mishkan-based transfer, being comprised, upon unpacking, both of general terms and of fine detail, with particular representative generalities explicitly showcased in the p’sukim of Parashat Mishpatim (Sh’mot 21-23). In contrast, in the view of R’ Yishmáel, the Sinai-based information-transfer was comprised only of general terms, with fine details to first be supplied later in the Mishkan-based transfer (except for those laws applicable immediately around the time of Mattan Torah [for example, the sacrifices later referred to in Va-yikra 7:38—see Sifra ad loc.], for which fine details were needed for immediate mitzva-application).
4) Parashat Mishpatim’s presentation of Law communicated at Sinai at the time of Mattan Torah contains a very concise, non-detailed reference to sh’mita (Sh’mot 23:10-11), “Six years shall you sow your land and gather its produce. And the seventh [year], you shall abandon and neglect her (the land)…”
The question “What accounts for the topic of sh’mita being [uniquely] associated with Sinai?” is a challenge to R’ Yishmáel’s view: Our Torah-portion’s unique version of “va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe...laimor” (Va-yikra 25:1) explicitly informs us that the Mishkan-based information-transfer communication being referred to—much more detailed in its Written Law format (on sh’mita, Va-yikra 25:2-24) than the Written Law format of the earlier Sinai-based communication on the same topic (sh’mita, Sh’mot 23:10-11)—is a review of what had already been transferred at Sinai. Therefore, the very concise Sinai-based Written Law wording is just an outline-heading / category-reference for the detail given here; that is, although not expressed in the Written Law format there in Sh’mot, these Va-yikra-explicit details on the topic of sh’mita had been transferred at Sinai! Of course, the Oral Law implicit in and paralleling the Written Law of sh’mita would be the subject of multi-tiered series of lessons, unfolding the highly precise, intensely terse wording of the Written Law as to theory and practice of sh’mita, and correlating sh’mita with and integrating it within the entire corpus of Law. But, Sifra, formatted by one of the outstanding disciples of R’ Ákiva (and, as specified by Rambam, later formally redacted as an information-source paper-trail appendix to Mishna), has a focused point to make with the question: Some specific details not explicitly appearing in the Written Law format of the Sinai-based communication about sh’mita presented in Parashat Mishpatim had, indeed, been transferred then to Moshe at Sinai, as testified to by those details being identified here, months later, as having had been part of the Revelation “b’har Sinai.”
R’ Yishmáel could not explain this as being a case in which the laws were to be applied immediately and the details thereof were, therefore, needed immediately. As Sifra puts it: “sh’mita…associated with Sinai?!” Even if there had been no Golden Calf and no spies’ negative reports about Eretz Yisrael to extend our desert sojourn to 40 years, sh’mita was not to be practiced for years! And certainly not in the desert of Sinai! As is stated explicitly in the p’sukim here in Va-yikra 25—and by extension, then, communicated previously at Sinai—sh’mita is applicable only after six years of agricultural activity in Eretz Yisrael, certainly not at the time nor in the locale of Sinai.
Perhaps, R’ Yishmáel’s view could be defended by taking “and the Transcendent communicated to Moshe b’har Sinai to say…” to mean simply that, in the Mishkan in the year following Mattan Torah, Hashem was communicating the details of one of the many sets of laws given previously at Sinai only in general outline-heading / category-reference terms. Accordingly, the Sinai-based presentation was not being repeated in review in Va-yikra 25; rather, it was being revisited and revised with the addition of details not previously communicated. The Sifra-objection to that approach is “were not all the mitzvot said at Sinai?!” Why should “b’har Sinai” not, then, be specified as part of every Mishkan-based “va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe laimor”?! After all, according to R’ Yishmáel’s view, all Mishkan-based detail-filled information-transfers are referring back to Sinai-based transfers; and, except for Law applicable at the time and locale of Sinai, each Mishkan-based set of details is revising and adding to some particular general outline-heading / category-reference Sinai-based transfer. Indeed, sh’mita is just one of several “va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe...laimor” Va-yikra Laws the details of which explicitly state that they apply only in Eretz Yisrael (see 14:33-53; 23:9-14). Why uniquely specify sh’mita’s communication as having been “b’har Sinai”? That its application is more distant in time and place from Sinai should make it a less likely candidate, according to R’ Yishmáel, to have had its details communicated “b’har Sinai.”
“What accounts for the topic of sh’mita being [uniquely] associated with Sinai?!” According to the view of R’ Ákiva, it is precisely the explicitly stated disconnect of the time and place of the application of sh’mita from the time and place of Mattan Torah that would account for sh’mita being singled out as archetypical. Without “b’har Sinai” being stated in every Mishkan-based, detail-filled “va-yidabair Hashem el Moshe laimor,” we can still know that all the fine details had been compressed and packed also into all the earlier Sinai-based information-transfers: Explicitly linking “b’har Sinai—at Mt. Sinai” to the communication of the Mishkan-based set of details of a mitzva that those details themselves state would not be applicable then and there, but rather years later and miles away, reveals the methodology of information-transfer of all mitzvot: “[‘Sinai’ is uniquely specified in the phrase introducing sh’mita to demonstrate] that just as the laws of sh’mita were said at Sinai in general terms…and in their fine details, so too all the laws [of all the mitzvot] were said in general terms and in their fine details at Sinai.”