ספר ויקרא

Leviticus 25,2. “the land shall rest, a ‘Sabbath’ for the ‎Lord.” In order to understand the meaning of the line “the ‎land will rest for G’d,” we must refer to Exodus 31,13 ‎ואתה דבר אל ‏בני ישראל ....את שבתותי תשמורו‎ “as for you, tell the Children of ‎Israel to observe My Sabbath days, etc.‎‏"‏‎ According to the ‎writings of the Ari z’al, in the Tur, 242 on hilchot ‎Shabbat we find the following: [not in my edition, ‎Ed.] “while in Egypt, Moses argued with Pharaoh, ‎suggesting that if he wanted to increase the productivity of the ‎Jewish slaves he should allow them one day of rest each week, this ‎day to be the Sabbath.” [It is not clear if Pharaoh accepted ‎the suggestion. Ed.]‎When the Torah commanded the Jewish people to rest on the ‎Sabbath, Moses felt happy for having been the one who had ‎already suggested this while he was in Egypt. He considered ‎himself as having had a share in this legislation. [Probably ‎this is meant when we say in our Sabbath prayers in the morning ‎ישמח משה במתנת חלקו‎, “Moses may rejoice having received his ‎share (of the Sabbath).”Ed.]‎This is the reason why the Torah writes: ‎אתה דבר...את שבתתתי ‏תשמרו‎, “you tell the Children of Israel you are to observe My ‎Sabbath days.” The Jewish people were to appreciate that the ‎Sabbath rest, even though they may have enjoyed it in Egypt, ‎was not to be a physical rest from the labours of the week, but ‎was something decreed by G’d, to bring them closer to Him. ‎Seeing that it had been Moses who was responsible for their relief ‎on that day in Egypt, it had to be he who told them that the ‎Sabbath now assumed an entirely different dimension.‎A similar, non-terrestrial dimension also underlies the ‎legislation of the sh’mittah year introduced in our chapter. ‎The land does not have to rest for reasons of being “tired.” The ‎land which had served man during the preceding six years, having ‎been at man’s disposal, will take out a year and revert to being at ‎G’d’s disposal, so to speak.‎