I will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years.
Vakikra 25:21
Godfried Bomans (1913-1971), a famous modern Dutch author, tells the story of a businessman in Texas who suddenly had a brainstorm that made him world famous, but also controversial, and ultimately brought him to bankruptcy.
This businessman owned a large factory producing identical kinds of furniture. We are all familiar with these kinds of factories. There are hundreds of employees who do nothing but one specific job throughout the entire day. They all stand at a conveyor belt and each does but one repetitive task: One hammers a nail in the wood, the next one adds a screw, another does nothing else but smear glue on the wood, and another attaches the upholstery and so on. By the end of the conveyor belt, a beautiful chair, table, or sofa has been created.
This continued year after year, relates Bomans, until the owner had a brilliant idea. “Why do I need human beings for this work?” he said to himself. “I can train chimpanzees to do the same jobs; they are intelligent enough to perform these tasks. I can fire all my employees, do away with paying salaries and various associated expenses: pension funds, unemployment, insurances, etc. I’ll need nothing more than a lot of bananas.”
So, he bought a few hundred chimpanzees, trained them, and set them to work. A storm of outrage broke out immediately. The trade unions objected and organized demonstrations. This was all deeply humiliating to the former employees; after all, they had been devalued to the level of apes! (In Holland, people say about foolish people: “Hij staat voor aap,” “he acts like an ape.”) On the other hand, the outrage and demonstrations seem to be a strange reaction. After all, the business owner had saved his employees from a mechanistic existence and restored their humanity.
As it turned out, the chimpanzees did a marvelous job and things progressed smoothly. They produced beautiful furniture, just like the human employees had done. However, this was short-lived. One day the employer entered the factory and saw that matters had gotten completely out of hand. The chimpanzees had gone crazy, destroyed the conveyor belt, were hanging from the ceiling, hammering nails in the walls, and creating total chaos.
The employer was stunned and could not understand what had happened. Why could human beings continue to do these mechanistic tasks year after year without any problems? Why did they, unlike the chimpanzees, not go crazy doing this dehumanizing work?
The challenge of Shemitah
The answer to this can be found in the failure of the ancient Israelites to observe the Shemitah, the seventh, Sabbatical, year. As is well known, during the Shemitah year we are not to work the Land of Israel. We must make its produce “hefker,” “ownerless,” and anybody — poor or rich — can take of the land’s harvest without paying for it.
Most remarkable is the fact that the Torah promises that we need not worry where our food will come from during this year when we may not work the land:
And should you ask: What are we to eat in the seventh year, if we neither sow nor gather in our crops? Then, I [God] will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating the grain of old crop, you will be eating the old until the ninth year, until its crops come in.[1]
This blessing is not applicable today, because most poskim consider the law of Shemitah to be of rabbinical nature, since the majority of Jews are not yet living in the land. We are getting close, and this will create a whole new, blessed, reality, along with challenges for Jewish Law in dealing with a reality we have not merited for thousands of years.
But the remarkable thing is that we know that the Israelites in biblical times often violated Shemitah, and worked the land when the laws and prohibitions of Shemitah were definitely binding by Torah law. Why, then, did they do so? Who would not be most pleased with the offer of taking it easy for an entire year and receiving returns of three hundred percent? Moreover, this “investment” is worry- and risk-free: the 300 percent investment was paid in advance, in the sixth year!
A misguided question
The answer lies in one common question we all ask in polite society. It is a question which goes to the heart of Western civilization: “What do you do?” When we ask this, we mean “What do you do for a living?” The answers we generally get are along the lines of: “I am a businesswoman,” I am an engineer,” or “I am a farmer,” etc. Nearly nobody answers: “I am a parent,” “I am a grandparent,” “I look after my family,” or “I care for my sick parents.” And certainly not, “I am occupied with the deeper/religious meaning in life,” or “I am occupied with how I can become a better, more moral person.”
We answer the question with what we do to earn a living. Not with what we see as our higher task in life. Is this not backwards? It is as if we are not able to transcend our jobs. We have been so indoctrinated by the notion that we are identified by what we do and own, instead of what we are or strive to become.
