As I discussed in my last post, there is a new movement afoot aiming to re-understand biblical agricultural laws and find their application for modern day Jews living outside the land of Israel.  Some of these laws like peah (leaving the corners of your field for the poor), shichechah (leaving sheathes forgotten during the harvest for poor) and leket (leaving dropped harvest for the poor) only make sense when one has poor neighbors who can glean from one’s harvest.  Others like shmittah (every seven years renouncing all debts and letting the land lie fallow)and yovel (redistributing land to all people every forty nine years) only apply in the land of Israel.  Modern North American Jews who live in a different social reality have a choice: they can either write off these laws as meaningless, or they can interpret them to mean something different from the original law.   

            Peah is one law agricultural law that has begun to be reclaimed by some Jewish groups in America.  Jewish farmers at Adamah leave one corner of their field ceremonially un-harvested and give a portion of their harvest to a local food pantry.  Others have taken the law and applied it to their salary, taking a portion of their income each month and donating it to fight hunger.  People have similarly understood the laws of leket, shichechah, and ma’aser, donating portions of their wages to relevant charitable causes.   One of my friends has found a very interesting way to connect with the laws concerning peah.    He has decided to grow out his peyos (chassidic looking side curls on the corners of his head) as a reminder that his thoughts should be directed to G!d’s service, just as the corners of one’s field are devoted to the poor.   All of these interpretations are interesting ways to find relevance in seemingly meaningless laws.

            Shmittah and yovel are also timely laws be studied and re-understood.  This year is a shmittah year, which irrelevant for most Jews living in America.  The Torah prescribes that every seven years, all debt is canceled and everyone begins again with a clean credit report.  Biblically, any money lent by to a Jew by Jew that was still owed on Rosh Hashanah is no longer a valid debt.  The debt expired and the borrower has no obligtaion to repay the lender.  This rule was circumvented in order to insure a stable economy, where lenders are not afraid offer a loan.  In doing so, the rabbis got rid of an incredibly progressive system of caring for the poor.  Another part of shmittah is requirement to let one’s field in the land of Israel lie fallow for an entire year every seven.  Anyone can eat what grows while the land is laying fallow, the produce no more belongs to the farmer than to a poor woman down the street.  For I am sure that both of these parts of the mitzvah took an incredible amount of faith and hardship, but as an American,it doesn't feel particularly relevant to my life. 

            At the recent Adamah reunion, I was asked to lead a text study on shmittah.  As I put together a source sheet I realized that this would be a perfect time to ask the question “how can American Jews could keep shmittah?”  Going in, I didn’t have any clue of what answers we would find, but when we sat down and read through the texts we began to realize that there were lessions to be learned in our lives.  One man said, “wow, I have been farming for years now and haven’t taken a break.  Maybe I should take a shmittah from farming.”  Another toyed with idea of taking a year off from saving money and to experience what it is like to live hand to mouth.  One woman with wilderness thought seriously about what it would be like to go a year only eating what grows wild in forest.  I realized that I personally wanted to take a shmittah from cultivating myself professionally and instead just only harvest comes naturally in the year.  That’s when it hit me.  The English translation of ‘shmittah’ is ‘sabbatical,’ and we were not the first to interpret the biblical law in a more modern context.  I realized that I was part of a long line of people trying to find meaning and holiness in the Torah.