Consumer Issues During Shmita - Rabbi Yisrael Yitzchok Halperin shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 We’ll talk briefly about the instructions regarding what grows from the ground—working the land. The Torah names four types of work that were prohibited by Torah law when Shemittah was a Torah obligation. As we mentioned, some halachic authorities hold that it is a Torah obligation even now. But even according to the view that Shemittah today is rabbinic, we are much stricter about these four types of work because they are mentioned in the Torah. They are sowing, pruning, reaping, and harvesting grapes. Sowing and pruning are... Yes, pruning applies to trees, while sowing applies to grain and also to trees and other plants. When you plant a tree, you also transgress the prohibition of “You shall not sow your field,” even though the verse speaks about a field for sowing. And when you prune—when you cut branches in a way that encourages new growth—you transgress the prohibition of “You shall not prune.” Although the Torah says this about a grapevine, most halachic authorities have ruled that the grapevine is only an example. That is also the implication of the Rambam’s words. So you may not prune any tree in a way that encourages its growth, even a non-fruit-bearing tree. Even though, according to most halachic authorities, Shemittah today is rabbinic, they were very strict about these types of work: they should not be done unless there is a very compelling reason. Even then, we would do them in an altered way, which I’ll explain shortly, so as not to transgress the prohibition. Because when something is prohibited by Torah law, as you know, we do not permit it because of a financial loss or any other reason. There are situations in which the Sages themselves were lenient and permitted something they prohibited, but they did not do so with Torah prohibitions. So when we talk about cutting branches—which is actually more common for us at home; we don’t do much sowing, though of course it can come up if we have a garden in the yard—there is sometimes pruning and similar work to be done. We need to be aware that when it comes to branches

02:10 Speaker 2 or trees, there is a problem during Shemittah with pruning them in a way that encourages growth. The solution is to prune them in the following way. First of all, pruning can only be permitted when I truly do not intend to encourage growth, when my purpose is something else. If I actually want to encourage growth, there is no solution. It is forbidden to do that during Shemittah; it is work prohibited during Shemittah. There are several reasons why I might need to prune. For example, branches might be blocking a path. Suppose I have a walkway, and branches are growing over it and preventing people from passing. That pruning is certainly not being done to encourage growth; it has another clear purpose. So it would be permitted, but we do it differently. What do we change? Ordinarily, because of the nature of a tree, pruning near the base of a branch encourages growth. There is a hormone in the tree that causes this. If you prune at the point where the branch forks—or at one of those points on a branch that look like little eyes, wherever a new branch begins to emerge—the pruning stimulates new growth, and more branches will sprout. So we won’t prune that way. We’ll leave a stub, about ten centimeters of branch, and cut beyond that. That is one option. It is not just that we have done something a little unusual; we have actually done something that does not encourage growth. And since we do not want growth, that is a good solution. Sometimes you don’t need to go that far. You can make do with cutting it

03:53 Speaker 2 only—say the tree has a diseased branch. Cutting off a diseased branch won’t encourage growth; you only need to remove it because otherwise it will damage the whole tree. When the whole tree is at risk, they permitted taking action to save it. But it is still pruning. So the solution there is to cut it—if, for example, you cannot leave a stub. It is clear that you are cutting only that one branch, and the result is not symmetrical. Normal pruning is usually done symmetrically, so this is an altered way of doing it, one of the possible changes. Another option in such a case is to have a non-Jew do the work. And I must stress: having a non-Jew do it does not make work during Shemittah permissible. There is no permission to call a non-Jewish gardener to do our Shemittah work for us. That is certainly forbidden. Otherwise, the whole thing would be even worse than the heter mechirah. It doesn’t work that way, whether the prohibition is from the Torah or rabbinic. Only when it is something that is essentially permitted, but you want to avoid a concern about appearances or some other concern, can we rely in such a case on the grounds found in the halachic authorities for permitting it and have a non-Jew do it. But as I said, another solution is to make a change that somewhat reduces the quality of the result. There are types of trimming usually done for appearance. Grass is cut for appearance, and a hedge is usually trimmed for appearance. I don’t want to trim it so that it will grow. So that is treated differently. Actually, what I just said is not precise, because it depends on the type of lawn. Some grass is still sparse, and you

05:27 Speaker 2 still want it to fill in. Each time it is cut, its growth is stimulated and it starts spreading more. So if someone’s lawn has not filled in properly, or it was planted not long ago, each mowing will encourage growth. In that situation, mowing it is a problem. You have to look at how to mow it and what to cut, because we will not permit trimming that encourages growth. The same applies to someone who has a young hedge, or a hedge with gaps in it, and trims it so the gaps will fill in. That is forbidden. It is plainly pruning to encourage growth. And according to the Rambam, as I said, and many other halachic authorities who prohibit it as a matter of Torah law, there is no basis for permitting it for a purpose like that.

