11 November 2010

The divine and the mundane are indistinct

The laws of sheviit and the laws of shabbat both ask Man to imitate God. They are moments in time when the divine and the mundane are indistinct along a particular dimension. In shabbat Man interrupts his melakha just as God did. On shabbat neither Man nor God is performing melakha. In sheviit Man interrupts his private property. During the sheviit year neither Man nor God can exclude others from exploiting their property – stocks of land, in God's case; flows of harvest in Man's. 

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