Parshas Re'eh
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
You may not know this, but this year in the Land of Israel starting from Rosh HaShanah (September 7th) is a Shemittah year … and it makes life in Israel very interesting.
Shemittah (lit. "release" or “cancellation”, also called the Sabbatical year, or Shevi’is, lit. "seventh") is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel, and still observed by many Jews until this very day.
The mitzvah of the Shemittah year can be found in Parshas Behar, Leviticus 25:1-7; and in Parshas Mishpatim, Exodus 23:10-12. During Shemittah, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden by Halachah (Jewish law). Other cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing) may be performed as a preventative measure only, not to improve the growth of trees or other plants. Additionally, any fruits which grow of their own accord are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of Shemittah produce.
[Another lesser-known but equally important part of the mitzvah of Shemittah - which can be found in this week’s Torah portion, Parshas Re’eh, Deuteronomy 15:1-2,9 - is called Shemittas Kesafim, the “cancellation of loans”. The Torah commands a lender to cancel all loans that had become due before the end of the Shemittah year once Shemittah ends. At that time, he must give up his claim to money that is owed him and he is forbidden to demand it from the borrower. However, because of these laws, there is a concern that people might refrain from lending money for fear that they will be unable to recover it after Shemittah. The Torah, therefore, prohibits one to turn away a borrower for this reason. A device known as prozbul was instituted by Hillel, which allows loans to be collected without violating the Shemittah laws. The laws regarding the cancellation of loans on Shemittah are not limited to the Land of Israel, but apply everywhere.]
One can only imagine what it must have been like in an agrarian society like Israel where most of the population farmed and cultivated crops for a living. What incredible faith and trust must the Jews have had to be able to “release” their hold on their farmlands and crops for one full year and rely on G-d’s blessing to support them (and to release their hold on all monies owed to them as well).
Indeed, the Midrash in Vayikra Rabbah teaches us that the verse in Tehillim “… the strong warriors who do His bidding, to obey the voice of His word” (Psalms 103:20), especially refers to those who faithfully uphold the agricultural restrictions of the Sabbatical year. Since G-d commanded that the land lie fallow for one full year, these farmers willingly allow their property to go to waste, despite the fact that they must pay taxes on the property which they cannot use. Because the devout man accepts all this with serene faith, he merits the title strong warrior.
Now maybe in our times when many Jews in Israel make their livelihood through other means (such as “hi-tech”), it’s not such an issue. However, for most of our history, Jews in Israel made their living by farming the land. And even today there are a great number of orchards, farms and agricultural companies across the land producing every imaginable kind of fruit, vegetable and grain, making the Shemittah year a tremendous challenge and test of faith.
In the late 19th century, in the early days of Zionism, the great Jewish leader Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spector ZT”L and other rabbinical authorities came up with a Halachic means of allowing agriculture to continue during the Shemittah year, in order to help all the Jewish immigrant farmers who might well have starved had they not worked the land for the entire year.
After ruling that the biblical prohibition consists of not cultivating the land owned by Jews, Rabbi Spector devised a mechanism by which the entire Land of Israel could be sold to an Arab for the duration of that year under a trust agreement. Under this plan, the land would belong to the non-Jew for the Shemittah year and revert to Jewish ownership when the year was over. When the land was sold under such an arrangement, Jews could continue to farm it. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook ZT”L, the first Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, adopted this principle, which became known as the heter mechirah (lit. "sale permit").
The heter mechirah was accepted by Modern Orthodox Judaism and is practiced in Israel till this very day. The Chief Rabbinate obtains permission from all farmers who wish to have their land sold. The land is then legally sold to a non-Jew for a large sum of money. The payment is made by a cheque post-dated to after the end of the Sabbatical year. When the cheque is returned or not honoured at the end of the year the land reverts to its original owners. Thus, the fields can be farmed with certain restrictions.
[Can you imagine the phone call Achmed makes to his wife when he’s driving home from the meeting with the Chief Rabbis? …“Fatima, you’re not going to believe this, but remember those crazy rabbis who sold me all their expensive scotch for a pittance back in April? Well today they just sold me the entire Land of Israel!! Do you hear me?? The entire freakin’ country!!"]
However, it is important to note that the heter mechirah has not been universally accepted in the Orthodox community and has met with strong opposition, particularly from Chareidi (so-called “ultra-Orthodox”) poskim (authorities of Jewish law).
They maintain that the heter mechirah cannot be used for a variety of reasons, primarily the fact that one is Biblically forbidden to sell any part of the Land of Israel to a non-Jew (see Deuteronomy 7:2 and Talmud Bavli Tractate Avodah Zarah 20a).
As well, they view the sale of the land as somewhat ‘fictitious’. When, prior to Shemittah, a contract is drawn up and signed between the representative of the landowners and a non-Jew, selling him all of the fields and orchards in Israel, there is no one who believes even for a moment that it is a normal transaction. For financial, social, and ideological reasons the owners would never part with their land under these circumstances; the sale is clearly but a legal device to side-step a prohibition.
Additionally, the economic situation is far better today than it was in the late 1800’s when Rabbi Spector first applied the heter mechirah under extenuating circumstances, and therefore they say that the heter should not be relied upon today.
So, as I said before, the upcoming Shemittah year will likely be very interesting indeed … never a dull moment in the Land of Israel!
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=676