06:04 Speaker 3 Even in Eretz Yisroel?

06:05 Speaker 2 Even in Eretz Yisroel, yes, according to the Rambam’s view. The Rambam writes, “Every tree.” There are concise halachic works today that say the Torah prohibition applies only to a vineyard. But that is based on the Chazon Ish’s view. I may mention him a few times, but we follow a different view. When I trim for appearance, it falls somewhere in between. I’m not pruning to keep it from dying, as you said might need to be done once a year or perhaps every six months. I want to trim more frequently. But my aim is not to encourage growth either; I just want it to look nice. So this is what the halachic authorities say. In principle, some forbid it entirely and say to do only what is needed so it does not die. But many permit trimming for appearance as well, on condition that you do it a little differently. What does that mean? When you mow very low—the lawnmower, for those familiar with lawns, is like a hair clipper. It has different height settings, to cut lower and so on. When you cut very low, it cuts into the roots. That certainly encourages new growth, and it is forbidden. But set it a little higher, and then you can mow. In fact, it’s a good idea—and I’m saying this to your gardener—not to leave too long an interval between mowings. Some people wanted to space them farther apart. But after looking into it carefully, many now say that when you wait a long time, the grass underneath turns yellow. Then, when you mow, even if you use a high setting, it is exposed to the sun and turns green again. In other words, we will inevitably be encouraging growth. So don’t mow at exactly the usual intervals,

07:49 Speaker 2 but don’t leave long gaps either, and always mow so that the grass remains a little taller. If the lawn is dense, mowing it this way can be permitted. The same applies to a hedge. But if there is no need to trim a hedge, then there is no reason to do it. With grass, it can sometimes become a real nuisance. If a hedge is growing outward and blocking people’s way, clearly it needs to be cut back. So as I said, cut it in a way that does not, does not...

08:12 Speaker 3 It won’t be.

08:13 Speaker 2 No, no, no—so that it won’t encourage growth. First of all, don’t cut right at the end of the branch; leave a little stub. Now, if he wants to do it just for appearance, although there is room to permit that, as I said, when it has already become dense and overgrown, if it isn’t necessary, we say that we also need to feel the Shemitah year. Shemitah isn’t about making things look ugly, but there’s also no reason to make life completely normal, because this is, after all, the little that remains for us in observing Shemitah. That isn’t my interpretation. Some of the poskim write this too, since there are opinions that say it isn’t advisable to do it for no particular reason, even for appearance. So if the plant won’t die, let it be a little wilder. That’s the pruning there. If it’s grown wilder and you trim it back a little, that won’t encourage it to grow more. Of course, leave the necessary stubs. Where there’s a concern about snakes or other animals hiding, whether in grass or anywhere else, you may cut it back. There’s no question about that. It’s a matter of protecting life. There too, of course, if you’re cutting it back and it’s an area that isn’t intended for planting—sometimes there are patches where only thorns grow—you can cut them back normally above ground level. Don’t dig into the ground. Where thorns have grown near plants, removing the thorns will immediately give the plants more room to breathe and grow. That’s natural. If the thorns take away a plant’s strength, it’s weaker; remove the vegetation around it and it will grow better. So the nearby thorns—

09:38 Speaker 2 those you don’t cut all the way down. You leave some of them; you lower their height but don’t cut them down completely, so that you haven’t directly encouraged growth. You remove the thorns that are farther away. Of course, this mustn’t come at the expense of a person. In our village, for example, it might be a matter of access or a passageway. Those things are permitted, but as I said, make some change in the height, in the way you cut them, and so on. Now, the question is: what do we do with potted plants? Let’s divide them up this way. Halachah distinguishes between a perforated pot and a non-perforated pot. In practice, most pots today are considered perforated. Why? Because the size of an opening that poskim already begin to discuss as making a pot count as perforated is one millimeter. Some say it has to be larger, but that measure does appear. They’re trying to translate the halachic definition into today’s reality. Many poskim say that, in any case, for Shemitah it’s one millimeter, and some pots already have holes that size. Besides that, many poskim, including the Avnei Nezer, hold that when the foliage—that is, the leaves, which are called “foliage” in halachic language—extends beyond the pot, it draws nourishment from the ground. The plant can draw nourishment through its leaves. Do you understand what I’m saying? Yes? Sometimes the rim of the pot is wider and the plant grows only in the middle, and sometimes the leaves spread outward. That happens in very many cases, and then, as the Avnei Nezer says, it draws nourishment diagonally. Besides all that, the Alter Rebbe already writes in the laws of Shabbos that if a pot is made of earthenware or wood, there are opinions that hold that the wood or earthenware itself absorbs nourishment even without a hole. So for all these reasons, most pots—

