Drash – B’har B’chukotai

Cantor Toby Glaser

North Shore Temple Emanuel

Cantor Toby Glaser- B’har B’chukotai

In our double parsha this week, B’har B’chukotai we explore further laws and teachings imparted to Moses on Mt Sinai with the Israelites camped nearby. Adonai offers instructions on agricultural processes, festival observances, and many mitzvot around morality and the treatment of others. One of the central statutes which is explored is the concept of the Sabbath for the land. The sidrah recounts, “Six years may you 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 the eternal: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.” (Leviticus 25:3-4). The idea of rest for our crops may seem unnecessary to our modern models of farming, but the idea that the plant world also observes rest has become more evident through contemporary research.

Recently I was listening to a podcast with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and scientist Michael Pollan about plants and consciousness, and was fascinated by their discoveries. Pollan explains,

“There’s a group of scientists — botanists… And they do all these experiments to see how intelligent plants are, how much they can respond and solve problems. They’ve also done experiments to try to determine if they’re conscious  or I would use the word “sentient,” which is more reasonable. Although they will use the word “conscious.”… One of the experiments these guys did was to take anaesthetics that work on humans… If you take a carnivorous plant, or a sensitive plant, like Mimosa pudica — a tropical plant that collapses its leaves if you touch it  and you give it xenon, or any number of other anaesthetics that work on us, they won’t react. There will be a period where they appear to be asleep, and then they’ll regain their ability. So it is like one thing when the plants are awake, and it is like something else when they’re not  or it’s no longer like anything. But the switch in state is very much like consciousness.”

The idea that plants have at least two states of being, when they are aware or reactive, and non-reactive, implies some kind of resting state. Our parsha acknowledges this link with the natural world, that even our fields and crops need rest and that a period of rejuvenation is necessary for any living organism. As humans we have the blessing of Shabbat, to restore our souls each week, but the patterns of fauna, with their slow cycles of growth and decay, have this holy observance once every seven years.

As we continue to learn about the dangers of overfarming, rapid population growth and water shortages, the idea of a Sabbath for the land shows us that perhaps there were practical reasons for the Sabbath of the land, that crops would perform better if the land was allowed to lie fallow for a year, but it also acknowledges that our ancestors understood that our existence is always tied to our own natural world. In this time of climate change– increased dangers of crop failures and disruptive weather events, the relationship between our agricultural needs and respect for the land which provides our sustenance becomes ever more urgent.

Our concept of unity and God’s omnipresence doesn’t just relate to humanity, but rather the idea that we are all connected by the act and ongoing process of creation and natural order which is the basis of all life on earth. The fact that our own laws acknowledge the need for respect and care for the natural world and its cycles reinforces the wisdom of our ancestors and Tikkun Olam not just as a moral imperative between people, but rather as an interconnected and integral part of the holiness of the natural world and the importance to care for our planet as a Jewish imperative.