Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook (1865-1935), First Chief
Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael describes the spirituality of the Shmita year in his
work Shabbat HaAretz (The Sabbath of the Land):
Life can only be perfected through the affording of a
breathing space from the bustle of everyday life. The individual recovers from
the influence of the mundane at frequent intervals, every Shabbat day…What the
Shabbat achieves regarding the individual, the Shmita achieves with regard to
the nation as a whole. The nation (in which the Divine spirit dwells prominent
and eternal) has special need of expressing from time to time the revelation of
its own Divine light at the fullest brightness, not suppressed by the cares and
toil of the passions and rivalries of everyday life, so that the totality of
the soul’s purity may be revealed within it.
And if that callousness which is bound to be present in the
life of the community causes the deterioration of the moral standard of life
and the constant conflict between the ideal heeding of the appeal to practice
loving kindness, truthfulness, compassion and pity on the one hand and the
raging oppression, coercion and pressure of the quest for material gain
inevitable in daily life, on the other, cause the distancing of the Divine
light…
The periodical suspension of the normal social routines
raises this nation- when morally settled- spiritually and morally and crowns it
with perfection. This is achieved through the Divine content that is rooted in
the nation and which stands high above any social system and order and which
raises and perfects social order.
This past week in
that prove that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to reach the
spiritual ideal that Rav Kook is describing. The first was a series of violent
rallies where Ethiopian Israelis claimed that their community is not being
treated fairly. The second was that Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of
Israel was sentenced to a minimum of eight months in prison for bribery.
On the other hand, the Divine light clearly shone last week
when Israeli safety crews traveled to
to rescue all of the stranded Israelis, bringing them home safely, including Or
Asaraf’s friends who helped find his body, bringing him to
proper burial. Teams of doctors, nurses and medics set up makeshift hospitals
to help anyone in need of medical attention. This was a true Kidush HaShem, sanctification
of God’s name.
As our new government is being set up during this Shmita
year, we hope and pray that our leaders will practice loving kindness,
truthfulness and compassion and serve as role models for the entire Jewish
people.