11:24 Speaker 2 we will treat them as perforated. There are plastic pots, but where one reason doesn’t apply, we’ll find other reasons to treat them that way. Now, if so, we need to treat them only... So when a pot is outdoors, we treat it like something planted in the ground. There is no more room to be lenient with pots kept outdoors than with plants in the ground. If you have pots outside, treat them like a field. What does “like a field” mean? You may not sow in them, even if a pot is sitting on some plastic saucer. If it’s outdoors and its foliage draws nourishment, and so on, treat it as you would something in the ground. We don’t sow in them, and we don’t... And if you want to pick from them, pick in the manner we discussed, at a pace that won’t encourage growth. I’m saying that we don’t plant in any of these pots we find outdoors. What do we do? We certainly water them. And here I want to emphasize: more than plants in ordinary ground. With ordinary ground, watering should be much less frequent than in a regular year. In a regular year, people turn on the sprinklers or drip irrigation as the gardener told them: whether it’s needed or not, another three times a week. In a year like this, you need to find out how much water the soil needs. In winter, it may not need any at all; the rain gives it plenty. In summer, you also need to determine what’s needed according to the area. Ask the gardener how much it really needs. Beyond that, you may not water it once you’ve spaced the waterings appropriately. So even if you... When you turn on the irrigation and it runs a little longer than planned—I’ll give an example. Suppose that instead of three times a week, you water once a week, because that’s what the gardener said, and then, instead of giving it twenty minutes, you give it half an hour. There is room to be lenient about that, because you began watering in a permitted way, and that is significant. According to some poskim, it isn’t a serious problem if you go a little over time, but the frequency is the more decisive factor. If you can reduce the amount as well, that’s even better. That’s for ordinary ground. With pots, because there’s only a small amount of soil, there’s almost no flexibility in the intervals between waterings, because the plant will die. So the approach to watering has to be a little different. But watering can be fairly normal. The test isn’t... it doesn’t take any ruach hakodesh or prophecy. The test is to look at how the plant looks. Leaves that are starting to droop a little bend downward. That shows that the plant is thirsty. Don’t use a hot summer day as your measure, because then it’s always hot. In the late afternoon or evening, if you see that the leaves are still starting to droop—in ordinary ground, not in a pot—that’s a sign. It’s a sign that the tree or other plants need watering. Before that, they probably don’t need it. With pots, you may water as needed even before they reach that point of thirst. But other treatments are forbidden unless you see, as needed, that the plant is dying. You don’t just fertilize it. You don’t fertilize pots for no reason, just as you don’t fertilize the ground, unless there’s a real need and you’re concerned it might die. When the test shows that it’s going to die, the work we discussed is permitted—with the exception of sowing, as I said, which is prohibited by Torah law. Even if it will die, we don’t sow. Now, when we speak about pots inside the house—we’ve finished with pots outdoors in the field—the defining feature of a house is a roof. Walls also add to its status as a house, but a roof is the main defining feature. So in that regard there is

12:58 Speaker 2 You didn’t give it twenty minutes; you gave it half an hour. There is room to be lenient about that, because you started in a permitted way, and that matters. Some halachic authorities say it isn’t so serious if you go a little over the allotted time, but how often you water is more important. If you can reduce the amount as well, that is even better. This applies to plants growing in the ground. With potted plants, because there is so little soil, there is almost no room to stretch out the intervals between waterings—the plant could die. So watering them calls for a somewhat different approach, and you can water them fairly normally. The test isn’t some kind of ruach hakodesh or prophecy. You check how the plant looks. When the leaves start to wilt a little, they droop. That shows the plant is thirsty. Don’t judge by hot summer days, when it’s always hot. But if, in the late afternoon or evening, you see that the leaves are still beginning to droop, then for a plant growing in the ground—not in a pot—that is a sign it needs watering. Before that, it probably doesn’t need it. With potted plants, you may water as needed even before they reach that point of thirst. But other treatments are prohibited unless you can see that, without them, the plant may die. You don’t fertilize it for no reason. You don’t just fertilize potted plants, any more than you would plants growing in the ground, unless there is a real need and concern that they might die. If the test shows that a plant is going to die, then the work we discussed is permitted—with the exception of sowing, as I mentioned. That is prohibited by Torah law, and even if a plant will die, we do not sow. Now, when we speak about potted plants in the house—we’ve finished discussing potted plants outdoors—the defining feature of a house is a roof. Walls also add to its status as a house, but the roof is the main defining feature. So in this case there is

