c. 2007 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ As soon as she moved into her ground-floor apartment last month, Monique Landau hired a gardening crew to give her wrap-around terrace a bit of greenery.

While Landau would normally have waited to unpack before sprucing up her patio, the rapidly approaching “shmita” sabbatical year _ in which most agricultural activity comes to a halt in Israel _ made this impossible.

“I’m an Orthodox Jew and observing shmita is important to me,” Landau said against a backdrop of stacked moving boxes.

Religious Jews around the world are gearing up for shmita, the biblical commandment to refrain from various forms of agricultural activity every seven years in the biblical land of Israel.

The shmita year, which begins on the eve of Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year), at sundown on Sept. 12, is mentioned several times in the Bible. The Book of Exodus states: “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.”

The sabbatical year prohibitions, which include sowing, planting, pruning, reaping, harvesting and improving the land in any way, are being felt most strongly in Israel, where Jewish farmers are scrambling to harvest crops and plant new ones before shmita begins. Gardeners are working overtime as homeowners and municipalities scramble to plant hardy perennials that will survive a year without tending.

Come the New Year, religious Jews outside Israel will carefully scrutinize all Israeli produce to ensure it meets shmita standards.

To minimize financial hardship, gardeners and others affected by shmita are coming up with ingenious ways to earn a livelihood.

“We’re growing a lot of plants in water,” said Eyal Binyamini, co-owner of the Ginat Tamar plant nursery in Jerusalem, pointing to his recently enlarged collection of water lilies. “We’re focusing a lot on ponds and koi fish.”

To ensure that farmers won’t go bankrupt and that the public will have enough food during the shmita year, most mainstream Orthodox rabbis allow Jewish farmers to temporarily sell their land to non-Jews during the shmita period, a process known as “heter mechira.” At the end of the sabbatical year, the farmers buy back the property.

Technically, the land becomes the property of a non-Jew, and the shmita rules do not apply. While many modern-Orthodox and religiously traditional Israelis hold by this practice, most ultra-Orthodox Jews do not.

Fervently religious Jews do not recognize “heter mechira” because for them, “the Land of Israel is the Land of Israel, no exceptions,” said Rabbi Stewart Weiss, director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra’anana. “It’s also prohibited to sell and/or do business with shmita produce that was generated in a prohibited manner.”

During the shmita year and part of the year after (when permissible shmita produce will still be in short supply), Weiss said ultra-Orthodox Jews can purchase produce from land that is turned over to a rabbinical court, making the land essentially public land.

The rabbinical court will then administer the land, making it available at outlets in various cities, and the produce can be eaten during the shmita year, Weiss explained.

Imported produce and produce grown in sand or water are also acceptable to fervently Orthodox Jews, who have been pressing Israel’s Agriculture Ministry to lower taxes on imported fruits and vegetables during the shmita period.

While no one in Israel questions the right of the ultra-Orthodox population to adhere to a more exacting standard of shmita, some worry that certain rabbis may be trying to force the general public to adhere to it as well.

“If prices go up in mainstream restaurants due to the higher standards, this will constitute religious coercion,” charges Anat Hoffman, director of the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center.

Israel’s Chief Rabbinate _ the nationwide religious body that deals with kosher food laws _ permits the consumption of food from land sold to non-Jews, but some local religious councils do not.

In early August, the director-general of the Jerusalem Religious Council instructed wholesale produce vendors in Jerusalem not to sell produce grown in “heter mechira” soil.

“If this becomes the standard, and importers get tax breaks that undercut local farmers, the consumer can expect to spend a great deal more for fruits and vegetables,” warned Meir Yifrach, director of the Vegetable Growers Association. “This is more about vested interests and less about” kosher laws.

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Hoffman believes the current wrangle over shmita standards misses the point.

“The idea behind shmita is profound and innovative. It reminds us not to be greedy and at a time when society revolved around agriculture, it instructed us to give food to the poor.”

Today, Hoffman says, “when we live largely in urban areas, shmita is still about the needy, about the disparity between the rich and the poor.”

Noting that one of the country’s banking giants had just announced $240 million in quarterly profits, Hoffman insisted that much of this wealth should be directed toward the poor.

“We’re entering a shmita year. Why aren’t our great rabbis talking about this?” Hoffman said.

KRE/RB END CHABIN950 words, with optional trim to 825

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