When someone points out a non-sequitor to a speaker, they tend to ask: What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China!?! Besides informing that speaker that they’ve lost the thread of their presentation, we’re also declaring that ‘tea’ is indeed dear in China. That final point is important and we’ll return to it later, but first let’s discuss our famous Jewish declaration that the speaker has lost their way: 

What has SHMITTA (the Sabbatical Year) got to do with Har Sinai? (Midrash Sifra, Behar 1:1 and Rashi, Vayikra 25:1).

The Midrash is screaming: But weren’t all the Mitzvot given on Har Sinai!?! Well, yes and no. But that’s not the point. The Midrash and, later, Rashi are demanding to know the connection between the Mitzvah of Shmittah and the Epiphany at Sinai, which we will be commemorating in a couple of weeks.

 There are a plethora of responses to this query. Rashi, himself, gives the famous explanation that, indeed, all the Mitzvot were transmitted at Sinai with all their general rules and minute details. 

There is a school of thought (led by the Ibn Ezra) that our material is a case of ‘There isn’t always chronological order in the Torah’. We are bringing this material which was taught before all the other material in Vayikra here, because: Until now........

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