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Shmini Shel Pesach
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו 

Connecting to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

"May it be Your will HaShem our God and God of our Fathers that that You raise us in joy to our Land and establish us in our boundaries, and there we shall fulfil the the mitzvot of trumot and maasrot and all the commandments of the Land that You have given to our Fathers, a Land flowing with milk and honey..." (Prayer after Blessing on Trees in Nissan)

Spring heralds a new recognition of God's mastery over creation, renewing our senses in the natural world along with the renewal of our People in the 'Month of Spring' on Pesah. Indeed, the renewal of Jewish settlement in Hebron began about 45 years ago on Pesah. In addition, the culmination of the halachic agricultural cycle culminates and begins again on the last day of Pesah.

According to Halacha on the fourth and seventh (shmita) year of the Shmita cycle on the last day of Pesah one is to conduct 'biur maasrot', the consummation of maasrot of the years before. Practically, this means that one is to take any coins used to defile the value of maser sheni upon them and destroy them or discard them to the sea (flush down the toilet). Ideally, when the Bais HaMikdash is standing these coins should have been taken to Jerusalem and used to buy produce to be eaten in the boundaries of sanctified Jerusalem. However, today we continue to defile the value of maser sheni produce on coins Rabbinically, and since we cannot use these coins in their ideal state, but with the same token also cannot preserve them past the fore-mentioned halachic agricultural cycle (which ends on the fourth and seventh year), therefore we must destroy or discard them according to Halacha. Afterwards, one is to proclaim a general declaration on the fulfillment of the laws of the Land in regard to trumot and maasrot as found in the beginning of parshat Ki Tavo.

Our Sages explain that the reason this declaration of parshat Ki Tavo is to be mentioned on Pesah is because the Torah uses in context of this declaration the word 'miketz' - the culmination, which, by inference, is tied to the Festival-'Regel' which also uses the term 'miketz'. Since after Succos people still gather produce of the trees, our Sages inferred that it cannot be called such a 'culmination' and cessation of the previous cycle, and therefore one must wait to declare til Pesah, when trees blossom anew in differentiation of the previous cycle. In this way, we can link the name of this week's parsha in the Land of Israel, Shmini,  which refers to Rosh Hodesh Nissan - the eighth day of the Miluim ceremony,  to the reading of the Diaspora on Shmini/Last Day of Pesah.

On Rosh Hodesh Nissan the custom is to bless upon the blossoming of trees of the new season, and the Last Day of Pesah is also linked to the ending of the previous season with the commencement of the new season with the declaration fore-mentioned. This is Hebron, the uniting link between worlds, the bridge between the Holy Land and the Diaspora.

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #114:

"We once had a problem with a mouse infestation in our house. Even though we put traps, etc. nothing helped. Once, someone told us of a segula of hanging a picture of a particular tsaddik to remove mice and other pests. Since we are not so keen on segulas, we decided to contemplate what is special about this tzadik. We were told that this tzadik was particularly careful about theft and all its permutations. We therefore, started to doo a 'heshbon hanefesh'  to see how we could be more careful with the possesions and money of others. As we did such, immediately a mouse entered the trap and got caught..."

Sources: Rashi p. Ki Tavo on Declaration of Trumot and Maasrot

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