This week's portion, Behar,

contains the laws of Shemita, the commandment to allow the holy land of Israel to lie fallow every seventh year.

"When you come into the land which I give you...six years shall you sow your field...but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath for the L-rd: your field you shall not sow, and your vineyard you shall not prune."

As reward for this mitzva (commandment), G-d promises to provide the Jewish people with sustenance in overwhelming abundance, more than enough to compensate for their cessation of labour for an entire year.

"And if you should say, 'What will we eat in the seventh year? For behold, we are not permitted to sow, and we cannot gather in our harvest,' then will I command My blessing to you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth a harvest for three years."

During the sixth year, sufficient crops will be harvested to last throughout the sixth, seventh, and even eighth year of the cycle.

Symbolically, the sixth year of the Shemita cycle alludes to the six thousand years of the world's existence; the seventh year alludes to the Messianic Era.

The service of the Jewish people throughout the first six thousand years has served to ready the world for the ultimate Sabbath of the seventh millennium, when peace and tranquillity will reign triumphant.

We find ourselves now at the end of the six thousand year period. "What will we eat during the seventh year?" we ask.

How can our lowly generation, which is on an infinitely lower spiritual level than that of our forefathers, possibly bring about the Final Redemption?

G-d reassures us that we need not worry: "I will command My blessing to you in the sixth year," we are promised.

G-d has endowed our generation with special strengths and abilities, for despite our spiritual poverty, we have a merit previous generations did not - that extra measure of self- sacrifice necessary for preserving the spark of Jewishness throughout the darkness of the exile.

This special power has been granted precisely to our generation, the last generation of exile and the first of Redemption, in order to prepare the world and sow the seeds of the great revelation of G-dliness about to begin.

When Moshiach comes, speedily in our day, G-d's promise to "bring forth a harvest for three years" will find ultimate fulfilment in the three distinct phases of the Final Redemption: the Messianic Era, the Resurrection of the Dead, and the seventh millennium itself.

Adapted from Likutei Sichot of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Vol 27