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Sabbatical year (Bible)
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Shmita (literally "release"), also called the Sabbatical Year, is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel, and still observed in contemporary Judaism.
During Shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity—including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting—is forbidden by Torah 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 plants.
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Shmita (literally "release"), also called the Sabbatical Year, is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel, and still observed in contemporary Judaism.
During Shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity—including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting—is forbidden by Torah 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 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 Shmita produce. A second aspect of Shmita concerns debts and loans. When the Shmita year ends, personal debts are considered nullified and forgiven. The Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita and makes observance a test of religious faith.
Biblical references
Shmita is mentioned several times in the Bible:
- Book of Exodus: "You may plant your land for six years and gather its crops. But during the seventh year, you must leave it alone and withdraw from it. The needy among you will then be able to eat just as you do, and whatever is left over can be eaten by wild animals. This also applies to your vineyard and your olive grove." (Exodus 23:10-11)
- Book of Leviticus: "God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, telling him to speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be given a rest period, a sabbath to God. For six years you may plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops, but the seventh year is a sabbath of sabbaths for the land. It is God's sabbath during which you may not plant your fields, nor prune your vineyards. Do not harvest crops that grow on their own and do not gather the grapes on your unpruned vines, since it is a year of rest for the land. [What grows while] the land is resting may be eaten by you, by your male and female slaves, and by the employees and resident hands who live with you. All the crops shall be eaten by the domestic and wild animals that are in your land." (Leviticus 25:1-7) "And if ye shall say: 'What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we may not sow, nor gather in our increase'; then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth produce for the three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the produce, the old store; until the ninth year, until her produce come in, ye shall eat the old store." (Leviticus 25:20-22)
- Book of Deuteronomy: "At the end of every seven years, you shall celebrate the remission year. The idea of the remission year is that every creditor shall remit any debt owed by his neighbor and brother when God's remission year comes around. You may collect from the alien, but if you have any claim against your brother for a debt, you must relinquish it..." (Deuteronomy 15:1-6) and "Moses then gave them the following commandment: 'At the end of each seven years, at a fixed time on the festival of Sukkoth, after the year of release, when all Israel comes to present themselves before God your Lord, in the place that He will choose, you must read this Torah before all Israel, so that they will be able to hear it. 'You must gather together the people, the men, women, children and proselytes from your settlements, and let them hear it. They will thus learn to be in awe of God your Lord, carefully keeping all the words of this Torah. Their children, who do not know, will listen and learn to be in awe of God your Lord, as long as you live in the land which you are crossing the Jordan to occupy'." (Deuteronomy 31:10-13)
- Book of Jeremiah: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: "At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is a Hebrew, that hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee"; but your fathers hearkened not unto Me, neither inclined their ear." *Book of Nehemiah: "and if the peoples of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the sabbath, or on a holy day; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt." (Nehemiah 10:32)
- Books of Chronicles: "...And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had been paid her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. (2 Chronicles 36:20-21)
- Book of Kings: "...[Isaiah speaking] And this is the sign for you: This year you eat what grows of itself, and the next year what springs from that, and in the third year, sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And the survivors of the House of Judah that have escaped shall regenrate its stock below and produce boughs above." .
Isaiah is informing King Hezekiah that if he will agree to observe the sabbath year that coming fall (701 BCE), and the Jubilee [Yovel] the year after (700 BCE), and then resume planting and harvesting in the following year (699 BCE) then God will act against Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem. There is no other occasion on the Hebrew calendar when two years of scheduled non-planting occur back-to-back. Hezekiah apparently agrees, as the siege is diverted. Since the date of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah and siege against Jerusalem is known to archaeologists as the spring and summer of 701 BCE, this is evidence that the dates the Rabbinate considers to be the sabbath years and Jubilee years are incorrect - the last Jubilee would have been 2001 (because there was no year "0" between 1 BCE and 1 CE, and the most recent Sabbath year therefore began on Rosh Chodesh Tishri in September of 2008.
This interpretation, namely that the 2 Kings passage (and its parallel in Isaiah 37:30) refers to a Sabbatical year followed by a Jubilee year, runs into a difficulty when the original language of these two passages is examined. The text says that the in the first year the people were to eat "what grows of itself," which is expressed by one word in the Hebrew, saphiah (????). In Leviticus 25:5, the reaping of the saphiah is forbidden for a Sabbatical year, thus making the interpretation given just above difficult to maintain. The following is an alternative explanation that is at least as old as Adam Clarke's 1837 commentary, and which does not encounter this difficulty. The Assyrian siege had lasted until after planting time in the fall of 701 BCE, and although the Assyrians left immediately after the prophecy was given (2 Kings 19:35), they had consumed the harvest of that year before they left, leaving only the saphiah to be gleaned from the fields. In the next year, the people were to eat "what springs from that", Hebrew sahish (????). Since this word only occurs here and in the parallel passage in Isaiah 37:30, where it is spelled ????, there is some uncertainty about its exact meaning. If it is the same as the shabbat ha-arets (??? ????) that was permitted to be eaten in a Sabbatical year in Leviticus 25:6, then there is a ready explanation why there was no harvest: the second year, i.e. the year starting in the fall of 700 BCE, was a Sabbatical year, after which normal sowing and reaping resumed in the third year, as stated in the text.
