Tanach · Acharonim on Tanach · Or HaChaim · Torah

Or HaChaim on Leviticus 25:6/אור החיים על ויקרא כ״ה:ו׳

אוְהָיְתָה שַׁבַּת וְגוֹ׳. פֵּרוּשׁ, שֶׁלֹּא תֹּאמַר שֶׁיִּהְיֶה מִשְׁפָּטוֹ כִּשְׁאָר שֻׁלְחַן הַגָּבוֹהַּ שֶׁהַכֹּהֲנִים זוֹכִים בּוֹ, אֶלָּא ״לָכֶם״ – לְכֻלְּכֶם יַחַד, כֹּהֲנִים לְוִיִּם יִשְׂרְאֵלִים וְכוּ׳, וְחָזַר וּפֵרַט ״לְךָ״ וְגוֹ׳. וְאִם תֹּאמַר אִם כֵּן לָמָּה נֶאֱמַר ״לָכֶם״, שֶׁלֹּא הָיָה לוֹ לוֹמַר אֶלָּא ״הָאָרֶץ לְאָכְלָה לְךָ״ וְגוֹ׳? וְנִרְאֶה כִּי חָשׁ לוֹמַר בְּדֶרֶךְ זֶה, שֶׁהָיִיתִי אוֹמֵר הַקּוֹדֵם בַּפָּסוּק קוֹדֵם בָּאֲכִילָה, כְּדֶרֶךְ שֶׁאָמְרוּ (ספרי) עֲנִיֶּיךָ וַעֲנִיֵּי עִירְךָ וְגוֹ׳, מִמַּה שֶׁאָמַר הַכָּתוּב (דברים טו:ז) ״כִּי יִהְיֶה בְךָ אֶבְיוֹן״ וְגוֹ׳, לָזֶה קָדַם הַכָּתוּב וְכָלַל כֻּלָּם יַחַד וְאָמַר ״לָכֶם״, שֶׁאֵין גָּדֵר לְאֶחָד יוֹתֵר מֵחֲבֵרוֹ בְּפֵרוֹת שְׁבִיעִית.
1 והיתה שנת הארץ לכם לאכלה, "And the Sabbath-produce of the land shall be for you as food;" The principal reason for this verse is to inform us that contrary to other sacred matters which are restricted to the altar or to the priests, in this instance everybody is entitled to consume what has grown during the seventh year. The Torah then details who are all the people who are included in that permission. You may well ask that in view of this, why did the Torah have to write the word לכם, "to you," which is normally a restrictive word, i.e. "you and no one else?" All the Torah had to write was הארץ לך לאכלה! I suppose the best approach to this is as follows. Normally, I would have expected that whosoever is mentioned in the verse first is first in line for the permission to eat. We have a parallel to this when the Torah legislated the order of priorities when giving charity. In that instance (Deut. 15,7) The Torah lists: "your poor (family members)," followed by "the poor of your town," followed by the people in "your land" (based on Sifri on that verse). To ensure that we do not understand the last half of our verse in the same way as Deut. 15,7 the Torah here first wrote the word לכם to tell us that all people have an equal claim on what grows in the fields during that year.