During the shmittah year in Israel, farm land lies fallow

Parshas Behar is chock full of really good stuff that’s very important for the traveler to know.  In fact, it starts out with a discussion of shmittah.  Shmittah is the “sabbatical year” – it is a “Shabbat” for the land – where every seven years, the land gets a year off.  There are a lot of really esoteric meanings behind this whole concept, but this week let’s focus on some more practical questions.

In travel, we often survive by eating fresh fruits and vegetables.  Not only is this usually the healthiest option, but it’s also often the only truly kosher one.  When it comes to eating the fruits and vegetables of any other country, the only big concern we have is bugs.  But when it comes to eating fruits and vegetables grown in the land of Israel, there are a whole slew of laws and we have to make sure they’ve been followed.  Shmittah is one of those.  If it is the shmittah year we are commanded to let the land lie fallow and not to cultivate it.  We’re told not to pick the crops and sell them for ourselves, but rather to open our lands and let anyone come in and take whatever happens to be growing there.

Shmittah poses a practical problem for the traveler in Israel if you happen to be there during the shmittah year or the year after.  Often we don’t realize it, but our juices, canned foods, and dried foods are not from the current year, but are from the previous year’s harvest.  That means that for at least two years out of every seven, you’ll have to watch what you buy as you travel through Israel.  (Just FYI, the last shmittah year in Israel was 2007-2008, so the next years you’ll need to worry about are 2014-2015 and preserved produce during 2015-2016.)

But this issue won’t only come up as you travel in Israel!  If you’re traveling in third-world countries, very little produce is internationally imported because it’s prohibitively expensive for the local population, so if you simply avoid anything priced unusually high, you’ll be fine.  But in the first world, more of our food comes from different locations than doesn’t. (In fact, some places that are famous for a certain food, like Florida is with oranges, will export their entire crop and sell it for a higher price – then import cheaper oranges for its own population. Crazy!)  This means that even if you’re living in the United States or Europe, you’ll have to check all your fruits and veggies to be sure they aren’t coming from Israel.  Rabbi Ben and I recently encountered carrots imported from Israel on a trip to Canada.  In fact, sometimes you really have to be careful.  Just this month, Coles and Woolworths, two Australian supermarket chains, were fined recently for failing to label their grapefruit as coming from Israel.  Maybe during the shmittah year we should all just buy our produce from local farmer’s markets!

So what really happens in Israel during a shmittah year?  Does everyone just starve? Do you have to just sit and watch your produce rot in your field?  Do all those farmers just go without an income for a year?  Do they really let their land lie fallow?  The answer is, yes and no.  There are many farmers who do really let their land lie fallow and there are organizations set up to help them out financially during that year.  There are also some “loopholes” to the law.

First, the Torah prohibition only applies to certain activities.  You’re not allowed to sow, plant, prune, reap, harvest, or otherwise improve the land.  You definitely cannot go out with your harvesting machines and start selling all those fruits.  But if something is growing there, you are allowed to pick it and eat it yourself (with your family’s help).  You’re also allowed to eat produce grown the previous year, the sixth year, so you can get plenty of canned and dried goodies – you’re not going to go hungry on account of shmittah. The Torah prohibition also only applies to things growing on/in the land.  This means that if you’re growing something apart from the land, as in hydroponically or in a greenhouse, shmittah laws do not apply.  (Make sure terumah and maaser have been taken, but without a bracha.)

Instead of simply letting their land lie fallow, some farmers will plant during the sixth year.  They are then allowed to give their land to a beit din, a Jewish religious court of law, and the beit din can then collect the produce and sell it for just enough to cover their expenses (known as otzar beit din). (Terumah and miser hasn’t been taken from this kind of produce, and when you discard this fruit, it must be specially wrapped and thrown out separately because it has the holiness of the shmittah year in it.)

A pomegranate tree grows wild in Israel during the shmittah year. You are allowed to come pick and eat its produce, but you cannot cultivate the tree or sell its produce.

Finally, shmittah only applies to Jews.  Non-Jews are permitted to grow produce on their land and Jews are allowed to buy it, even if the non-Jew’s land is in Israel.  This means you can always buy from a non-Jew who owns land in Israel, even during the shmittah year.  Many farmers will lease their land to a non-Jewish farmer for the shmittah year, which is permitted as long as there is rabbinic oversight.

Shmittah is an important commandment.  It is one of the commandments that prove that Hashem gave us the Torah. (Because why on earth would an person writing a religious book tell all the people not to grow anything all during the same year? Only G-d can ensure that we will grow enough in the sixth year to get through a seventh while growing nothing.)  But it is important, both within Israel and without, for anybody who’s planning to buy produce in a first-world country.  And as travelers, that’s a lot of what we eat!

Click here for our page on ‘fruits and vegetables,’ and to learn more about fresh produce around the world.