407. If You Buy a Hebrew Slave

May 1959

In The Zohar, BaHar, Rabbi Elazar started, “‘If you buy a Hebrew slave, six years he will work,’ etc. This is so because everyone in Israel who was circumcised has a holy Reshimo [recollection] in him, and he has rest during a Shmita [a once-every-seven-years remission of land-cultivation], for this Shmita is his, to rest in it. This is called ‘the Sabbath of the earth,’ and there is certainly freedom and rest in it. As the Sabbath is rest for everyone, it is rest for everyone, rest for the spirit and rest for the body.”

We should understand why specifically one who was circumcised has rest on the Shmita, and what it means that there is rest for the body, too, on the Shmita. We should also understand what is written in Midrash Tanchuma, “And who is like you, your brother, and a staff in his hand?”

This is the meaning of the words, “Do not rob a meager for he is meager, for the Lord will fight their quarrels.” The Creator said, “Do not rob a meager for he is meager, for I have made him meager. One who robs him or scorns him despite his Maker, it is as though he scorns Me.”