06 October 2011

Boundary between material and non-material

The sova point describes the boundary between the material and the non-material worlds. 
The logic of the world's resources is that excess exhausts the fertile core. People need to stay within the bounds of the sova point (or perhaps we should call it the sova area or sova domain) to make sure they are able to sustain themselves over the long term. 
Mankind is so designed and constructed by its Creator that the world is sufficient to sustain Man so long as Man respects the sova limits. That is the meaning of God's promising (in the odd locution of Leviticus 25:21) to instruct His blessings to those who would respect His sabbaticals. Sufficiency and abundance is guaranteed by the stewardship of the fertile core. This relationship between sova and the productivity of the fertile core is a fundamental relationship, quintessentially ecological in character, that could not be couched in non-ecological terms. 
The instruction of 3:25:21 refers to the design of His blessings so as to operate in such a manner that sova guarantees sufficiency and abundance. 
According to that reading, a mitzvah is the specification of a design. It is an instruction that determines the shape of something which then needs to be implemented. Violating the sova design means that an excess of consumption implies the starvation of the fertile core. 

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