The Talmud in Bava Metzia 56a
teaches that the sale of land is not subject to price fraud.

This is derived from Parsha Behar,
Vayikra 25:14:

If you sell anything to your
neighbor, or purchase something from the hand of your neighbor, do not cheat
one another.

The Talmud explains that the
expression “from the hand” indicates that the verse speaks of a thing that is
passed from hand to hand (movable objects) but land is excluded because it is
not movable.

We conclude from here that the
prohibition against ona’ah, one may not wrong their fellow, applies only to
movable objects and not land.

This conclusion does not fit in with
the next verse which is talking about land (Vayikra 25:15):

According to the number of years
after the Yovel you shall purchase land from your neighbor; According to the
number of produce years he shall sell it to you.

Rashi comments that this verse comes
to prevent cheating. When you sell or buy land you must know how many years there
are until the Yovel (50^th year)…If there are only a few years
remaining, and this one sells it for a high price, the result is that the buyer
has been cheated; but if there are many years remaining and he consumes many
crops from it, behold, the seller is cheated. Therefore, the buyer must buy it
according to the time remaining before the Yovel…according to the number of
years of crops which is going to remain in the possession of the buyer.

Ramban agrees with Rashi and points
out that even though the Talmud states that the sale of land is not subject to
price fraud, the plain meaning of the verse makes it clear that it is forbidden
to cheat the buyer when selling land. The Pitchei Tshuva and Maharshal agree
with the Ramban.

The Chatam Sofer asks why Avraham
first said (Breisheet 23:4) “Grant me the possession of a grave site” and then
(verse 9) “let him give me Maarat HaMachpela” -which sounds like he was looking
for a gift, yet he was happy to pay full price!

The answer is that Avraham was
worried that Ephron would find out that Adam and Eve were buried in the cave
and then he would renege and say that he was cheated, as the land would have a
higher value if the first two people who were created directly from God were
buried there. Therefore in order to ensure that nobody would dispute Avraham’s
ownership of Maarat HaMachpela, first he asked for the land as a gift and then he
paid Ephron, even though Ephron said that the payment was not necessary.

May we all be above board in buying
and selling property and avoid fraud at all costs.

We first learn about the
laws of Shmita (the Sabbatical year) in Parshat Mishpatim, Shmot 23:10-11:

Six years shall you sow
your land and gather in its produce. And in the seventh, you shall leave it
untended and unharvested, and the destitute of your people shall eat, and the
wildlife of the field shall eat what is left; so shall you do to your vineyard
and to your olive grove.

In the following verse,
Shmot 23:12 we read about the observance of Shabbat:

Six days shall you
accomplish your activities, and on the seventh day you shall desist, so that
your ox and donkey may be content and your maidservant’s son and the sojourner
may be refreshed.

In Parshat Behar (Vayikra
25:1-6) the Torah gives us a more in depth explanation of the laws of Shmita.

God spoke
to Moshe on Mount Sinai saying:  Speak to B’nai Yisrael and say to them:
When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a Shabbat
of God. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard
and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a Shabbat
of complete rest, a Shabbat for God: you shall not sow your field or prune your
vineyard. You shall not reap the after growth of your harvest or gather the
grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the
land. But you may eat whatever the land during
its Shabbat will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound
laborers who live with you.

If the laws
of Shmita are more detailed in Parshat Behar, then why did they need to be
introduced in Parshat Mishpatim?

Shmita in Parsha
Mishpatim is juxtaposed with the laws of Shabbat since both Shmita and Shabbat represent
man’s testimony that God created the universe in six days and rested on the
seventh.

Shadal writes in his
commentary on Vayikra 25:2:

Just as the Shabbat day strengthens our conviction that the Jewish Nation is
holy to God, so too, the Shmita year instills within us the belief that Eretz
Yisrael is holier than all other lands. The land rests on the seventh year,
just as God rested on the seventh day of creation.

And just as in the desert, God gave B’nai Yisrael a double portion of manna
on Friday to last for two days, so too, when they are on their own land, they
will receive the blessing of the sixth year that the land will produce enough
for the seventh year as well.

Sefer HaChinuch, The Book of Mitzvah
Education 84:2 explains:

At the root of this commandment lies
the purpose to establish in our heart and set in our thought a firm conception
of the doctrine that the world was brought into being as a new entity, out of
nothing- As it says in Shmot 20:11: “in six days did God make the heavens and
the earth” and on the seventh day God did not create anything – God imposed
rest on Himself.

