Rambam Laws of Shmita and Yuval
Hello Rabbi,
Maimonides writes in the Laws of Shemita and Yuval, Chapter 1, in Halacha 1:
It is a positive commandment to rest from working the land and working the trees in the seventh year, as it is said (Leviticus 25:2): “And the land shall keep a sabbath to Me,” and it is said (Exodus 23:13): “In plowing and in harvest you shall rest.” And whoever does any work of working the land or trees in this year has nullified a positive commandment and has transgressed a non-commandment, as it is said (Leviticus 25:4): “Your field shall not be sown, and your vineyard shall not be pruned.”
As you can see, Maimonides chose to quote the verse “in the harvest and in the harvest of
Maimonides believes that the seventh addition is a law passed down to Moses from Sinai, therefore the law of plowing and reaping are taught in terms of the very act of the sabbath itself – plowing is forbidden (apparently by virtue of the act of the Sabbath of the land) and reaping is forbidden.
The question is, how does Maimonides interpret the verse as neither “Ra” nor “R”? Doesn’t he have to be subject to them?
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However, in the third chapter of the halakha, the Maimonides wrote: If there were ten trees inside a house of a hundred or more, whether they did or did not do so, they would plow every house of a hundred for them, ten scattered plantings inside a house of a hundred, they would plow every house of a hundred for them until Rosh Hashanah, and this matter was halakha from Moses from Sinai, etc. And here it is apparently clear that plowing is from the Torah if the Torah did not prohibit it – why did the halakha from Moses from Sinai permit it, but because it was forbidden from the Torah and Hillel came to permit the plowing of plantings until Rosh Hashanah – and it is proven that plowing is prohibited from the Torah!
And therefore?
Therefore, he necessarily demands the literal meaning of the verse, which is also forbidden by the Torah. Therefore, it is impossible to say that the verse was written for convenience, but rather that the Rambam actually learned from it.
No connection. The rule I mentioned does not mean that this is not a halakha from the Torah. It is a halakha from the Torah, but when the Rambam cites a source for it, it is not necessarily the Sage source, or the correct source. It is the source that most expresses or misleads it.
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