From the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai; translation and commentary by Shmuel-Simcha Treister, based on Metok MiDevash
We are instructed to take non-Jewish Canaanite slaves without letting them go free on the 50th year of the Sabbatical cycle.
The Zohar teaches that this is a result of Ham's descendants being cursed to be enslaved due to his transgressing the prohibition to engage in sexual relations with his wife on the Ark and later, revealing his father's nakedness to his brothers Shem and Yafet.
This refers to the earth as a whole and is an allusion to the seventh millennium following the six thousand years described as "eternal rest", a reference to the world to come after physical resurrection has occurred.
By Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Rothenberg Alter; adapted by Binyomin Adilman
A person's nature is to cling to and identify with his possessions; to land more than any other possession. One must then leave his home and set out on the road to Jerusalem for the festival, thus cleaving to the source of his life and spiritual vitality. But one who has no land is loyal only to the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth year-round.
There are three levels of this ascent of the worlds.
First is the Shabbat after six weekdays, when every person
receives an additional soul.
Second is the Shabbat of the Seventh Year, where the land,
corresponding to the sefira of malchut, ascends a level. Third
is the Shabbat of Yovel; the worlds from the sefira of
malchut ascend to the sefira of bina, also called the
World of Freedom.
At the superficial perspective, God is telling us that since He brought us out of slavery, we are really His slaves now. And since He gave us this land we are dwelling on, we are not its owners.
But at a much deeper perspective, we see here that the Torah is telling us that just like the land must go back to its original owner, so will our personal portion of land, our body, go back to the place it came from, back to the earth.
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