Historical Sabbatical (Shmita) years
The question of whether 700 BCE (i.e. the year starting in Tishre of 700 BCE) could have been a Shmita can be examined by looking at references to possible Sabbatical years in Scripture and elsewhere. In this endeavor, the time of the First Temple should be considered separately from the time of the Second Temple and later, due to evidence that the counting of the Sabbatical years was interrupted during the exile (see below). The Second Temple period will be considered first. This is the more easily dealt with, since there are explicit mentions of a Sabbatical year found in Josephus, 1 Maccabees, and in various legal contracts from the time of Simon Bar Kosiba. In contrast, no direct statements that a certain year was a Sabbatical year have survived from First Temple times, so that for this period, whether a certain year was a Sabbatical year must be inferred from statements about activities normally associated with a Shmita. An example of this is the 2 Kings passage mentioned above, where a year of no sowing or reaping is the most distinctive attribute indicating a Sabbatical year.
Sabbatical years (shemitot) in the Second Temple period
The first modern treatise devoted to the Sabbatical (and Jubilee) cycles was that of Benedict Zuckermann. Zuckermann insisted that for Sabbatical years after the exile "it is necessary to assume the commencement of a new starting-point, since the laws of Sabbatical years and Jubilees fell into disuse during the Babylonian captivity, when a foreign nation held possession of the land of Canaan…We therefore cannot agree with chronologists who assume an unbroken continuity of septennial Sabbaths and Jubilees." The first instance of a Sabbatical year treated by Zuckermann was Herod the Great's siege of Jerusalem, as described by Josephus. Zuckermann assigned this to 38/37 BCE, i.e. he considered that a Sabbatical year started in Tishri of 38 BCE. Next, he considered John Hyrcanus's siege of Ptolemy in the fortress of Dagon, which is described both in Josephus (Ant. 13.8.1; Wars of the Jews 1.2.4) and 1 Maccabees (16:14-16), and during which a Sabbatical year started; from the chronological information provided in these texts, Zuckermann concluded that 136/135 BCE was a Sabbatical year. The next event to be treated was Antiochus Eupator's siege of the fortress Beth-zur (Ant. 12.9.6, 1 Maccabees 6:53), dated by Zuckermann to 163/162 BCE. However, he also remarked on the difficulties presented to this figure by the text in 1 Maccabees, which would seem to date the siege one year later, and so he decided to leave it out of consideration. The final text considered by Zuckermann was a passage in the Seder Olam that relates the destruction of the Second Temple to a Sabbatical year, an event that is known from secular history to have happened in the summer of 70 CE. Zuckermann interpreted the Seder Olam text as stating that this happened in a year after a Sabbatical year, thus placing a Sabbatical in 68/69 CE.
All these dates as calculated by Zuckermann are separated by an integral multiple of seven years, except for the date associated with the siege of Beth-zur. Furthermore, his chronology is consistent with that accepted by the geonim (medieval Jewish scholars) and the calendar of Sabbatical years used in present-day Israel. All of this would seem to be strong evidence in favor of Zuckermann's scheme. Nevertheless, some problems have been recognized, beyond just the question of the siege of Beth-zur, which was one year too late for Zuckermann's calendar. A consistent problem has been the ambiguity implied in some of the passages, notably of Josephus, where it is not clear, for example, when Josephus started the regnal years of Herod. Therefore many modern scholars have adopted a Sabbatical-year calendar for the Second Temple period that is one year later. Among those who have advocated this adjustment, the most extensive studies in its favor have been those of Ben Zion Wacholder. Wacholder had access to legal documents from the time of the Bar Kosiba revolt that were not available to Zuckermann. The arguments of Wacholder and others to support the calendar one year later than that of Zuckermann are rather technical and will not be presented here, except for one item to which Zuckermann, Wacholder, and other scholars have given great weight: the testimony of the Seder Olam relating the destruction of the Second Temple to a Sabbatical year.
Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals associated with the destructions of the Temples
The principal author of the Seder Olam, Rabbi Jose, was a pupil of the famous Rabbi Akiba. Akiba was a young man when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. On such an important issue as the year in which the Temple was destroyed, it would be logical that Jose's ideas were taken from his mentor and his mentor's contemporaries.
