📜 Daily Chumash & Rashi Parshas Behar Bechukosaiy Sheiyni: Sustenance during years of Shemitah

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Shelishi (Sheiyni when connected to Bechukosai)

  1. Sustenance during years of Shemitah:
  • The land will give plentiful of produce and you will eat to satisfaction and dwell securely on it. Now, if you ask “What shall we eat in the 7th year if we cannot sow the land or harvest our grain” I promise you my blessing to support the Jewish people during Shemitah year by making the 6th year grow plenty of produce. You will sow in the 8th year and still eat from the 7th years produce until the new crop arrives in the 9th
  1. Selling and redeeming ancestral fields:
  • A property of ancestral heritage may not be sold eternally, for it belongs to Hashem. It is rather to be redeemed.

 Revi’i

  • Redeeming: If one becomes poor and sells his plot of ancestral heritage then his relative is to come to his aid and redeem it. If a relative cannot redeem it, and the original owner comes to redeem it, then he is to pay the buyer in accordance to the amount of years remaining towards his lease.
  • Returns by Yovel: If he is unable to redeem it, then the property is to remain in the hands of the buyer until the Yovel, and in the Yovel year it is to be returned to its owner.

📘 Rashi Q&A — Vayikra 25:19–28

25:19 — Blessing of the Land

Q1. What does “וְנָתְנָה הָאָרֶץ פִּרְיָהּ” promise?

A: The land will yield its produce without fear of drought.

 

Q2. What does “וַאֲכַלְתֶּם לָשָׂבַע” add?

A: Even the food within one’s body will be blessed—it will be miraculously satisfying and filling.

 

Q3. What does “וִישַׁבְתֶּם לָבֶטַח עָלֶיהָ” mean?

A: You will dwell securely, without anxiety over sustenance.

 

25:20 — The People’s Question

Q4. What concern is expressed by “וְכִי תֹאמְרוּ”?

A: The people will worry about what they will eat in the seventh year, since they cannot sow or harvest.

 

Q5. What does “וְלֹא נֶאֱסֹף” mean?

A: They cannot gather produce into the house.

 

Q6. What is included in “תְּבוּאָתֵנוּ”?

A: Wine, tree‑fruit, and crops that grow on their own.

 

25:21 — Triple Blessing

Q7. What does “וְצִוִּיתִי אֶת בִּרְכָתִי” teach?

A: God explicitly commands the blessing—it is not natural.

 

Q8. What does “לִשְׁלֹשׁ הַשָּׁנִים” mean?

A: The produce of the sixth year suffices for:

  • the remainder of year 6
  • all of year 7
  • part of year 8, until the new crop appears

 

25:22 — Eating Old Produce

Q9. How long will the old produce last?

A: Until Sukkot of the ninth year, when the crops of the eighth year are gathered indoors.

 

 

Q10. When can a single year produce for four years?

A: When the sixth year precedes both a sabbatical year and the Jubilee year—two years with no sowing.

 

25:23 — Permanence of the Land

Q11. What is prohibited by “וְהָאָרֶץ לֹא תִמָּכֵר”?

A: Selling land permanently, without returning it in the Jubilee.

 

Q12. What does “לִצְמִתֻת” mean?

A: A sale fixed for severance, i.e., in perpetuity.

 

Q13. Why does God say “כִּי לִי הָאָרֶץ”?

A: To teach that the land belongs to God, not to human owners.

 

Q14. What does “גֵרִים וְתוֹשָׁבִים אַתֶּם עִמָּדִי” imply?

A: Even native Israelites are merely sojourners on God’s land.

 

25:24 — Redemption Everywhere

Q15. What is added by “וּבְכֹל אֶרֶץ אֲחֻזַּתְכֶם”?

A:

  • Midrashically: redemption laws include houses and Hebrew bondmen.
  • Plain meaning: the seller or his relatives may redeem the land, and the buyer cannot prevent it.

 

25:25 — Redeeming Land

Q16. What does “כִּי יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ” teach?

A: A person may sell his land only due to poverty.

 

Q17. What limitation is learned from “מֵאֲחֻזָּתוֹ”?

A: He sells part of his land, not all of it—proper conduct requires retaining some.

 

Q18. What does “וְגָאַל” imply about the buyer?

A: The buyer cannot prevent redemption by the seller’s relative.

 

25:26 — Self‑Redemption

Q19. Who is meant by “אֵין לוֹ גֹּאֵל”?

A: A redeemer who is financially capable—not the absence of relatives entirely.

 

25:27 — Calculating Redemption

Q20. How is the redemption price calculated?

A: Based on the number of years and crops already consumed until the Jubilee.

 

Q21. What is “וְהֵשִׁיב אֶת הָעֹדֵף”?

A: The seller returns the excess payment beyond the value of crops already eaten.

 

Q22. To whom is the payment returned?

A: To the current purchaser, by the original seller redeeming the field.

 

25:28 — Failed Redemption

Q23. What does “דֵּי הָשִׁיב לוֹ” teach?

A: Redemption may not be done in installments—only full repayment.

 

Q24. What does “עַד שְׁנַת הַיּוֹבֵל” imply?

A: The land cannot remain with the buyer into the Jubilee year; release occurs at its start.

About The Author

Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein is a 6th generation descendent of the famous Chief Rabbi of Izhmir, Rav Yehoshua Avraham Krispin, who authored a number of Sefarim, and was a colleague of Rav Chaim Falagi, and father in-law of the Pesach Hadvir. He currently lives with his wife Shayna, and twelve children K”H, in Tzfas, Israel. Rabbi Goldstein received Semicha from Rabbi Schneur Zalman Labkowski of the Tomchei Temimim headquarters in 2005 and served as a chaplain in the Lotar/Kalatz and K9 unit of the IDF from years 2005-2008. He is also a certified Shochet, and has performed Hashgacha work in slaughterhouses. Rabbi Goldstein is the director of Shulchanaruchharav.com, the world’s leading web-based Halacha database, and is the director of the Home Study Semicha Program, a self-study web-based Semicha program. He is a prolific author of over 50 Sefarim studied by a wide range of readers throughout the world, which is used regularly in Semicha programs around the globe. He is a world renowned Posek, answering questions to a web-based market, and serves as a local Posek, Rav, and Lecturer, in the Tzemach Tzedek community Shul in Tzefas, Israel. His many classes can be heard both from his website, Vimeo and YouTube channel. Students can join live to classes given in the Tzemach Tzedek Shul, through the “בית חבד צפת Chabad Tsfat” YouTube channel.

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