(1) בהר סיני [AND THE LORD SPOKE UNTO MOSES] ON THE MOUNT SINAI — What has the matter of the Sabbatical year to do with Mount Sinai that Scripture felt compelled to expressly state where it was commanded? Were not all commandments given on Sinai? But this statement is intended to suggest the following comparison: How is it in the case of the law of Shemittah? Its general rules, [its specific prescriptions] and minute details were ordained on Mount Sinai! So, also, were all commandments with their general rules and their minute details ordained on Mount Sinai. Thus is taught in Torath Cohanim (Sifra, Behar, Section 1 1).

(1) בהר סיני, “at Mount Sinai;” all the portions preceding this one from the beginning of the Book of Leviticus had been revealed to Moses from the Tabernacle, (G–d’s voice emanating from the top of the Hoy Ark) and they all concerned laws of importance for the service in the Tabernacle in one way or another. The two portions commencing here had been revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai, as they neither concerned the Tabernacle nor the priests. This is the reason why the Torah here added the words: “at Mount Sinai.” Nonetheless, they were included in the Book of Leviticus, seeing that they deal with the laws of sh’mittah and Yovel as well as the laws of Erchin and Charamim which are administered by the priests. In verse 9 of our chapter the Torah decrees the blowing of the shofar on the tenth of Tishrey when the Jubilee year officially begins. This blowing of the shofar was performed by one of the priests. The fact that this blowing of the shofar when required was performed by the priests is documented in Numbers chapter 10, verse 8. In order that we should not think that these laws were issued from the Tabernacle, the Torah added the words: באהל מועד, “at the Tent of Meeting.”

ה' spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of ה'. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of ה': you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. But you may eat whatever the land during its sabbath will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound laborers who live with you, and your cattle and the beasts in your land may eat all its yield. You shall count off seven weeks of years—seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the Day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to your holding and each of you shall return to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, neither shall you reap the aftergrowth or harvest the untrimmed vines, for it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you: you may only eat the growth direct from the field. In this year of jubilee, each of you shall return to your holding. When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy any from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. In buying from your neighbor, you shall deduct only for the number of years since the jubilee; and in selling to you, that person shall charge you only for the remaining crop years: the more such years, the higher the price you pay; the fewer such years, the lower the price; for what is being sold to you is a number of harvests. Do not wrong one another, but fear your God; for I ה' am your God. You shall observe My laws and faithfully keep My rules, that you may live upon the land in security; the land shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill, and you shall live upon it in security. And should you ask, “What are we to eat in the seventh year, if we may neither sow nor gather in our crops?” I will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating old grain of that crop; you will be eating the old until the ninth year, until its crops come in. But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me. Throughout the land that you hold, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

(1) ה' spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My fixed times, the fixed times of ה', which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions. (3) On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work; it shall be a sabbath of ה' throughout your settlements. (4) These are the set times of ה', the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time: (5) In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a passover offering to ה', (6) and on the fifteenth day of that month יהוה’s Feast of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days. (7) On the first day you shall celebrate a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. (8) Seven days you shall make offerings by fire to ה'. The seventh day shall be a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. (9) ה' spoke to Moses, saying: (10) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest. (11) He shall elevate the sheaf before ה' for acceptance in your behalf; the priest shall elevate it on the day after the sabbath. (12) On the day that you elevate the sheaf, you shall offer as a burnt offering to ה' a lamb of the first year without blemish. (13) The meal offering with it shall be two-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to ה'; and the libation with it shall be of wine, a quarter of a hin. (14) Until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God, you shall eat no bread or parched grain or fresh ears;*bread or parched grain or fresh ears That is, of the new crop. it is a law for all time throughout the ages in all your settlements. (15) And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: (16) you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to ה'. (17) You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread as an elevation offering; each shall be made of two-tenths of a measure of choice flour, baked after leavening, as first fruits to ה'. (18) With the bread you shall present, as burnt offerings to ה', seven yearling lambs without blemish, one bull of the herd, and two rams, with their meal offerings and libations, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to ה'. (19) You shall also offer one he-goat as a sin offering and two yearling lambs as a sacrifice of well-being. (20) The priest shall elevate these—the two lambs*—the two lambs— Force of Heb. construction uncertain. —together with the bread of first fruits as an elevation offering before ה'; they shall be holy to ה', for the priest. (21) On that same day you shall hold a celebration; it shall be a sacred occasion for you; you shall not work at your occupations. This is a law for all time in all your settlements, throughout the ages. (22) And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I ה' am your God.

(3) They claim that until the Sabbath the world was trembling and shaking until the advent of the Sabbath. On the seventh day G'd gave the earth מנוחה, tranquillity (compare Rashi's second comment on our verse). On the Sabbath G'd created the "soul" of the world, and that is the deeper meaning of the words וביום השביעי שבת וינפש, and on the seventh day He rested and retreated to His Essence. Although our sages have interpreted the word וינפש as a lament about the withdrawal of the additional soul G'd grants to the Jewish people on each Sabbath (Beytzah 17) this is merely homiletics. They base that on the unusual construction וינפש (passive or reflexive) instead of merely, ונפש (ordinary intransitive). The plain meaning is undoubtedly that שבת וינפש, because He rested on the Sabbath and with it the soul arrived. This means that all creatures were granted an abundance of vitality, something they had lacked previously.

(4) We find a similar idea in the Zohar-Tazria (page 13 Sullam edition) as to why the rite of circumcision cannot be performed before the eighth day, and why an animal is not fit to serve as a sacrifice until the eighth day of its life. In either case one has to wait until at least one Sabbath has passed so that each has attained a נפש, a soul full of vitality. Our verse then describes G'd as putting the finishing touch to His creation by bringing on the Sabbath, not by creating on the Sabbath. The reason the Torah repeats once more מכל מלאכתו אשר עשה, from all His work which He had done, is to emphasise that this work had been done previously, i.e. before the onset of the Sabbath. The word ויכל therefore refers to activity carried out previously. All that had been lacking was something that would give permanence to this universe of ours. The seventh day, i.e. the Sabbath, completed the cycle that provides this permanence. We are therefore entitled to view the Sabbath as one of the seven days of creation.

(1) God said to Moses on Mt. Sinai: What is the connection between Shemittah and Mt. Sinai? etc. The meaning is that when Moses went up Mount Sinai after seven weeks, that Israel counted 49 days from Pesach to Shavuot, then that mountain was sanctified, and forbidden from ploughing and sowing on the 50th day, on which the Torah was given. And this is the length of time of the Jubilee, to call for liberty and freedom to all of Israel, freedom on the tablets, by means of the voice of the shofar of the giving of the Torah. At that moment God told Moses the matter of Shemittah and the Jubilee, saying that through the number 7 and the number 49 I am giving this holiness to all the land of Israel. For this has a similarity and connection with Mt. Sinai from the side of there being an air that makes people wise (B. Baba Batra 158b). And the Torah [in general] is not like the Torah of the land of Israel and Mt. Sinai. Therefore it was appropriate to give also to that land the holiness of Mount Sinai after the number 49 years, and thus with the number 7. Or in order to make a memorial of the standing at Sinai through the calling of liberty and the blowing of the shofar. This joins to all the other reasons that there is to this mitzvah. Therefore it was said on Mount Sinai, and this is the correct meaning.