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Blog/September 2021/Sep 24th

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September 24th Comments or questions? Click here!


Let’s talk about the “Sabbatical Year”, shall we?

It’s our third SY, and the manner in which the country gets ready for it seems to differ a bit from time to time. Because Jewish Law (halakha) doesn’t permit selling the produce grown by Jews in the Land of Israel during this year, various options exist for acquiring fruits and vegetables during the shemiṭa year:

  • purchasing produce grown “outside the Land”, or
  • from inside the Land but grown by a non-Jew, or
  • from produce grown in the Land but not in the ground, or
  • via “heter mekhira” (HM), or
  • via “oṣar beith-din” (OBD), and even
  • whatever you can collect directly from your own garden, or from a neighbor’s, since it is all “ownerless” this year (but you can’t buy it from the neighbor). Restrictions and conditions do apply!

The HM and OBD two are expanded upon here. I’ll add that the concept of HM was instituted originally as an emergency measure to protect Jewish farming, when the Jewish population of the Land was still small and there were few other options. It has been renewed every SY since, even though it rests on shaky halakhic grounds, and there are many better options. You should therefore know that we don’t rely on HM at all, and I consider it a useless and harmful dodge.

The concept of “outside the Land” is more complex than you might think. Obviously, Europe is “outside” for this purpose, so produce grown there and imported here can be used without any problem. But there are parts of “The State of Israel” which are not part of “The Land of Israel” for this purpose. Roughly anything south of the Ashqelon - Beersheba line is “outside”, so produce grown in a large part of the Negev and Arava is also able to be used. “It’s complicated” doesn’t do it justice…

As far as our personal preferences, we utilize OBD and “not grown in the ground” first, then “outside the Land”, then “grown by a non-Jew”. The main reason I avoid the “non-Jew” produce is not due to some prejudice against them, but because it has been proven in past years that unethical Jewish farmers will sell their (SY) produce to an Arab, who will then sell to regular merchants who then sell it as “non-Jewish produce”, which it isn’t. In a pinch, one can “rely on the majority” (e.g. that most of the time, “Arab produce” is actually what is claimed. But I prefer the other methods.

There’s lots more detail, with which I won’t bore you. But one last thing: the duration of SY restrictions is not just the (Hebrew) calendar year, because some produce grown this year (in particular, tree fruit) won’t be available until the next year, and some products (like wine and olive oil) are made from this year’s produce and therefore fall under the restrictions. Again, “it’s complicated”!

Other nonsense:

  • Bari Weiss on why everybody hates the Jews.
  • Solana on the hypocrisy surrounding “my body, my choice”, among other things.
  • Holly the Math Nerd on being deaf while the world is masked.
  • I found another interesting podcast: you might enjoy.
  • An exceptionally interesting interview on the topic “Privacy is Power”, which is the name of the interviewee’s book. A lot of important takeaways in that interview.
  • On a related topic: a new app helps Iranians hide messages in plain sight, to avoid detection by the authorities. There are many, many (!) reasons this is a horrible idea, most touched on in the plethora of comments to the article.

We’ve been fortunate to have guests all week in the sukka. Because the weather was every bit as warm as we expected, making lunch in the sukka a bit, shall we say, “uncomfortable”, we’ve only invited guests for the evenings. While today is very nice, shabbat will get hot again.

Despite eating so much this past week, we’ll soldier on this shabbat with:
homemade ḥalla, homemade ḥummus, fantastic Wines of the Land, grilled lamb chops, roasted potatoes, chili, rice, various salatim, and “generous portions” cake.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom and ḥag sameaḥ!


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