The significance of being present
Shabbat Shalom to all our readers.
HOW often do we allow the present to slip away while worrying about the past, or fantasising about the future? While at work we think about the holidays, when we are on vacation we think about the work we’re missing out on. We replay in our minds silly events we’ve done, or cringe at stupid things we’ve said. Living in the moment is a much sought-after trait. However, controlling the emotions to be purposely present is hard to find.
This year is a sh’mitah year – Jews throughout Israel are adhering to the laws such as closing down commercial farms and renouncing ownership of the produce. Parshat Behar begins by offering a detailed description of the sh’mitah laws, conveying how to keep the sabbatical year with all its details. Juxtaposing the laws of sh’mitah with Mount Sinai, mentioned in the opening to our parasha, Rashi stresses the incredible importance this mitzvah imparts to the rest of Judaism. The lessons of sh’mitah teach us how to live a life filled with meaning and be present in our lives.
In referencing the commandment of sh’mitah, the Torah uses the phrase “Shabbat LaHashem”, that the year shall be a year of Shabbat for God. Thus it seems that the central theme of the sh’mitah year is the same as Shabbat, but on a broader scale. On Shabbat we are commanded to take a day off completely, as daunting as that may be. Yet in the year of sh’mitah, we are commanded to take an entire year off, dropping everything for a full year! Keeping it properly then is a huge test of faith, founded on values where spirituality ranks higher than things like the pursuit of wealth, especially for an agricultural-based society. Ibn Ezra suggests that the year of sh’mitah, therefore, is not meant to be a lazy year, but similar to the day of Shabbat, it must be a year dedicated to spirituality. The lesson seems to be, God wants us to live a divine-centric, non-naturalistic life.
Ironically, the Torah’s description of sh’mitah leads us to an inherent paradox in this understanding. The verses do not begin with “observe the sh’mitah every seventh year”. Rather the Torah prefaces that command with “Six years you shall work and on the seventh you shall rest.” If the epitome of spirituality is transcending the world, why is the Torah confining this idealistic and higher way of life to only one year? If we are meant to rise above the natural law, how are we allowed to work the fields in the other six years? If we were meant to transcend nature why limit it to a year and if we are not, then why have it at all?
The Torah does not value one method of service to the exclusion of the other. Chassidic thought teaches that both modes of living are important and can simultaneously exist in our modes of service to God. We are meant to live in the natural world and operate in its system. Yet, at the same time not be dictated by it, tuned into the Godly reality, where only God exists. Sh’mitah embodies the ability to fuse physicality and spirituality. It is only observed every seven years to express how God wants us to be mainly involved in the natural world. Meditating all day in the Himalayas and negating the world is not what God has in mind for us. We must spend our lives making this world a dwelling place for God in the physical plane. At the same time, however, we must internalise the purpose of all this work. We must internalise a deeper awareness of God and extend it into the six years of working the land. We are commanded by God to serve Him in a way that unites heaven and earth through applying the central theme of sh’mitah to every aspect of our day-to-day lives.
Being present is not a reward that you do when you are on holiday, or experience only on Shabbat after a hard week at work when your responsibilities in life have been put on hold for a day. Being present is a specific choice we make to be in a healthy state of mind 24/7; it is a daily choice we make to bring purpose to our entire life. Sh’mitah teaches us how to develop our self-awareness, settle into the moment and awaken us to how unique and valuable our lives are. To see each day as an opportunity to be present in our lives, never having to dwell on fantasies that can’t happen.
Cairns-based Rabbi Ari and Mushkie Rubin head Chabad of the Great Barrier Reef – North Queensland.
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