In order to remove, uproot and
eradicate from our thoughts any concept of the world’s timeless pre-existence
in which the deniers of the Torah believe in, through which they destroy all
its principles and break through its walls – did the requirement come upon us
to expend all our time, day by day and year by year, for this matter, by
counting six years and resting on the seventh. In this way, the matter will
never depart from between our eyes for all time. And this is similar to the
manner in which we count the days of the week by dividing them into six days of
work and the seventh is a day of rest. 

Therefore, God commanded us to
render ownerless all that the land produces in this year – in addition to
resting during the year- so that a person will remember that the land which
produces fruits for him every year does not produce them by its own might and
virtue. For there is a Lord and Master over it and over its owner – and when He
wishes, He commands the owner of the land to render the fruit ownerless.

There is another benefit in this
matter – to acquire the trait of letting go of one’s possessions, for there is
no one more generous than he who gives without hope for recompense.

And there is another benefit – the
outcome of this is that a person will add to his trust in God, since anyone who
finds it in his heart to give and abandon to the world all of the produce of
his lands and his ancestral inheritance for an entire year – and educates
himself and his family through this for all of his days – will never have the
trait of stinginess overcome him too much, nor will he have a deficient amount
of trust.

Celebrating Shabbat each week and observing the Shmita year once in seven
years are constant reminders that God created the world and that He is in
charge of everything. Just as the Jewish nation is holy, so too is the land of
Israel and it must not be taken for granted.

As we
get closer to the Shmita (Sabbatical) year which begins on Rosh HaShana, we
will have to consider where to shop. For those who would like to benefit from
having the opportunity to eat produce with Kdushat Shviit (Holiness of the
Sabbatical year), buying from the Otzar Beit Din (Storehouse operated by the
Court) would be a good option.

What
exactly is Otzar Beit Din and where does it originate from?

We are
taught some of the laws of Shmita in Parshat Behar (Vayikra 25:1-6):

God spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai saying:  Speak to B’nai Yisrael and
say to them: When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall
observe a sabbath of God. Six years you may sow your field and six years you
may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the
land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath for God: you shall not
sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your
harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of
complete rest for the land. But you may eat whatever
the land during its sabbath will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the
hired and bound laborers who live with you.

The ideal during the Shmita year was for all of
the fields to be left open and everything grown there would be considered “Hefker”
(ownerless). Whoever needed food would be able to go in and take what they
needed. But what happens when you need a lot of different types of produce from
all over the country? This is where the Otzar Beit Din steps in.

We learn
in Tosefta Shviit 8:1-2:

1) At
first, agents of the Beit Din (rabbinic court) would sit at the entrances of
the cities. Whoever brought fruits in his hand, they [the Beit Din] would take
them from him and would give him from them enough food for three meals. The
remainder would be placed into the otzar [storehouse] that is in
the city.

2) When
it is the time for figs, the agents of the Beit Din employ workers to gather
them, pack them in circles and place them into the otzar in
the city. When it is the time for grapes, agents of the Beit Din employ workers
and harvest them, stomp on them in the wine-press, collect them in the barrels
and place them in the otzar in the city When it is
the time for olives, the agents of the Beit Din employ workers and harvest them,
and pack them at the oil press, collect [the oil] in barrels and place them in
the otzar in
the city. They distribute them each erev Shabbat [- a sufficient amount for 3
meals] for each member of their household.

We see
in the Tosefta that the Beit Din did the work by harvesting, preparing and
delivering the produce around the country.

The Otzar Beit Din that is in effect today follows the ruling of
the Chazon Ish. It is a distribution system run by a Rabbinic court who serve
as agents of the consumer. They take over the farms for the year and all
of the harvesting, transporting and distributing that needs to be done. The
produce is planted during the sixth year before Shmita starts and picked during
the seventh year. Shoppers don’t pay for the produce, they only pay for the
labor involved. The produce has Kdushat Shviit, and must be treated as holy.
Special stores are set up all over Israel with Otzar Beit Din produce.

Otzar Beit Din is one of a number of solutions which help us
observe Shmita today.

