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(Redirected from Sabbatical year (Bible))
The 'Shemitah' (in Hebrew: שְׁמִטָּה -- "[Year of] Remission") or 'Sabbatical Year', promulgated in the Torah, is a practice of contemporary Orthodox Judaism with Biblical roots. It has two dimensions: (a) It is a year during which farm-land in the Land of Israel has to remain uncultivated (known in Hebrew as shemitat karka'ot) and (b) It is a year at the end of which debts owed to individuals are "forgiven" (i.e. "remitted") (known in Hebrew as shemitat kesafim). (The latter dimension applies throughout the world, even outside the Land of Israel.) The Shemitah occurs every seven years, and the next Shmita year will be 5768 (2007-8).
The Sabbatical year is discussed in the Hebrew Bible in a number of places, including:
★ 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) [1]
★ 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. 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) [2]
★ 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) [3] 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)[4]
★ Book of Nehemiah: "'...and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.'" (Nehemiah 10:32) [5]
★ 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)[6]
Land owned by Jews in the Land of Israel is left unfarmed. In Biblical times any naturally growing produce was left to be taken by poor people, passing strangers, and beasts of the field. Today, much as in Biblical times, such produce also cannot be planted. While naturally growing produce such as grapes growing on existing vineyards can be harvested, it cannot be used in commerce (it cannot be sold), and it must be either given away or consumed.
Debts between the people of Israel are remitted at sunset on the twenty ninth of Elul of the Shemitah year.
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.
Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor developed a device to permit agriculture to continue during the Shmita year in the late 19th century, in the early days of Zionism. The basis of the device, accepted by Modern Orthodox Judaism, is that only land owned by Jews must be left fallow, which was interpreted to mean that Jews are permitted to farm fields owned by non-Jews during the Sabbatical. However, as with many matters in contemporary halakhic development, this approach has not been univerally accepted in the Orthodox community and has met with opposition, particularly from Haredi ''poskim'' (authorities of Jewish law), from the time it was first proposed and to this day. The Chazon Ish, a leading early twentieth-century authority, wrote an opinion that even produce grown on land owned by non-Jews is subject to the Shmita.
It has become customary in contemporary practice, particularly in Modern Orthodox practice, to use the rabbinic leniencies systematically, selling all fields in Israel to a loyal non-Jew for the symbolic price of one shekel before the Sabbatical. They are then bought back for the same price after the Sabbatical. Thus, the fields can be farmed anyway. This procedure has been accepted and carried out by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.
Many Haredi Jews do not avail themselves of this leniency, and Haredi farmers leave their fields fallow every seven years and are supported by communal funds during this period.
Haredi influence on the Israeli Rabbinate has been increasing of late. 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.
The Badatz, a Haredi organization, applies a somewhat stricter version of the leniency which regards produce from land owned by non-Jews in the Land of Israel as having certain additional sanctity, which can nonethelesss be addressed with additional procedures. Under this approach, in addition to requiring land to be sold to a non-Jew, Jews wishing to eat the produce sign a document appointing their grocer as their agent to buy the produce and pay the grocer for services in this capacity. Under this approach, the grocer is not engaging in commerce (buying-and-selling) with other Jews regarding the produce, but is simply acting as the consumer's agent to purchase the produce directly from the non-Jew. The Badatz also considers the Arabah valley to be outside the traditional Land of Israel and permits the normal use of produce grown there.
The Biblical practice of bonded servitude until the Shmita year e.g. as punishment for crime is not currently practiced in contemporary Judaism. Contemporary religious courts do not have jurisdiction over criminal matters or authority to administer such a procedure.
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 amployed from abroad.[1]
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. Israeli wineries 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. Shmita produce must be consumed and cannot be thrown away or used for other purposes, so (for example) if strictly observant Orthodox Jews use Shmita wine for the Havdala ceremony, they drink the cup completely and do not perform the otherwise traditional custom of extinguishing the candle in the wine.
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 next Shemittah year begins 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.
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 Shemitah only biblically applies when the Jubilee year is in effect, but the Sages of the Talmud legislated the observance of the Shemitah anyway as a reminder of the biblical statute. And yet others hold that the Shemitah has become purely voluntary. According to a sweeping survey of all the pertinent sources conducted by Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef in the tenth volume of his responsa Yabi'a Omer, the Halakhah accords with the middle option: the Shemitah nowadays is a rabbinic obligation in nature. This conclusion 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.
