 | Our agricultural ancestors knew much that we do not. They knew in their bones that life depends on nature's balance and on our mutual dependence. And they understood, better than us moderns, that physical life and spiritual life are profoundly intertwined. We'd do well to learn the secrets they knew. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
P. Behar-Behukotai (2025)
"There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." – Mahatma (Mohandas K.) Gandhi
Gandhi's wisdom found its way to Gates of Freedom, the great Isaac Stern's 1980s Passover haggadah from the Reform Movement. Stern understood that Passover's "All who hunger, let them come and eat [at our seder]" was no mere aphorism, but a pivotal expression of core Jewish values inspired by our ancestral story of liberation from suffering.
Alongside Gandhi's words appeared Judaism's 2000-year-old version of the same idea, from Pirkei Avot 3:17: אִם אֵין קֶמַח, אֵין תּוֹרָה / im ein kemah ein Torah – "If there's no flour [for bread], then there can't be Torah."
I understand these deep truths in several ways, all bearing on this week's Torah portion about how we treat the planet, and how it treats us.
Over 3,000 years ago – long before modern biology, chemistry and agriculture – Torah taught that even the land must rest and recharge. One year out of seven, the land must honor a year-long shabbat (shmittah) – laying fallow, unplanted, regathering her vitality (Lev. 25:2-4). But meanwhile, what were our ancestors to eat? Torah answered directly (Lev. 25:20-22):
P. Behar-Behukotai (2025)
"There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." – Mahatma (Mohandas K.) Gandhi
Gandhi's wisdom found its way to Gates of Freedom, the great Isaac Stern's 1980s Passover haggadah from the Reform Movement. Stern understood that Passover's "All who hunger, let them come and eat [at our seder]" was no mere aphorism, but a pivotal expression of core Jewish values inspired by our ancestral story of liberation from suffering.
Alongside Gandhi's words appeared Judaism's 2000-year-old version of the same idea, from Pirkei Avot 3:17: אִם אֵין קֶמַח, אֵין תּוֹרָה / im ein kemah ein Torah – "If there's no flour [for bread], then there can't be Torah."
I understand these deep truths in several ways, all bearing on this week's Torah portion about how we treat the planet, and how it treats us.
Over 3,000 years ago – long before modern biology, chemistry and agriculture – Torah taught that even the land must rest and recharge. One year out of seven, the land must honor a year-long shabbat (shmittah) – laying fallow, unplanted, regathering her vitality (Lev. 25:2-4). But meanwhile, what were our ancestors to eat? Torah answered directly (Lev. 25:20-22):
| וְכִ֣י תֹאמְר֔וּ מַה־נֹּאכַ֖ל בַּשָּׁנָ֣ה הַשְּׁבִיעִ֑ת הֵ֚ן לֹ֣א נִזְרָ֔ע וְלֹ֥א נֶאֱסֹ֖ף אֶת־ תְּבוּאָתֵֽנוּ׃ וְצִוִּ֤יתִי אֶת־בִּרְכָתִי֙ לָכֶ֔ם בַּשָּׁנָ֖ה הַשִּׁשִּׁ֑ית וְעָשָׂת֙ אֶת־הַתְּבוּאָ֔ה לִשְׁלֹ֖שׁ הַשָּׁנִֽים׃ וּזְרַעְתֶּ֗ם אֵ֚ת הַשָּׁנָ֣ה הַשְּׁמִינִ֔ת וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֖ם מִן־הַתְּבוּאָ֣ה יָשָׁ֑ן עַ֣ד הַשָּׁנָ֣ה הַתְּשִׁיעִ֗ת עַד־בּוֹא֙ תְּב֣וּאָתָ֔הּ תֹּאכְל֖וּ יָשָֽׁן׃ | Should you ask, “What will we 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 it will yield enough crop for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating old grain of that crop; you will eat the old until the ninth year until its crops come. |
Torah promised that the people wouldn't starve. And we know historically that our ancestors actually observed this shmittah practice for many hundreds of years – so therefore we know that they didn't starve.
But they easily could have. In pre-modern Mediterranean climates, cycles of drought and famine were hard baked into society and history. For our spiritual ancestors to let the earth rest one year out of seven, trusting the sufficiency of food when hard experience surely taught them otherwise, required profound faith.
In the 1960s, Jewish psychologist Abraham Maslow taught that humanity's natural hierarchy of needs places spirituality and self-actualization at the top of a pyramid whose base is our physical needs of survival and safety. Without security and minimal affluence, Maslow taught, human attention tends to focus on base matters, immediacy and avoidance of risk.
Yet the shmittah cycle suggests the opposite. Even amidst life's fragility and the ever-present fear of famine, our spiritual ancestors put faith first. Apparently ein kemah ein Torah meant more than needing to get folks fed before they could have faith.
Not despite but precisely because of life's inherent fragility, our ancestors put faith first. They knew, in ways that many of us moderns do not, that the happenstances of life – feast or famine, health or illness, popularity or also-ran – are but earthly conditions for our truest spiritual selves
It's relatively easy to be an armchair philosopher, to live spiritually, to count our blessings, when blessings are abundant. It's when the going gets tough that the journey of spiritual life becomes most meaningful – not because religion is merely to comfort the afflicted, but because ultimately we all are spiritual creatures.
Put another way, maybe our hunger – bellies empty, or bellies full but minds troubled or hearts yearning, are subtle pointers to remind us who we really are, and the best we can be.
But they easily could have. In pre-modern Mediterranean climates, cycles of drought and famine were hard baked into society and history. For our spiritual ancestors to let the earth rest one year out of seven, trusting the sufficiency of food when hard experience surely taught them otherwise, required profound faith.
In the 1960s, Jewish psychologist Abraham Maslow taught that humanity's natural hierarchy of needs places spirituality and self-actualization at the top of a pyramid whose base is our physical needs of survival and safety. Without security and minimal affluence, Maslow taught, human attention tends to focus on base matters, immediacy and avoidance of risk.
Yet the shmittah cycle suggests the opposite. Even amidst life's fragility and the ever-present fear of famine, our spiritual ancestors put faith first. Apparently ein kemah ein Torah meant more than needing to get folks fed before they could have faith.
Not despite but precisely because of life's inherent fragility, our ancestors put faith first. They knew, in ways that many of us moderns do not, that the happenstances of life – feast or famine, health or illness, popularity or also-ran – are but earthly conditions for our truest spiritual selves
It's relatively easy to be an armchair philosopher, to live spiritually, to count our blessings, when blessings are abundant. It's when the going gets tough that the journey of spiritual life becomes most meaningful – not because religion is merely to comfort the afflicted, but because ultimately we all are spiritual creatures.
Put another way, maybe our hunger – bellies empty, or bellies full but minds troubled or hearts yearning, are subtle pointers to remind us who we really are, and the best we can be.
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