Chapter 30 of the Seder Olam gives the year that both Temples were destroyed as ve-motsae sheviit (?????? ?????). Guggenheimer's recent translation renders this phrase as "at the end of a Sabbatical year," thus unambiguously supporting the Wacholder calendar that starts a Sabbatical year in the fall of 69 CE. The problem, however, is that many translations of the Seder Olam render the phrase as "in the year after a Sabbatical year" or its equivalent. This was the sense adopted by Zuckermann when citing the Seder Olam as supportive of his calendar of Sabbatical years. The same Hebrew phrase is used in the Babylonian Talmud when citing this passage from the Seder Olam (the Talmuds are written in the similar Aramaic language), and some modern translations of the Talmud into English translate the phrase in the sense given by Guggenheimer, while others translate it in the sense of "the year after." The Seder Olam uses the same phrase regarding a Sabbatical year for the destruction of both Temples, so that its testimony in this regard is important for dating the shemitot in both pre-exilic and post-exilic times. Therefore it would seem necessary to closely examine the phrase in the original Hebrew when making chronological decisions. Unfortunately, this was not done, either by Zuckermann or Wacholder, when citing the Seder Olam's testimony as decisive for their particular calendars of Sabbatical years. Most interpreters have simply relied on an existing translation, and that translation may have been unduly influenced by an attempt to make the translation consistent with the chronology of the geonim that placed the end of the Second Temple in a post-Sabbatical year.
At least one study has addressed this problem, arguing from both a linguistic standpoint and from a study of related texts in the Seder Olam that the phrase ve-motsae sheviit should be translated as something close to "and in the latter part of a Sabbatical year," consistent with Guggenheimer's translation and Wacholder's calendar. This recent study argues that a comparative study of the word motsae (literally, "goings-out") does not support any sense of "after" ("after a Sabbatical year"). Further, the reference of the Seder Olam to a Sabbatical year associated with Jehoiachin is in keeping with a Sabbatical year when the First Temple was burned a few years later, but the Seder Olam would be in conflict with itself if the phrase in chapter 30 was interpreted as saying that the burning was in a post-Sabbatical year. It would be hoped that studies which interpret the Seder Olam passage as supporting "the year after a Sabbatical year" will do a similar analysis to see if linguistic and contextual arguments can construe the Seder Olam passage to support the "year-after" position.
Sabbaticals in the First Temple period
A convenient starting place for the study of Sabbatical years in the time of the First Temple is the Jubilee that the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Arakin 12a), and also the Seder Olam (chapter 11), say began at the time that Ezekiel saw the vision the occupies the last nine chapters of his book. Although many of the chronological statements of the two Talmuds, as well as in the Seder Olam that preceded them, have been shown to be unhistorical, this particular statement has considerable evidence to support its historicity. One of these evidences is the consistency of this reference with the other Jubilee mentioned in the Talmud, which is placed in the 18th year of Josiah (Megillah 14b). Ezekiel's vision occurred in the 25th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (Ezekiel 40:1). Babylonian records state that Amel-Marduk (the Biblical Evil-Merodach) began to reign in October of 562 BCE,, and 2 Kings 25:27 says that it was in the twelfth month of this accession year (Adar, 561 BCE) and in Jehoiachin's 37th year of captivity that Jehoiachin was released from prison. By Judean reckoning, Jehoiachin's 37th year would then be 562/561 BCE. His 25th year, the year in which Ezekiel saw his vision, is therefore determined as 574/573 BCE, i.e. the year that began in Tishri of 574. Josiah's 18th year, at which time the Talmud says there was another Jubilee, began in 623 BCE, as can be determined from Babylonian records dating the Battle of Carchemish, which occurred shortly after Josiah was slain in his 31st year (2 Kings 22:3, 23:29). This is 49 years before Ezekiel's Jubilee, providing evidence that the Jubilee cycle was 49 years, not 50 years as is accepted by many interpreters, but which has been challenged by recent work such as the study of Jean-François Lefebvre. A fuller discussion of the reasons that the Jubilee cycle was 49 years can be found in the Jubilee article, where it is pointed out that the known chronological methods of the Talmuds and the Seder Olam were incapable of correctly calculating the time between Josiah's 18th year and the 25th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, indicating that these remembrances of Jubilees were historical, not contrived.
That Ezekiel saw his vision at the beginning of a Jubilee year is also shown by his statement that it was "in the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, on Rosh Hashanah, on the tenth day of the month…" (Ezekiel 40:1). It was only in a Jubilee year that Rosh Hashanah (New Year's Day) came on the tenth of Tishri (Deuteronomy 25:9), the Day of Atonement. The Seder Olam, in relating that Ezekiel's vision was at the beginning of a Jubilee, does not cite the part of Ezekiel 40:1 that says it was Rosh Hashanah and the tenth of the month, indicating that the fact that a Jubilee was commencing was based on historical remembrance, not on just the textual argument regarding Rosh Hashanah being on the tenth of the month. Ezekiel also says it was 14 years after thte city fell; 14 years before 574/573 BCE was 588/587 BCE, in agreement with "the 25th year of our captivity."