May we be blessed to enjoy the produce grown by the Israeli
farmers throughout the upcoming Shmita year and beyond.

In Parshat Behar (VaYikra 25:25-28)
we read:

If your brother becomes impoverished
and sells some of his ancestral land, and a close relative comes and redeems
that which his brother had sold. Or if the man has no redeemer (close relative)
but has acquired sufficient means and finds it enough to redeem it himself, he
shall calculate the number of years for which he sold the land and return the
remainder (excess) to the man to whom he had sold it, and he shall return to
his ancestral land. Or if he does not have within his means enough to retrieve the
land, then that which he sold remains in the possession of the buyer until
Yovel (the jubilee year). It is then released by the Yovel and he (the seller)
returns to his ancestral land.

The Land of Israel was divided into ancestral
tribes by tribe and by family and each plot was to remain within the family.
Even if a person had to sell his plot due to financial hardship, the land would
still revert back to him in the Yovel (fiftieth year). If he found enough money
to buy it back or if a relative could afford to buy it back then they were
encouraged to do so. This process is called “geula”, redemption of the
property.

The Haftara from Yirmiyahu 32:6-27,
tells us God’s message of hope to Yirmiyahu, a year before the destruction of the
first Beit HaMikdash. Jerusalem was under Babylonian siege and Yirmiyahu was in
prison for his prophesies that told B’nai Yisrael to repent or else they would
end up losing the Beit HaMikdash and go to exile.

Even though all hope seemed lost,
God tells Yishayahu to redeem a family property (Yirmiyahu 32:6-9):

Yirmiyahu said: The word of God came
to me saying “Behold! Hanamel, son of Shulam your uncle is coming to you to
say: ‘Buy for yourself my field that is in Anatot, for the right of redemption
is yours.’”

Hanamel, my cousin, came to me as
God had spoken, to the courtyard of the prison, and he said to me, “Buy for
yourself my field in Anatot that is in the territory of Binyamin, for yours is
the right of inheritance and yours is the redemption; buy it for yourself.” And
I knew that it was the word of God. So I bought the field…

As the city of Jerusalem was about
to be destroyed, the market value for the field was pretty low. Hanamel didn’t
even have access to the property due to the siege. However, Yirmiyahu bought
the property to observe the mitzvah of “geula” (redeeming property) commanded
in Vayikra which was still being observed (we also see that the mitzvah
observed in Megillat Rut).

Yirmiyahu also bought the field for
the symbolic reason of showing faith in the future, that B’nai Yisrael would
return to their homeland. As it says in sentence 15: “For so said God, Master
of Legions, God of Israel: ‘Houses, fields and vineyards will yet be bought in
the land.’”

Indeed, B’nai Yisrael did return to
the Land of Israel after seventy years of exile and again built up the land and
built the second Beit HaMikdash. And even after they were exiled once again,
the Jewish people did not despair. They dreamed of returning to the land, to
rebuild it once again. And here we are, back in the Land of Israel with
vineyards and wineries, olive groves and factories, fields and houses.

In Parshat Behar (Vayikra 25:20-22) we learn about the plan for a
successful shmita (sabbatical) year in the Land of Israel:

If you shall say “What will we
eat in the seventh year, for we have not planted nor gathered our produce”? I
shall direct my blessing to you in the sixth year and it will produce enough
for three years. You shall plant in the eighth year but you will still be
eating from the old produce until the ninth year; until the new produce ripens
you shall eat from the old.

The shmita year follows a set
calendar. Every seventh year the farmers take a break from working and let the
land lay fallow. Here, God is promising us that we will receive extra blessings
during the sixth year to carry us through until the ninth year. We know what to
expect and we are able to plan accordingly to make sure that we will have
enough food to get by while we are not working.

The coronavirus is a totally
different situation. It snuck up on us without giving us the time to prepare in
any way. As we were thrust in the middle of it we had to try to figure out how
to manage. Now that we are in the midst of the plague, countries around the world
are trying to learn from their mistakes and move on.

If we look back at the story of
Yosef (Breisheet 41), the reason that Egypt was saved from the seven years of
famine was because Pharaoh had the dreams about the seven beautiful and robust
cows, the seven ugly and gaunt cows, the seven healthy and good ears of grain
and the seven thin and scorched ears of grain. Yosef, with God’s help was able
to interpret the dreams properly and store up enough grain during the years of
plenty to sustain Egypt and beyond during the years of famine. If only we had a
heads up like Pharaoh, we would have been able to quickly put a plan in place
as Yosef did.

