Recognizing that not everyone finds shemittah issues as interesting as I do, I am making this week's post (and sheet at the RJC) the last on shemittah. Some of this repeats last weeks, since I kept the most relevant parts to put out at the RJC, but much of it is new.  Shabbat Shalom. The central question we will discuss is how a consumer has to treat the produce coming out of Israel in this time period.

A first issue to consider is whether we are allowed to use improperly grown shemittah produce. The Torah clearly says that the produce of shemittah is lakhem le-okhlah, for you to eat, so that we are obviously allowed to eat at least some shemittah produce, but that might be only that produce which is grown in an appropriate way. There are two main ways in which it could be grown inappropriately, either because the owner guarded the field (when it was supposed to be hefker) or because the owner worked the field. While there is a larger majority for the case of guarded produce, even in the case of produce that has been actively farmed during shemittah there is room for others to use the produce. In a case that will be particularly relevant for Diaspora Jews, Hazon Ish was of the opinion that we can use an etrog (which we don’t use for eating, but for a mitsvah performance) even though it was worked on during shemittah.

My discussion thus far may have given the impression that any produce of the Land of Israel during the shemittah year should be considered shemittah produce, but that is mistaken in two ways. First, much of the agricultural community in Israel relies on what is known as the heter mekhirah, a ruling that it was permissible in our times to officially sell the Land of Israel to non-Jews for the year, rendering shemittah issues moot. Many currently oppose this notion, and believe that such a sale is not effective at removing the kedushat shevi`it, its status as shemittah produce from the fruits of that year. R. Rimon points out that R. Kook was of the opinion that even those who rely on the heter mekhirah should act stringently, accepting all the stringencies of both its being shemittah produce (as we will discuss) and its not being shemittah produce (such as tithing). R. Rimon also points out, and I think this is crucial to keep in mind, that even those who reject the validity of the heter mekhirah, should still be able to eat the produce that is grown, for two reasons: first, since shemittah is a de-rabanan nowadays and those who rely on the heter mekhirah have valid rabbinic authority that ratifies their opinion, those who do not rely on that opinion need not reject it as invalid.

This is actually worth considering on a broader basis than just shemittah— there is a world of difference in halakhah between how we view other Jews who simply violate commandments and those who rely on a valid rabbinic authority with whose position we disagree. There is, for example, a difference between how we would view someone who carries in the public domain on Shabbat where there is no eruv at all as opposed to how we should view someone who carries in a place where there is a dispute among rabbinic authorities as to whether an eruv can properly be built there. This model of tolerance for other valid rabbinic authorities is worth keeping in mind.

The question of the heter mekhirah applies to Diaspora Jews as well, since much of the produce of Israel that will reach our shores relies on that heter. To the extent that we buy Israeli produce, then, we might need to treat it with kedushat shevi`it. There are other avenues of avoiding shemittah issues (such as hydroponics), but they become too complicated for this forum.

Kedushat shevi`it obligates us to treat the produce of shemittah differently in a couple of ways. First, we are not allowed to destroy shemittah produce. That means, for example, that we cannot throw away half an apple during shemittah, although we could throw out those parts of a fruit that are inedible. What we have to do instead is set aside leftover food that will not eaten (the general custom in Israel is to have a separate garbage can, and to change the bag every day, so that we are not putting fresh fruit in with fruit that is already rotten), allowing it to rot, after which we can throw it out, since it is no longer edible. If that is not possible, or for items like soup (that were made with shemittah produce), where pouring leftover soup into the shemittah can would hasten the rotting of the produce already in there, there is room to allow one to put the produce in its own bag, and then to put that bag in with the regular garbage. Since the plastic bag separates them, such an act would not be viewed as destroying shemittah produce.

The reason for the prohibition against destroying the produce of the Land, R. Rimon suggests, is that the whole point of the shemittah year is to emphasize our lack of ownership over the Land. One of the most significant rights of owners is the right of destruction; during shemittah, we are invited by the Owner of the Land to partake of the produce, but we are not allowed to destroy it. In going through these complicated maneuvers with shemittah-leftovers, then, we are accomplishing one of the significant goals of the year-long observance— to remind ourselves that our ownership of the Land is actually only a right of tenancy granted by God, and restricted on a regular basis to remind us of who the original owner is. Other related issues are the kinds of use we are allowed to make of shemittah produce— we are not, for example, allowed to use such produce for purposes other than that for which it was grown (there is some question, for example, as to whether we could grind apples to make applesauce during shemittah, whether we could squeeze oranges not specifically grown to be juice-oranges, etc.). Again, these complicated rules are meant to help inculcate our being God’s guests on the Land, for a year forcing ourselves to act completely like guests.

Another element of the question of how to treat shemittah produce is the question of how we buy it. Without going into all the issues here, there are problems with paying money directly for shemittah products. One of those problems is that the money might attain kedushat shevi`it, since it is being given in return for shemittah produce. That would create some question as to whether it is permissible to buy such produce from an am ha’arets, a Jew not conversant enough with the laws of shemittah for us to feel comfortable that he will use this money in an appropriate way. Beyond that, there is also a difficulty in weighing shemittah produce; since we are not supposed to be buying it to begin with (business with the fruits is prohibited, again in a way that emphasizes that we are not the owners, so we have no right to buy and sell), exact measurement makes it clear that we are buying the produce, rather than whatever legal fiction we wanted to rely on to allow such purchases. There are solutions to these issues, but I simply wanted to raise the questions as part of understanding the shemittah process.

Once we know something about how to treat shemittah produce, we need to know what qualifies; here there are three categories— grains and olives, which follow what’s called hava’at shelish, meaning that at least a third of its growth happened during shemittah (even though the majority happened in the eighth year); vegetables, which depend on when they are picked; and fruits, which depend on hanatah, a term that is a matter of debate, but is a fairly early stage of the fruit’s growth.

Fruits also differ from othe rshemittah-produce in that they grow on trees and that (as we hopefully remember from grade school) trees have a different beginning o fthe year than the rest of the world; their Rosh haShanah is the 15th of Shevat. Some opinions thought that we need to be mahmir both ways (meaning that any fruit that reaches the hanatah stage from the 1st of Tishrei of the shemittah year until the 15th of Shevat of the following year—almost 1 1/2 years) would be treated as shemittah produce. My understanding is that the practice in Erets Yisrael is to go the other way, ruling that it is only those fruit that reach hanatah between 15 Shevat of the shemittah year and Rosh haShanah of the next year that are treated as shemittah produce. On the one hand, this means that issues of fruit and shemittah do not arise until the latter half o f the shemittah year; on the other, it means those issues continue on into the following year (glancing at the chart R. Rimon provides, I noticed that oranges, which are apparently a summer or late spring crop, continue to have shemittah-produce status until Heshvan of 5763, more than a full year after the conclusion of shemittah.

R. Rimon includes detailed charts at the back of the sefer, giving the growing season for various kinds of fruit and vegetables, so that one can know when to treat them in what way. He also notes a deep problem with vegetables during the year of shemittah, the problem of sefihim, a rabbinic prohibiton even of vegetables that grew on their own during the year of shemittah. While those who rely on the heter mekhirah can generally rely on that to avoid the problem of sefihim as well, those who do not have more serious issues. Those vegetables that began growing before shemittah are also not a problem, since they are not considered the produce of shemittah. However, later in the year sefihim becomes a significant issue for such people. One solution is to import vegetables during that portion of the year, although there are some other avenues of heter as well.