The Sabbatical year 700/699 BCE
If 574/573 marked a Jubilee, and if the Sabbatical cycles were in phase with the Jubilees, then 700/699 BCE, the year mentioned above as a possible Sabbatical year because of the land lying fallow during that year, was also a Sabbatical, 126 years or 18 Sabbatical cycles before Ezekiel's Jubilee. Assuming a 49-year cycle, the nearest Jubilee would have been in 721 BC, inconsistent with attempts to place a Jubilee after the Sabbatical year at this time. If a 50-year Jubilee cycle is assumed, the nearest Jubilee would be 724/723, and then assuming that a Sabbatical cycle began in the year following a Jubilee, neither 701/700 nor 700/699 would be a Sabbatical year.
The Sabbatical year 588/587 BCE
Various scholars have conjectured that Zedekiah's release of slaves, described in Jeremiah 34:8-10, would likely have been done at the start of a Sabbatical year. Although the original Mosaic legislation stated that an indentured servant's term of service was to end six years after the service started (Deuteronomy 15:12), later practice was to associate the Sabbatical year, called a year of release (shemitah) in Deuteronomy 15:9, with the release of slaves. Based on a chronological study of Ezekiel 30:20-21, Nahum Sarna dated Zedekiah's emancipation proclamation to the year beginning in Tishri of 588 BCE. Although Zedekiah's release of slaves could have occurred at any time, the occurrence of a Sabbatical year at just this time provides some insight into the background that probably influenced Zedekiah's thinking, even though the release was later rescinded.
The year 588/587 BCE was also the year that Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, consistent with the Babylonian records for the reign of Amel-Marduk and the Scriptural data regarding Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. This is in keeping with the statement in Seder Olam chapter 30, properly translated as discussed above, that put the burning of the First Temple, as well as the Second, in the "latter part" of a Sabbatical year. The statement of the Seder Olam in this regard is repeated in the Tosefta (Taanit 3:9), the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit 4:5), and three times in the Babylonian Talmud (Arakin 11b, Arakin 12a, Ta'anit 29a). An example of the caution that must be exercised when consulting English translations is shown by the Soncino translation in Arakin 11b, that the Temple was destroyed "at the end of the seventh [Sabbatical] year", compared to Jacob Neusner's translation of the corresponding passage in the Jerusalem Talmud, that it was "the year after the Sabbatical year."
The Sabbatical year 623/622 BCE
It has already been mentioned that the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 14b) mentioned a Jubilee in Josiah's 18th year, 623/622 BCE. With the proper assumption of a 49-year cycle for the Jubilee, the Jubilee would be identical to the seventh Sabbatical year, so that the Jubilee and Sabbatical cycles would never be out of synchronization. 623/622 BCE would therefore also have been a Sabbatical year. In Sabbatical years, the Mosaic code specified that the Law was to be read to all the people (Deuteronomy 31:10-11). Although this commandment, like so many others, was probably neglected throughout most of Israel's history, it was observed in Josiah's 18th year (2 Kings 23:1,2). This has led various interpreters to conjecture that Josiah's 18th year was a Sabbatical year, independently of any consideration of the statement in the Talmud (and Seder Olam, chapter 24) that it was a Jubilee year.
The Sabbatical year 868/867 BCE
Another public reading of the Law, suggesting a Sabbatical year, took place in the third year of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:7-9). According to the widely-accepted Biblical chronology of Edwin Thiele, Jehoshaphat began a coregency with his father Asa in 872/871 BCE, and his sole reign began in 870/869. The passage about the reading of the law in Jehoshaphat's third year does not specify whether this is measured from the beginning of the coregency or the beginning of the sole reign, but since the two synchronisms to Jehoshaphat's reign for the kings of Israel (1 Kings 22:51, 2 Kings 3:1) are measured from the start of the sole reign, it would be reasonable to determine Jehoshaphat's third year in the same way. In Thiele's system, this would be 867/866. However, Thiele's years for the first few kings of Judah has come under criticism as being one year too late, because of problems that appear in the reign of Ahaziah and Athaliah that Thiele never solved. Therefore in 2008 Leslie McFall, who is recognized in Finegan's Handbook of Biblical Chronology as the foremost living interpreter of Thiele's work, adjusted the dates for Jehoshaphat and the preceding kings of Judah up one year, so that the year in which Jehoshaphat had the Law read to the people was 868/867. This is 294 years, or 42 Sabbatical cycles, before Ezekiel's Jubilee. The 42 Sabbatical cycles would make six Jubilee cycles, so it was also a Jubilee year. It is of some passing interest that in 1869, long before the breakthroughs of Coucke and Thiele that solved the basic problems of how the Biblical authors were measuring the years, Ferdinand Hitzig stated that the occasion for Jehoshaphat’s proclamation was because it was a Jubilee year.