Although some may be comparing this
coronavirus break to the shmita year where you have time away from work for
introspection, in reality, the situation was thrust upon us and nobody is sure
exactly how to handle it. As well, someone planning a sabbatical from their job
is in a very different place than an employee who is terminated without notice.

With the shmita year, there is a set
beginning and end where one can again plant and harvest. With the coronavirus,
there is no end in sight and even if it ends there is talk about it starting up
again in a few months to a year.

Shmita as well as the prosperous and
lean years in Egypt all ran on cycles of seven. We don’t know when this coronavirus
cycle will end. The only cycles of sevens that can give us comfort right now are
Shabbat and the upcoming holiday of Shavuot which culminates seven weeks
counting the omer, where we can leave off our radios, TVs, phones and computers
and take a break from the latest coronavirus news.

May we hear good news and may all
who are ill have a speedy recovery.

In Parshat Behar, we see that activism
dates back to the days of the Torah. During the Shmita (Sabbatical) year we are
taught to have compassion for those who have less as ideally all of the fields
should be “hefker”, left open for others to take what they need.

According to the Rambam in Moreh
Nevuchim, Guide for the Perplexed:

Some of the laws of Shmita imply
sympathy with our fellow men and promote the well being of mankind; for in
reference to these precepts it is stated in the Torah: “That the poor of your people
may eat” (Shmot 23:11).

Rabbi Mordechai Gumpil agrees with
the Rambam:

This law was given in order that we
may show sympathy for our fellow men who have neither land nor vineyards, that
they may be happy in the Shmita year as the wealthy are happy every year.

Kli Yakar points out that the Shmita
year contains factors conducive to union and peace. For since no sowing or
planting is allowed, the poor may eat freely and none may store produce and
treat it as his own, this undoubtedly creates favorable conditions towards
peace, because all strife originates from the attitude of “mine is mine” and
people claiming their rights. But in the seventh year all are equal- this can
indeed generate peace.

Nehama Leibowitz adds that Kli Yakar
emphasized the importance of brotherhood, not just equality.

In Pirkei Avot 5:13 we learn:

There are four character types among
people:

a.     
One
who says, ‘My property is mine and yours is yours,’ is an average character
type. But some say that this is characteristic of Sdom.

b.    
‘Mine
is yours and yours is mine,’ is an unlearned person.

c.     
‘Mine
is yours and yours is yours,’ is scrupulously pious.

d.    
‘Yours
is mine and mine is mine’ is wicked.

We learn from this mishna that the
idea of ‘every man for himself’ is not a Jewish concept and the laws of Shmitta
teach us the importance of social justice.

Parshat Behar opens with the
laws of Shmita which are only effect in the Land of Israel.
Every seventh year, the land takes an agricultural break and the produce which
is grown on the land is treated as holy.

Those living in Israel are very
careful during the Shmita year to make sure that they know where and how their
produce was grown to ensure that the laws of Shmita are observed.

Although the Shmita year technically
ended this past Rosh Hashana, more than half a year ago, the laws of Shmita still
apply to some of the fruits that are grown in Israel well into the eighth year.

The laws of Shmita go into
effect later in the seventh year for fruits as we follow “chanata”, the point
when the first fruit emerges (Rosh HaShana 14a). Rashi explains that when the
first fruit emerges, the sap rises in the tree and it is only on account of
this sap that the tree continues to survive. Therefore, the time when the fruit
first emerges is the most crucial stage in the fruit’s growth and that stage
determines the year to which the fruit is assigned. Therefore, during the first
few months of the seventh year there is no Shmita sanctity (Kdushat Shviit) for
fruits (only for vegetables). Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon explains that the time when
the Shmita produce begins to reach maturity depends on the type of fruit: some
fruits reach chanata around the time of Tu B’Shvat (January) and reach the
market several months later (ex: almonds, loquats and apples) and therefore
they are considered Shmita fruit from the middle of the seventh year until the
middle of the eighth year. There are other fruits where almost a year passes
between chanata and harvesting (such as citrus fruit) and therefore these will
be Shmita fruit only in the eighth year.