14:45 Speaker 2 There are two approaches. Some halachic authorities permit more care for a non-perforated pot indoors than they would outdoors. When is a pot considered non-perforated indoors? If the house is on the ground floor, most authorities hold that even with floor tiles, even with a concrete floor, the plant is still considered to draw nourishment from the ground. Others have accepted this and ruled accordingly. But if it is on an upper floor—even the second floor, with air beneath it—there are enough authorities who hold that the flooring, especially today’s flooring, interrupts that connection. In new apartments being built here, as you’ve probably seen, there’s no sand underneath the tiles anymore. They put crushed stone underneath. There’s no direct contact with the earth. So in that case, when a pot is kept indoors above the ground floor, it will usually be considered a non-perforated pot. That excludes certain pots—very large ones containing what halachah calls forty se’ah. If a pot holds 330 liters, that’s a large planter. You might see those along outdoor paths, but people don’t keep them inside. They’re a different category, treated like soil connected to the ground. So with ordinary movable household pots kept indoors, again, some are lenient and treat them as though the laws of Shemitah don’t apply at all. That leniency rests on a combination of halachic opinions. In other words, there are opinions that say the Jerusalem Talmud leaves it in doubt whether a house is subject to Shemitah. We won’t go into the explanations. And there are opinions concerning a non-perforated pot. So they combine the two considerations. If someone needs to rely on this leniency and a rabbi has instructed him to do so,

16:50 Speaker 2 then of course he should follow that ruling. But generally, in our own homes, we have no need to rely on these leniencies, and certainly not to permit planting in indoor pots. So ordinarily, at home we should treat pots according to the other opinions, which hold that even indoors, a non-perforated pot is still subject to the rabbinic prohibition that applies to such a pot in a field. We should not permit work on it except as needed to keep the plant from dying or being damaged.

17:17 Speaker 4 Does that include automatic watering?

17:18 Speaker 2 Watering can continue as usual. Where is the main concern? Don’t prune it for no reason. Say you see yellow, dried-out leaves on a potted plant. If there’s no need to remove them and it’s only for appearance, don’t take them off, because that will simply encourage growth. But if you need to remove them because you feel they spoil the appearance of the plant, there is room to permit it. Otherwise, treat it in the usual way. There are, however, a few things we are lenient about indoors according to all opinions. Indoors, we don’t regard foliage extending beyond the pot as connecting it to the ground. So if, for example, you live on the ground floor and put a plastic saucer under the pot, that’s enough to make it non-perforated underneath, even if its leaves extend beyond it. Although the floor is in contact with the earth and, as I said earlier, is treated like the ground, in this case we are lenient and do not treat the foliage as making it a perforated pot. If a pot falls over, outdoors you may not pick it up; lifting it is a form of planting it. Indoors, if you’re on an upper floor, you can set it upright. Don’t add more soil, but you can pick up the pot. There is room to permit that.

18:27 Speaker 4 What do you mean by the second floor?

18:29 Speaker 2 All right, I’ll try to explain briefly. The idea that a plant draws nourishment through a floor is itself a novel ruling. But the authorities said that although concrete contains earth and so on, it isn’t soil, nor is it marble. Once there is also air separating it from the ground, it becomes very unlikely to say the plant still draws nourishment from it. So the authorities ruled as follows: as long as the floor is directly against the ground, the plant still draws nourishment from it. When the floor is above the ground and something separates them, it no longer does. Those of you living in apartment buildings—I think some of you do—have another issue. If some of the residents are not yet observant and they work the soil during Shemitah, I have a problem: I own a share of the building, and the work is being done on my behalf too. The building-maintenance fees I pay—what’s it called, yes, the building committee fees—also go to the gardener. I can’t consent to work being done as my agent, on property I share with the others. So the best arrangement is to speak with the building committee and tell them that this year I won’t pay the gardening portion. Usually gardening isn’t an expensive item; most of the fee goes toward the elevator. You can tell them, “I’m even willing to contribute more toward gardening in future years, but this year I’m not participating in that expense.” Sometimes they won’t accept that, and of course there’s no need to start a quarrel. The solution then is to tell them that the money you give the building committee this year is only for permitted expenses, not for gardening. True, you’re paying the same amount, but who knows which money paid for what? I paid for the electricity and the elevator; the money for gardening came from someone else. Where do we get this from? It isn’t just something I’ve decided to say. There is a concept