Jubilee and Sabbatical years as a long-term calendar for Israel
As in all societies of the ancient Near East, it was the duty of the priests to keep track of the calendar so that agricultural activities and religious festivals could be conducted at the proper time. In the case of Israel, there was the extra responsibility of keeping track of the years so that it would be known when Sabbatical and Jubilee years were due. The seven-year Sabbatical cycle was short enough that there should have been no question about which year it was in a Sabbatical cycle, and the fact that at the end of seven Sabbatical cycles the Jubilee was due provided a more extended means of measuring the years. The Jubilee and Sabbatical year legislation therefore provided a long-term means for dating events, a fact that must have become obvious soon after the legislation was put into effect. It is of some interest, then, that the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Sanhedrin 40a,b) records that in the time of the judges, legal events such as contracts or criminal cases were dated according to the Jubilee cycle, the Sabbatical cycle within the Jubilee cycle, and the year within the Sabbatical cycle. Keeping track of the years of these cycles would therefore have served a societal purpose in addition to their importance as specified in the Mosaic legislation. The Samaritan community apparently used this method of dating as late as the 14th century AD, when an editor of one of the writings of the Samaritans wrote that he finished his work in the sixty-first Jubilee cycle since the entry into Canaan, in the fourth year of the fifth Sabbatical of that cycle. These cases of usage of the Jubilee/Sabbatical cycles make no provision for the possibility of the Sabbatical cycles being out of phase with the Jubilee cycles, which is additional evidence that the Jubilee was contemporaneous with the seventh Sabbatical year.
Some of the events described for Sabbatical years in the period of the First Temple, such as Zedekiah's release of slaves or the public reading of the Law, could have occurred at some other time than a Sabbatical year. There is a certain cumulative weight, however, that comes from their combined testimony that they all occurred an integral number of Sabbatical cycles before Ezekiel's Jubilee. Also, it is difficult to imagine why the year after the Assyrians were defeated there would be no sowing or reaping, as indicated in 2 Kings 19:29 and Isaiah 37:30, unless that year was a Sabbatical year, and the year of 700/699 that most historians would accept for this "second year" of the verse fits into the pre-exilic Jubilee/Sabbatical-year calendar. The evidence then is that this calendar was known at least as early as the reign of Jehoshaphat, and even though the stipulations of the Sabbatical year and Jubilee may not have been carried out faithfully, at least the priests, one of whom was Ezekiel, were keeping track of the years faithfully all during this time.
Rabbinical interpretations
The rabbis of the Talmud and later times interpreted the Shmita laws in various ways to ease the burden they created for farmers and the agricultural industry. The Heter Mechirah (leniency of sale), developed for the Shmita year of 1888-1889, permitted Jewish farmers to sell their land to non-Jews so that they could continue to work the land as usual during Shmita. This temporary solution to the impoverishment of the Jewish settlement in those days was later adopted by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel as a permanent edict, generating ongoing controversy between Zionist and Hareidi leaders to this day. There is a major debate among halakhic authorities as to what is the nature of the obligation of the Sabbatical year nowadays. Some say it is still biblically binding, as it has always been. Others hold that it is rabbinically binding, since the Shmita only biblically applies when the Jubilee year is in effect, but the Sages of the Talmud legislated the observance of the Shmita anyway as a reminder of the biblical statute. And yet others hold that the Shmita has become purely voluntary. An analysis by respected Posek and former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef in his responsa Yabi'a Omer (Vol. 10), accorded with the middle option, that the Biblical obligation holds only when a majority of the Jewish people is living in the Biblical Land of Israel and hence the Shmita nowadays is a rabbinic obligation in nature. This approach potentially admits for some leniencies which would not be possible if the Shemitah were biblical in origin, including the aforementioned sale of the land of Israel. Haredi authorities, on the other hand, generally follow the view of the Chazon Ish, that the Shmita continues to be a Biblical obligation.
The Sma, who holds that Shmitta nowadays is only a Rabbinic obligation, holds that the Biblical promise of bounty for those who observe the Shmitta (Leviticus 25:20-22) only applies when the Biblical obligation is in effect, and hence that the Biblical promise of bounty is not in effect today. However, the Chazon Ish, who holds that the Biblical obligation of Shmitta observance remains in effect today, holds that the Biblical promise of bounty follows it and Divine bounty is promised to Jews living in the Land of Israel today, just as it was promised in ancient times. However, he holds that Jews should generally not demand miracles from Heaven and hence that one should not rely on this promise for ones sustenance, but should instead make appropriate arrangements and rely on permissible leniencies.
