Cycles of Soul—From Shabbat to Shemitah to Sinai - Behar 5778

Let’s begin where the parsha begins: “וידבר ה’ אל משה בהר סיני לאמר…” “And Hashem spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai, saying…” Rashi immediately asks: Why does the Torah specify Har Sinai in this context? Isn’t the entire Torah from Sinai? What’s the Torah trying to emphasize by attaching these particular laws—Shemitah, the sabbatical year—to the mountain? And that’s our first clue: we’re not just being given agricultural guidelines. We’re being invited to climb back to the mountain.