★ Jubilee (Biblical)
★ Jewish holidays
★ Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim Jewish Law Website: Shmita
★ Jewish Encyclopedia, ""Sabbatical Year and Jubilee", 1906
★ Shmita : Info and News
★ "Shmita: 5712", ''Time Magazine'', October 20, 1952
★ Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld. ''Shemittah and Yobel''. Soncino Press, 1972. ISBN 0-900689-91-9
1. Israel looks to Cyprus as Jewish law orders land to remain fallow Jean Christou
The 'Shemitah' (in Hebrew: שְׁמִטָּה -- "[Year of] Remission") or 'Sabbatical Year', promulgated in the Torah, is a practice of contemporary Orthodox Judaism with Biblical roots. It has two dimensions: (a) It is a year during which farm-land in the Land of Israel has to remain uncultivated (known in Hebrew as shemitat karka'ot) and (b) It is a year at the end of which debts owed to individuals are "forgiven" (i.e. "remitted") (known in Hebrew as shemitat kesafim). (The latter dimension applies throughout the world, even outside the Land of Israel.) The Shemitah occurs every seven years, and the next Shmita year will be 5768 (2007-8).
| Contents |
| In the Hebrew Bible |
| Rules of observance |
| In Rabbinic Judaism |
| Modern observance in Israel |
| Shmita wine |
| When occurring |
| Current status of the Shemitah |
| See also |
| References |
In the Hebrew Bible
The Sabbatical year is discussed in the Hebrew Bible in a number of places, including:
★ 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) [1]
★ 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. 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) [2]
★ 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) [3] 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)[4]
★ Book of Nehemiah: "'...and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.'" (Nehemiah 10:32) [5]
★ 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)[6]
Rules of observance
Land owned by Jews in the Land of Israel is left unfarmed. In Biblical times any naturally growing produce was left to be taken by poor people, passing strangers, and beasts of the field. Today, much as in Biblical times, such produce also cannot be planted. While naturally growing produce such as grapes growing on existing vineyards can be harvested, it cannot be used in commerce (it cannot be sold), and it must be either given away or consumed.
Debts between the people of Israel are remitted at sunset on the twenty ninth of Elul of the Shemitah year.
In Rabbinic Judaism
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.
Modern observance in Israel
Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor developed a device to permit agriculture to continue during the Shmita year in the late 19th century, in the early days of Zionism. The basis of the device, accepted by Modern Orthodox Judaism, is that only land owned by Jews must be left fallow, which was interpreted to mean that Jews are permitted to farm fields owned by non-Jews during the Sabbatical. However, as with many matters in contemporary halakhic development, this approach has not been univerally accepted in the Orthodox community and has met with opposition, particularly from Haredi ''poskim'' (authorities of Jewish law), from the time it was first proposed and to this day. The Chazon Ish, a leading early twentieth-century authority, wrote an opinion that even produce grown on land owned by non-Jews is subject to the Shmita.
It has become customary in contemporary practice, particularly in Modern Orthodox practice, to use the rabbinic leniencies systematically, selling all fields in Israel to a loyal non-Jew for the symbolic price of one shekel before the Sabbatical. They are then bought back for the same price after the Sabbatical. Thus, the fields can be farmed anyway. This procedure has been accepted and carried out by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.
Many Haredi Jews do not avail themselves of this leniency, and Haredi farmers leave their fields fallow every seven years and are supported by communal funds during this period.
Haredi influence on the Israeli Rabbinate has been increasing of late. 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.
The Badatz, a Haredi organization, applies a somewhat stricter version of the leniency which regards produce from land owned by non-Jews in the Land of Israel as having certain additional sanctity, which can nonethelesss be addressed with additional procedures. Under this approach, in addition to requiring land to be sold to a non-Jew, Jews wishing to eat the produce sign a document appointing their grocer as their agent to buy the produce and pay the grocer for services in this capacity. Under this approach, the grocer is not engaging in commerce (buying-and-selling) with other Jews regarding the produce, but is simply acting as the consumer's agent to purchase the produce directly from the non-Jew. The Badatz also considers the Arabah valley to be outside the traditional Land of Israel and permits the normal use of produce grown there.
The Biblical practice of bonded servitude until the Shmita year e.g. as punishment for crime is not currently practiced in contemporary Judaism. Contemporary religious courts do not have jurisdiction over criminal matters or authority to administer such a procedure.
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 amployed from abroad.[1]
Shmita wine
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. Israeli wineries 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. Shmita produce must be consumed and cannot be thrown away or used for other purposes, so (for example) if strictly observant Orthodox Jews use Shmita wine for the Havdala ceremony, they drink the cup completely and do not perform the otherwise traditional custom of extinguishing the candle in the wine.
When occurring
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 next Shemittah year begins 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.
Current status of the Shemitah
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 Shemitah only biblically applies when the Jubilee year is in effect, but the Sages of the Talmud legislated the observance of the Shemitah anyway as a reminder of the biblical statute. And yet others hold that the Shemitah has become purely voluntary. According to a sweeping survey of all the pertinent sources conducted by Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef in the tenth volume of his responsa Yabi'a Omer, the Halakhah accords with the middle option: the Shemitah nowadays is a rabbinic obligation in nature. This conclusion 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.
See also
★ Jubilee (Biblical)
★ Jewish holidays
References
★ Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim Jewish Law Website: Shmita
★ Jewish Encyclopedia, ""Sabbatical Year and Jubilee", 1906
★ Shmita : Info and News
★ "Shmita: 5712", ''Time Magazine'', October 20, 1952
★ Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld. ''Shemittah and Yobel''. Soncino Press, 1972. ISBN 0-900689-91-9
1. Israel looks to Cyprus as Jewish law orders land to remain fallow Jean Christou
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