Some examples of fruits which
still retain Shmita sanctity for about another month (May/June) are cherries,
figs, lychee, mango, pears, apples and avocado.

Other fruits such as
clementines, dates, guava, kiwi, olives, persimmons, quince and star fruit will
retain their Shmita sanctity into September while grapefruits, oranges and pamelos
will retain their sanctity through November.

Although the Shmita year has
been over since September, Israelis still have Shmita in the back of their
minds when they shop for fruits or if they have a fruit tree growing in their
back yard.

Israelis who grow fruit trees
halachically have to leave the trees as “hefker” (ownerless) during the time period
that the trees have Shmita sanctity, meaning that they are obligated to welcome
their friends and neighbors to pick fruit from the tree. In that way they are
also welcome to pick what they need. If the owner does not declare the tree
ownerless then he would not be permitted to eat from it.

Wine or grape juice that is
produced from grapes that have Shmita sanctity must be treated with respect
(the same way that all of the other Shmita produce must be respected) and
therefore one may not spill out or waste it (until it spoils) even years after
the Shmita year has been completed. Wines that have Shmita sanctity will
clearly be labeled as “Otzar Beit Din” and should not be exported as sanctified
Shmita produce is not permitted to leave Israel.

For those living in Israel, Shmita
is not just an agricultural idea that is mentioned in the Torah. Shmita affects
our lives before Rosh HaShana of the Shmita year when some of the laws of
planting and preparing the land already go into effect and lasts through the
end of November, over a year after the Shmita year ends and beyond if Shmita
produce is made into olive oil or wine.

We see the importance of the number
seven in Parshat Behar, Vayikra 25:8-10:

You shall count for yourself seven
shmita (sabbatical) years, seven years, seven times and it shall be for you,
the days (period) of the seven sabbatical years, forty-nine years. You shall
make a proclamation with the shofar on the tenth day of the seventh month. On
Yom Kippur shall this shofar-proclamation be made throughout all your land. You
shall sanctify the year of the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for
all its inhabitants; it shall be for you a Yovel, jubilee and each man shall
return to his ancestral land and each man shall return to his family.

This sounds similar to Sefirat
HaOmer, the countdown of the days between Pesach and Shavuot which we read
about last week in Vayikra 23:15-16:

You shall count for yourselves, from
the day after the day of rest (Pesach) from the day on which you will bring the
omer wave-offering, seven complete weeks they shall be. Until the day after the
seventh week, you shall count fifty days and you shall bring a new meal
offering to God.

In both cases we are counting seven
groups of seven. During the Yovel year the shofar is blown just as it was blown
at Mt. Sinai when B’nei Yisrael received the Torah.

This Tuesday evening, we will also
be blowing the shofar as we do every year on Yom Yerushalayim, celebrating the
Yovel, the jubilee year of the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem. There
will be many special observances and festivities in Jerusalem including a
ceremony that will take place along the walls of the old city depicting the
history of Jerusalem from Biblical times until today. In addition there will be
many concerts and prayer services with live music throughout the city. Tourists
from around the world will be flying in to Jerusalem to celebrate this historic
jubilee year.

In Vayikra Raba 29 we learn that all
the sevenths are favorites:

Of the days, the seventh is a favorite,
as it is written (Breisheet 2:3) “And God blessed the seventh day and
sanctified it: because in it He rested from all His work which God created and
performed.”

Of all of the months the seventh is
a favorite, as it is written (Vayikra 23:24) “In the seventh month, on the first
day of the month, shall you have a shabbaton, a memorial of blowing of horns, a
holy gathering (Rosh HaShana).”

Of the years the seventh is a
favorite as it is written (Shmot 23:11). “And six years you shall sow your land
and gather in its fruits: But in the Seventh Year you shall let it rest and lie
fallow that the poor of your people shall eat…”

Of the shmitot (sabbatical years)
the seventh is favorite as it is written (Vayikra 25:10), “And you shall hallow
the fiftieth year.”