In this instance, human beings can no longer separate themselves from their jobs; they are their jobs. Therefore, freeing them from their jobs would be a traumatic experience, for this creates an identity crisis. As such, you can offer a human being the highest return of capital, but it will not help because it is not the money that is at stake. It is his very sense of self that is being threatened.
This would seem to be the reason why the Israelites had so much trouble keeping the Shemitah in the days of old, even when they were promised returns of three hundred percent on the harvest of the sixth year. They could have taken a year off and done many other things: relax, read books, learn Torah, do volunteer work … But they were not able to do so, for the absence of their specific occupation made them unbearably uncomfortable, since they felt they were nothing more than their jobs. To take extended time off would have undermined their very identities. They needed the monotony of their work; any prolonged period of relaxation unsettled them.
When we allow ourselves to think in this manner, we lose one of our most important qualities; the capability to transcend monotony, to enjoy variety, to get fully involved in a life that is more than our jobs. Instead, we settle for the monotony so as not to lose our identity. This is a great tragedy.
Overcoming monotony
The ability to transcend monotony is uniquely human. Chimpanzees do not have that capacity, and the reason is obvious. When human beings drive a nail into something that will ultimately become a chair, they do much more than just hammer the nail into the wood. They can already envision the chair at the end of the conveyor belt — a creative human achievement!
In fact, they can see much more: They can see their wives, husbands, and children happy because they are providing the means to sustain them. They can see their daughter getting married, they can see their son studying at a yeshiva or university. They can see a beautiful synagogue/church where people can worship owing to the money they donate, and so on.
When human beings hammer a nail into the wood, they have the capacity to do something extraordinary. It can be a nail with a dream for great things. And so, they can hold out for years, because the monotony is invigorated by a greater vision.
Their jobs do not define them. The job is only a means to something of infinite meaning.
But once they lose this capacity, they indeed become identical to chimpanzees. The monotony has taken them over. There is no longer a dream behind the nail. And so, they continue to work in the Shemitah year, even when God offers them returns of 300 percent in advance.
The real reason for Shemitah is to shake up human beings; to break them out of their monotony. By not working the land, they can prove that they are not defined by their tedium, that they are not chimpanzees, but human beings who are able to aspire to totally different, higher pursuits.
Shemitah is meant to teach people that when they are asked what they do, they will not answer that they are businesspeople etc., but human beings — a husband, a wife, a parent or a child — a seeker of higher values.
They are able to overcome monotony because they remained human beings. Blessed are those who are not chimpanzees! Blessed is the real Shemitah year!
Questions to Ponder
- Is the analogy between human workers and chimpanzees in the context of monotonous labor too reductive? Does this comparison overlook the inherent dignity and creativity that can be found in even the most repetitive tasks, or does it highlight a valid concern about the dehumanizing potential of certain types of work?
- The essay suggests that the inability to transcend one’s job is a tragedy. Is this view universally applicable, or might some people find deep fulfillment and identity in their work, making the distinction between job and identity less clear-cut?
- The essay critiques the Western tendency to define oneself by one’s job rather than by higher pursuits. How does this critique align with the realities of modern society, where economic survival often necessitates prioritizing work, and is it fair to view this prioritization as a loss of humanity? Is this perspective overly idealistic, assuming that all individuals would be able to find meaning and fulfillment in the absence of work, or does it overlook the potential anxiety and loss of purpose that can accompany such a break?
- Rabbi Cardozo suggests that the Israelites’ failure to observe the Shemitah year was due to their inability to detach their identities from their work. Could there be alternative explanations, such as economic pressures or cultural factors, that better explain their reluctance, and how might these factors complicate the essay’s argument?
- How does the concept of Shemitah (literally, “letting go”) challenge conventional notions of identity and purpose? Do you feel that this ancient practice resonates with contemporary concerns about work-life balance and existential fulfillment. What methods have you found that help to cultivate a more expansive sense of selfhood beyond your professional role?
- Rabbi Cardozo sees the Shemitah year as a time for personal growth and renewal. In Israel today, many workplaces try to incorporate elements of “Shemitah” — as it relates to forgiveness of loans and other obligations — during the Shemitah year. What practical ways might you incorporate elements of Shemitah-inspired renewal into your own life?
[1] Vayikra 25:20-22.
