Behar Bechukotai

This week’s Parsha, the double portion Behar-Bechukotai, begins with the laws of Shemitah.  “…the land shall observe a Sabbath of the lord.  Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield.  But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest... (Leviticus 25:2-4).
This idea of of working for 6 years in order to take care of our needs, but resting on the seventh is a direct parallel to the idea of Sabbath.  With the weekly Sabbath, we are told that for six days you may work, but the seventh day of the week we must cease to work.
In regards to Sabbath, in order to have a pleasant/restful day, a lot of work has to be done in preparation.  We have to prepare our food before the seventh day begins, prepare the house, prepare ourselves; all this work needs to be done in order for a positive Shabbat experience to occur.  Once the seventh day begins, we are no longer permitted to do any work.  Similarly, with the shemittah laws, in order for the people to survive the sabbatical year, they had to have been preparing for it the six previous years.
The notion of working for a designated amount of time in order to be prepared for something later becomes a very important idea in Jewish mysticism and how the mystics understand the idea of the relationship between this world and the world to come.  Some Jewish mystical traditions understand the duration of the world to be 7000 years long.  For 6000 years the world is preparing itself, and during the 7000th year, the world will reap the benefits of the work done in the previous 6000 years.  Whether we understand these years to be literal or not, the idea is a direct parallel to the Sabbath of the week and the Sabbath of the land.
Our job in this world is not to be primarily focused on the short-term, instant benefit of our work.  Everything we do should be viewed as an investment for the long-term benefit of the world, and ourselves as inhabitants of that world.  As you reap, so shall you sow.  The way in which we view the purpose and benefit of the work we do in our lives should always reflect the idea that we need to prepare the future, and not just be motivated by our own selfish short term benefit.  This idea is integral to the Jewish experience of space and time, as reflected in the laws of how treat the land (the shemittah – agricultural sabbatical), and how we treat the working week (the weeky Sabbath).  Judaism teaches us to think about preparing ourselves and our world for long term sustenance.