Haredi Jews tell stories of groups of Israeli Jews who kept the Shmitta and experienced remarkable agricultural events which they describe as representative of miracles in fulfillment of the Biblical promise of bounty. One famous story is told about the then-two-year-old village of Komemiyut during the 1952 Shmittah. The village was one of the few who refrained from working the land that year. At the end of the Shmittah, farmers searching for seed to plant found only wormy, inferior seed that had been rotting for years in an abandoned shed. Rabbi Binyamin Mendelson advised them to sow this seed anyway, saying "The Almighty who causes wheat to sprout from good seed will bless your inferior seed as well," even though it was three months after neighboring villages had planted their fields. They did. That year the fall rains came late, the day after the Komemiyut seed was sown. As a result, the neighboring villages had a meager harvest, while the village of Komemiyut, who sowed from the old store, had a bumper crop.
Observance in the Eretz Yisrael
According to the laws of shmita, land owned by Jews in the Land of Israel is left unfarmed. The law does not apply to land in the Diaspora. In Biblical times any naturally growing produce was left to be taken by poor people, passing strangers, and beasts of the field. While naturally growing produce such as grapes growing on existing vines can be harvested, it cannot be sold or used for commercial purposes; it must be given away or consumed. Personal debts are considered forgiven at sunset on the 29th of Elul. Since this aspect of shmita is not dependent on the land, it applies to Jews both in Israel and elsewhere.
As produce grown on land in Israel owned by Jewish farmers cannot be sold or consumed, fruits and vegetables sold in a shmita year may be derived from five sources:
- Produce grown during the sixth year, to which the laws of the seventh year do not apply;
- Produce grown on land owned by non-Jewish (typically, Arab) farmers in Israel;
- Produce grown on land outside the halachic boundaries of Israel (chutz la'aretz)
- Produce (mainly fruits) distributed through the Otzar Beit Din (see below).
- Produce grown in greenhouses
Halakhic authorities prohibit removing produce with sabbatical sanctity (shevi'it produce) from the Land of Israel or purchasing such produce outside the land of Israel. Some authorities hold that tourists should be careful not to carry any such produce on an airplane leaving Israel even for consumption mid-air.
There is a requirement that shevi'it produce be consumed for personal use and cannot be sold or put in trash. For this reason, there are a variety of special rules regarding the religious use of products that are normally made from agricultural produce. Some authorities hold that Hannukah candles cannot be made from shevi'it oils because the light of Channukah candles is not supposed to be used for personal use, while Shabbat candles can be because their light can be used for personal use. For similar reasons, some authorities hold that if the Havdalah ceremony is performed using wine made from shevi'it grapes, the cup should be drunk completely and the candle should not be dipped into the wine to extinguish the flame as is normally done.
The otzar beit din system is structured in such a way that biur remains the responsibility of members of individual households and hence warehoused produce does not have to be moved to a public place or reclaimed at the biur time. Households only have to perform biur on produce they receive before the biur time, not on produce they receive after it.
Because the Orthodox rules of Kashrut have strictures requiring certain products, such as wine, to be produced by Jews, the leniency of selling one's land to non-Jews is unavailable for these products, since these strictures would render the wine non-Kosher. Accordingly, wine made from grapes grown in the land of Israel during the Shmita year is subject to the full strictures of Shmita. New vines cannot be planted. Although grapes from existing vines can be harvested, they and their products cannot be sold.
While obligatory to the Orthodox as a matter of religious observance, observance of the rules of Shmita is voluntary so far as the civil government is concerned in the contemporary State of Israel. Civil courts do not enforce the rules. A debt would be transferred to a religious court for a document of prosbul only if both parties voluntarily agreed to do so. Many non-religious Israeli Jews do not observe these rules, although some non-religious farmers participate in the symbolic sale of land to non-Jews to permit their produce to be considered kosher and sellable to Orthodox Jews who permit the leniency. Despite this, during Shmita, crop yields in Israel fall short of requirements so importation is employed from abroad.
Talmudic references
According to the Talmud, observance of the Sabbatical year is of high accord, and one who does not do so may not be allowed to be a witness in an Orthodox religious court. Nonetheless, Rabbinic Judaism has developed Halakhic (religious-law) devices to be able to maintain a modern agricultural and commercial system while giving heed to the Biblical injunctions. Such devices represent examples of flexibility within the Halakhic system
Hillel the Elder, in the first century BCE, used the rule that remittance of debts applies only to debts between Jews, to develop a device known as Prosbul in which the debt is transferred to a Beit Din (religious court). When owed to the court rather than to an individual, the debt survives the sabbatical year. This device, formulated early in the era of Rabbinic Judaism when the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing, became a prototype of how Judaism was later to adapt to the destruction of the Second Temple and maintain a system based on Biblical law under very different conditions.
