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This week we have two Torah readings combined. The first is called ‘On Mount (Sinai)” and it begins with a disappointment:
It begins; “G-d spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai saying;” and then mentions only one commandment; Shmita (once every seven years farmers in Israel must not work the land). As if that is all G-d said on Sinai.
Then, near the end of the second reading, G-d lists curses; forty-nine of them awaiting the Jews if they don’t keep the Torah.
What is so special about Shmita that it is presented as the ONLY commandment? And what is its connection to all these curses? (And why are there so many curses?)

To understand this, here is a story:

Some fifty years ago in Minnesota lived Yigal and Nechama; two intelligent, sensitive, atheistic, Israeli Kibbutzniks that had moved to America.
Both had good jobs and would have lived happily ever after if it wasn’t for the day that Nechama became possessed.
It was early one Monday morning when it happened. They were both getting ready to go to work. Nechama was making coffee for the two of them and Yigal was in the bathroom just finishing shaving when he heard her shouting from the other room.
“Hey! You don’t have to yell! One minute, I’m coming!” he shouted above her voice as he dried his face and went to her. And there she was, standing in the middle of the living room shaking her hands and head strangely and shouting at the ceiling.
He tried to calm her down and even got her seated on the couch but it didn’t help. She stood and began shouting again for fifteen more minutes, until she finally sat down on her own and became silent, began talking normally and didn’t remember a thing.
Yigal called his and her bosses to say they wouldn’t be in and took her to the doctor. But the checkup and the tests showed nothing. They were told to wait, and if it happened again to go to a psychiatrist or neurologist for more comprehensive testing.
Two days later it happened again but this time she erupted for half an hour until calming down. Again they went to the hospital for neurological tests. But they too gave no clue as to what was going on.
Yigal didn’t know what to do. The attacks came without warning and were becoming more severe. The next week she had four; one lasted over an hour.
Going to work was out of the question for either of them. He couldn’t leave her alone and certainly not with the children. But on the other hand, she couldn’t be hospitalized; when she wasn’t having a fit, she was completely normal and didn’t even recall anything she had done.
So, for months they ran from doctor to doctor and from treatment to treatment; pills, shots, massages, acupuncture, change of diet, and tens of other things but the attacks continued.
They were running out of hope but help often comes from strange places. Someone suggested to her that maybe she should consult with a Rabbi.
At first, she refused. She and Yigal were not only non-religious they were anti-religious … especially Judaism. “No, no!” she protested, “not a Rabbi! Rabbis are for weddings and burials not about life. How could a Rabbi possibly help?”
“But this Rabbi is different,” her friend said. “He’s from Chabad. I heard him speak and he was very practical and positive. And he doesn’t take money, so you have nothing to lose.” With no other choice Nechama agreed. “But don’t let my husband know!” she warned her friend.
The Rabbi was the well-known Chabad Chassid, teacher, lecturer and author Rabbi Manis Friedman, and when he heard her story, he suggested that they write to the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
“G-d is the source of all health and life and the Rebbe has a special way of connecting people to G-d,” he explained.
She wrote a letter and the reply was soon in coming.
The Rebbe answered that he was pained to hear of her illness but assured her that if she and her family would be careful from now on to eat only food that was kosher according to the Torah, she would return to normal health.
It didn’t make any sense how the Torah could cure her but it didn’t take much to convince her to try, she was desperate! She threw away her opposition to the Torah and decided to go for it.
It wasn’t really that hard. Rabbi Friedman introduced her to his wife, they hit it off well, and after a conversation of an hour or so they went shopping for kosher food.
Meanwhile, Rabbi Friedman got busy arranging a group of young Chassidim visit her house and make her kitchen ‘kosher’; her stove, pots and pans, dishes and even spoons and forks had to be boiled or torched to make them fit for Torah standards. (According to the Torah even the taste of unkosher food absorbed in vessels is forbidden).
Nechama returned home with ten shopping bags full of kosher food and new instructions for the new family diet; only kosher food, no milk with meat and much more.
Yigal wasn’t so happy. He wanted his wife to be healthy but …. there must be another way. His wife was becoming one of ‘them’. Just when he thought that things couldn’t get worse …. now this!
He tried to be calm and speak to her logically when the bell rang and the five young Chassidim that Rabbi Friedman sent entered with a huge pot, a blow torch, and other implements to work on the kitchen. He did not like rabbis or Judaism but he was trapped!
That night Yigal called a friend and asked for help, and his friend came up with an alternative. Why didn’t he think of it before! A medium!!
“There is a fortune teller!” his friend said with certainty and enthusiasm. “Not just a fortune teller but a healer and miracle worker. Everyone goes to her and she is amazing! I think she’s from India or something but if anyone can help, she can. I’ll make an appointment for tonight and we’ll go together.”
“Phew!” Yigal sighed with relief. “Finally, something normal!”
That next evening he and friend were seated opposite the miracle lady, he explained his problem while his friend sat looking alternatively at him and her to see what she would respond.
She heard the story, thought for a moment in silence, then looked at him seriously and said,
“Wait a minute, you said you come from Israeli, right? So …. you are Jewish? Correct? So … why do you come to me? You Jews have a grand Jewish Rabbi in Brooklyn that has many times my powers! And he is never wrong. Why don’t you go to him?”
Yigal tried to explain that Rabbis are not healers, he isn’t religious and that Judaism meaningless for him but the fortune teller just shrugged her shoulders. She couldn’t understand what he was getting at.
That night Yigal returned home a defeated man. He announced that he was willing to be a partner in Nechama’s kosher craze. Until her next attack, that is.
But the next attack never came. In fact, Yigal and his wife, although they still do not consider themselves to be religious, keep kosher, Shabbat, and he even puts on tefillin daily.
And, of course, a big picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe adorns the most prominent wall in their living room.

Now we can answer our questions about shmita and curses.

The name of the first reading is “On Mount Sinai.” G-d gave the Torah on a mountain to show that Torah elevates the physical world for all to see (as the Moshiach will eventually elevate the entire world to holiness). But the Talmud tells us that Sinai the “lowest” of mountains.
G-d gave it on a “low” mountain to show that humility is of prime importance. Humility before the Creator and before our fellow man is the vehicle to transform the world through Torah.

This is the message of Shmita: humility. Namely to remind us that everything we have, even the earth we stand on, the food it produces, and all the profit we make from our hard work, are all miracles from the Creator. We must be humble and take nothing for granted.

So also the curses; it is not understood how the Jews have suffered and DESERVED all these curses for thousands of years and STILL EXIST….longer than even the empires that oppressed them. In other words, G-d is demonstrating that, no matter what, He still loves His people unconditionally. This should also humble us when we remember how lucky and fortunate we are!

And one day very soon He will transform all the curses to blessings (Deuteronomy 23:1)! That is why there are so many curses: they come as a reminder to humble us and remind us that G-d cares what we do and how they all will become blessings.
Like the heroes of our story came to realize when Nechama’s sickness was transformed to blessings.

And the Lubavitcher Rebbe says this will happen at any moment.
Moshiach will transform all the curses of Golus to blessings. All the suffering and pain will become joy and laughter. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish hopes, prayers and suffering.   Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can bring ….
Moshiach NOW!!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel

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