As we enter Shabbat, the seventh day
of the week, in the midst of our counting the 49 days of the omer and in
anticipation of the 50th Yom Yerushalayim, may we be blessed with the
opportunity to continue counting the days to more happy occasions for many more
years.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook (1865-1935), First Chief
Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael describes the spirituality of the Shmita year in his
work Shabbat HaAretz (The Sabbath of the Land):

Life can only be perfected through the affording of a
breathing space from the bustle of everyday life. The individual recovers from
the influence of the mundane at frequent intervals, every Shabbat day…What the
Shabbat achieves regarding the individual, the Shmita achieves with regard to
the nation as a whole. The nation (in which the Divine spirit dwells prominent
and eternal) has special need of expressing from time to time the revelation of
its own Divine light at the fullest brightness, not suppressed by the cares and
toil of the passions and rivalries of everyday life, so that the totality of
the soul’s purity may be revealed within it.

And if that callousness which is bound to be present in the
life of the community causes the deterioration of the moral standard of life
and the constant conflict between the ideal heeding of the appeal to practice
loving kindness, truthfulness, compassion and pity on the one hand and the
raging oppression, coercion and pressure of the quest for material gain
inevitable in daily life, on the other, cause the distancing of the Divine
light…

The periodical suspension of the normal social routines
raises this nation- when morally settled- spiritually and morally and crowns it
with perfection. This is achieved through the Divine content that is rooted in
the nation and which stands high above any social system and order and which
raises and perfects social order.

This past week in Israel we witnessed two episodes
that prove that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to reach the
spiritual ideal that Rav Kook is describing. The first was a series of violent
rallies where Ethiopian Israelis claimed that their community is not being
treated fairly. The second was that Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of
Israel was sentenced to a minimum of eight months in prison for bribery.

On the other hand, the Divine light clearly shone last week
when Israeli safety crews traveled to Nepal
to rescue all of the stranded Israelis, bringing them home safely, including Or
Asaraf’s friends who helped find his body, bringing him to Israel for a
proper burial. Teams of doctors, nurses and medics set up makeshift hospitals
to help anyone in need of medical attention. This was a true Kidush HaShem, sanctification
of God’s name.

As our new government is being set up during this Shmita
year, we hope and pray that our leaders will practice loving kindness,
truthfulness and compassion and serve as role models for the entire Jewish
people.

Parshat Behar (Vayikra 25) commands us to observe the Shmita
year. We are commanded to let the Land of Israel rest every
seventh year. It is a year where all of the produce that is grown is
technically “up for grabs” and everyone is considered equal.

This coming year, 5775 (beginning with Rosh HaShana) will be
a Shmita year.

Over the past few Shmita cycles, the Shmita year has
unfortunately been divisive for many Israelis. Israelis have different options
of how to observe the Shmita year, some will only eat produce grown by non Jews
or produce that is imported from abroad. Others will only eat produce of the Land of Israel in order to support the Jewish
farmers and because the fruits take on a special sense of holiness. Others will
eat produce that is grown on Israeli land that was “sold” to non Jews for the
year in a manner similar to the way that we sell our chametz.  Because of these different options, many
people do not feel comfortable eating in friends homes. This causes a lot of
tension and often makes people resent the Shmita year.

However, there is a whole other aspect of the Shmita year
that seems to be overlooked, the idea that during the Shmita year all may eat
freely (Vayikra 25:6-7) “The produce of the land’s Shabbat year shall be for
yourselves for food, for you, your servant and your maidservant for your hired
hand and your resident sojourner who reside with you. Also for your
domesticated animals and for the wild beasts that are in your land shall all of
its produce be for food.”

If we look at the aspect of the Shmita year which teaches
that during the Shmita year all should be looked upon as equals, we can learn a
very valuable lesson. Instead of focusing on where people shop for their fruits
and vegetables (which is a very personal decision) we can work on helping
Israelis maintain equality during that year and beyond.

According to the Sfat Emet, the purpose of the Shmita year
is to bring about unity and therefore the wealthy as well as the poor have the
same obligations during that year.

An organization has been formed in Israel called
Shmita Yisraelit which seeks to focus on the social justice aspects of the
Shmita year. Efforts are being made to focus on ecology, sustainability,
commitments for set volunteer opportunities within the community as well as
helping people pay off their debt (another aspect of the Shmita year).
Considering that only 2% of Israelis are involved in agriculture as well as the
fact that it really isn’t nice to impose our views on where to shop for our
produce on the others it make sense to focus on the community service aspects
of the Shmita year which can make the year meaningful and inclusive as opposed
to dreaded and exclusive.

Looking forward to a meaningful Shmita year in Yerushalyim!