The rabbis of the Jerusalem Talmud created rules to impose order on the harvesting process including a rule limiting harvester on others' land to taking only enough to feed themselves and their families. They also devised a system, called otzar beit din, under which a rabbinical court supervised a communal harvesting process by hiring workers who harvested the fields, stored it in communal storage facilities, and distributed it to the community.
There exists a major difference of opinion between two Acharonim, the Beit Yosef and the Mabit, as to whether produce grown on land in Israel which is owned by non-Jews also has sanctity. According to the Beit Yosef, such produce has no sanctity and may be used and/or discarded in the same way as any produce grown outside of Israel. According to the Mabit, the fact that this produce was grown in Israel, even by non-Jews, gives it sanctity, and it must be treated in the special ways detailed above.
The Chazon Ish, a noted Hareidi halachic authority who issued key rulings on Jewish agricultural law (mitzvos tlu'os ba'aretz)in the 1930s and 1940's, ruled like the Mabit, holding that produce grown on land in Israel owned by non-Jews has sanctity. The Chazon Ish's ruling was adopted first by the religious families of Bnei Brak and is popularly called Minhag Chazon Ish (the custom of the Chazon Ish).
The rabbis of Jerusalem, on the other hand, embraced the opinion of the Beit Yosef that produce farmed on land owned by non-Jews has no sanctity. This opinion is now called Minhag Yerushalayim (the custom of Jerusalem), and was adopted by many Haredi families, by British Mandate Palestine, and by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
These respective opinions are reflected in the way the various kashrut certifying organizations publicize their Shmita and non-Shmita produce. The Edah HaChareidis, which follows Minhag Yerushalayim, buys produce from non-Jewish farms in Israel and sells it as "non-Shmita produce." The Shearit Yisrael certifying organization, which subscribes to Minhag Chazon Ish, also buys from non-Jewish farmers in Israel, but labels the produce as such so that customers who keep Minhag Chazon Ish will treat these fruits and vegetables with appropriate sanctity.
Shevi'it
In Halakha (Jewish religious law), produce of the seventh year that is subject to the laws of Shmita is called sheviit, (sheviis in Ashkenazic Hebrew). Shevi'it produce has sanctity requiring special rules for its use:
- It can only be consumed or used (in its ordinary use) for personal enjoyment
- It cannot be bought, sold, or thrown out.
- It must be used in its "best" manner so as to ensure fullest enjoyment (For example, fruits that are normally eaten whole cannot be juiced).
- It can only be stored so long as naturally-growing plants of the given species can be eaten by animals in the fields. Once a particular species is no longer available in the field, one must rid ones house of it through a process known as biur.
By Biblical law, Jews who own land are required to make their land available during the Shmita to anyone who wishes to come in and harvest. If the land is fenced etc., gates must be left open to enable entrance. These rules apply to all outdoor agriculture, including private gardens and even outdoor potted plants. Plants inside a building are exempt. However, the Rabbis of the Mishna and Jerusalem Talmud imposed rabbinic ordinances on harvesters to ensure an orderly and equitable process and to prevent a few individuals from taking everything. Harvesters on others' land are permitted to take only enough to feed themselves and their families.
Heter mechira
In the late 19th century, in the early days of Zionism, Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor came up with a halakhic means of allowing agriculture to continue during the Shmita year. After ruling in favor of Minhag Yerushalayim, that the biblical prohibition consists of not cultivating the land owned by Jews ("your land", Exodus 23:10), Rabbi Spektor devised a mechanism by which the land could be sold to a non-Jew for the duration of that year under a trust agreement. Under this plan, the land would belong to the non-Jew temporarily, and revert back 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, the first Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, adopted this principle, which became known as the heter mechira (lit. "sale permit").
The heter mechira was accepted by Modern Orthodox Judaism and is one of the classic examples of the Modern Orthodox approach toward adapting classical Jewish law to the modern world. However, this approach has not been universally accepted in the Orthodox community and has met with opposition, particularly from Haredi poskim (authorities of Jewish law).
In contemporary religious circles these rabbinic leniencies have received wide but not universal acceptance. In Israel, the Chief Rabbinate obtains permission from all farmers who wish to have their land sold. The land is then symbolically 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.
Although the Orthodox Union's Kashrut Division accepts Minhag Yerushalayim and hence regards the produce of land owned by non-Jews as ordinary produce, it does not currently rely on the heter mechira because of doubts about whether the trust arrangement involved effects a valid transfer of ownership.
Some Haredi farmers do not avail themselves of this leniency and seek other pursuits during the Shmita year.
Otzar Beit Din
An otzar beit din is an ancient device, mentioned in the Tosefta (Sheviit). Under an otzar beit din, a community rabbinical court supervises harvesting by hiring workers to harvest, store, and distribute food to the community. Members of the community pay the beit din, but this payment represents only a contribution for services, and not a purchase or sale of the food.
The Talmudic device was revived in modern times as an alternative to the heter mechira for observant Jews wishing to utilize an approach which regards the produce of the Land of Israel as sacred and which undertakes to respect the special rules associated with its sanctity.
Because under this approach land cannot be sown but existing plants can be tended and harvested, the approach is applied to orchards, vineyards, and other perennial crops. Under the approach, a Beit din, or rabbinical court supervising the process, hires farmers as its agents to tend and harvest the crops, and appoints the usual distributors and shopkeepers as its agents to distribute them. Individual consumers appoint the court and its designees as their agents and pay monies to court-appointed designees as agents of the court. Thus, under this approach, a legal arrangement is created whereby the crops themselves are never bought or sold, but rather people are merely paid for their labor and expenses in providing certain services. In Israel, the Badatz is notable for adapting and supervising such arrangements.
The Orthodox Union notes that "to some, the modern-day otzar might seem to be nothing more than a legal sleight of hand. All the regular players are still in place, and distribution rolls along as usual. However, in reality, it is identical only in appearance as prices are controlled, and may correspond only to expenses, with no profit allowed. In addition, the otzar beit din does not own the produce. Since it's simply a mechanism for open distribution, any individual is still entitled to collect produce from a field or orchard on his own. Furthermore, all agents of the beit din are appointed only if they commit to distributing the produce in accordance with the restrictions that result from its sanctity."
Biur
Under the rules of the Shmita, produce with sabbatical sanctity (shevi'it) can only be stored as long as plants of the same species (e.g plants sprouting by themselves) are available to animals in the fields. Once a species is no longer available in the land, halacha requires that it be removed, made ownerless, and made available to anyone who wishes to take it through a procedure called biur.
The Orthodox Union describes the contemporary application of the rules of biur as follows:
- On the appointed day, one must remove all the relevant produce, and all products containing such produce, from his home and take it to a public area such as a sidewalk. Once there, the individual declares the produce in front of three people who do not live with him. He then waits to give the witnesses a chance to claim the produce. Once they have taken what they want, he is permitted to reclaim whatever remains. It is permissible to choose three people whom one knows will not claim the produce for themselves, even though they are legally entitled to.
Thus, while the obligation of making ones produce available to the public and permitted to all takers can be performed in such a way as to minimize the risk that this availability will actually be utilized, this risk cannot be entirely eliminated. The community at large, including members of the poor, must be afforded some opportunity to take the produce.
Biur only applies to produce that has shevi'it sanctity. For this reason, it does not apply to produce grown under the heter mechirah for those who accept it. (Under the reasoning of the heter mechirah the shmita does not apply to land owned by non-Jews, so its produce does not have shevi'it sanctity.)
Since the establishment of the state
The first Shmita year in the modern State of Israel was 1951 (5712 in the Hebrew calendar) Subsequent Shmita years have been 1958 (5719), 1965 (5726), 1972 (5733), 1979 (5740), 1986 (5747), 1993 (5754), and 2000 (5761). The last Shemittah year began on the Jewish New Year in September 2007, corresponding to the Hebrew calendar year 5768. The 50th year of the land, which is also a Shabbat of the land, is called "Yovel" in Hebrew, which is the origin of the Latin term "Jubilee", also meaning 50th. The Jubilee Year is not observed in modern times because its correct date is unknown. In 2000, Sefardic Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron withdrew religious certification of the validity of permits for the sale of land to non-Jews during the Shmita year following protests against his endorsement of the leniency by members of the Haredi community.
Hydroponics
Authorities who prohibit farming in Israel generally permit hydroponics farming in greenhouses structured so that the plants are not connected to the soil. As a result, hydroponics use has been increasing in Haredi farming communities.
Shmita 2007-2008
During the 2007-2008 Shmita, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel attempted to avoid taking a potentially divisive position on the dispute between Haredi and Modern Orthodox views about the correctness of the heter mechirah leniency by ruling that local rabbis could make their own decisions about whether or not to accept this device as valid. The Israel Supreme Court, however, ordered the Chief Rabbinate to rescind its ruling and to devise a single national ruling. The Israel Supreme Court opined that divergent local rulings would be harmful to farmers and trade and could implicate competition. The issue of secular courts ordering the rabbinate to rule in particular ways on religious matters aroused a debate within the Knesset.
Israeli wineries often address this issue by making separate batches of Shmita wine, labeled as such, and giving away bottles of Shmita wine as a free bonus to purchasers of non-Shmita wine.
See also
External links
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