20:06 Speaker 2 in halachah called yesh bereirah, retrospective clarification. We won’t go into it at length. The idea is this: once they paid for all the services, it became clear retroactively that the money I contributed went toward the permitted ones. I stated that intention at the outset, and it was clarified afterward. Right now we can’t see how the money will be allocated, but with rabbinic prohibitions we apply the principle of yesh bereirah, so we can rely on this solution. In addition, if you own the apartment—if it is registered in your name in the land registry, and in your wife’s name too—it is advisable to declare your share of the courtyard ownerless in the presence of three people. You can do that now for the entire year. No, no, no—he is not declaring his home ownerless. He is declaring only his share of the communal courtyard ownerless, so that the land is no longer his. Besides what we said about not paying for the work, there is also a requirement that your land rest. There is a commandment that you, as a person, not do agricultural work during Shemitah, and you address that through the payment arrangement. There is also a commandment that your land rest. According to some halachic authorities, that prohibition applies to the land itself. So once you declare your share of the communal courtyard ownerless before three people, you address that requirement too. Of course, don’t declare it ownerless in front of the neighbors who aren’t observing Shemitah; they might take your portion of the property. But although you’ve declared it ownerless, the halachic authorities write that you can still build a sukkah there and use the area as usual. Since no one has objected to your doing so, the land has not left your possession. Some authorities say there is an issue even when you pay municipal taxes and the municipality does not observe Shemitah. Today, many municipalities are becoming careful about this too. In the rest of Jerusalem, in the months before Shemitah, the whole city became

21:48 Speaker 2 The change. There are other things too. It’s really remarkable how they changed everything over to year-round plants, and it looks very, very beautiful. So where they are definitely working the land in a prohibited way during Shemitah—sowing and so on—some say that a person should at least declare, in front of someone else, that he is making his share ownerless. Or no, leave aside making it ownerless: he should say that he has no share in the public grounds, and that the money he pays in municipal taxes should go only toward the municipality’s other needs, not toward landscaping. If someone rents an apartment to a person who does not observe Shemitah, it’s a little more complicated. He needs to stipulate that the tenant won’t do that, won’t work the land during Shemitah. And if the tenant doesn’t listen, then he, too, really needs to make his share ownerless. The laws of Shabbos say not even to eat a meal on grass, because it’s hard to make sure that not a single drop will fall during the meal. When it comes to this kind of caution, where it’s only a possibility and not a certainty, there is room to be lenient. But if it’s something that really might happen—he knows himself, he’s always with children and things get spilled, or he washes his hands, or things like that, where the water will definitely spill onto the soil, onto a planted area—then it’s prohibited. If you have air conditioners whose drainpipes lead down into the garden, you don’t need to be particular about that; you don’t need to be stringent. But if someone directs his air conditioner’s drainpipe into the basin around a tree, that isn’t appropriate during Shemitah. He needs to move it back at least thirty centimeters so it doesn’t drain directly there. True, it isn’t done by hand, but still, when you direct it there and intend to water unnecessarily, the halachic authorities say to be careful about it. We have potted plants on the balcony. I mentioned the potted plants—

23:28 Speaker 2 If I’m talking about the sukkah: if the balcony has a roof, and I’m now going to open the roof and take it off to put up a sukkah, to put on sechach, then I want to... Here I run into a certain issue that I may not have mentioned earlier. When a person has potted plants inside the house—and I said earlier that, in the house, we are stringent overall, as we are outdoors—that is only a stringency. But everyone agrees that, by law, a plant grows much less indoors than outdoors. So I may not take a potted plant from inside the house to outside during the year. That encourages growth; it’s sowing—it encourages the plant to grow. More than that: even if I have a potted plant outdoors, standing on an elevated surface, I shouldn’t lower it to the ground, bringing it close to the soil. That is written in the laws of Shabbos. That is what the Rebbe of Ruzhin [unclear] writes. The Rebbe of Ruzhin [unclear] does write this only about pots with holes in them, but as I said, a large proportion of our pots have holes. So again, we need to be careful. If you have potted plants in the yard, don’t lower them from an elevated surface. It’s also best not to keep lifting and lowering them. Even if it’s only for a short time, certainly don’t lower them closer to the ground or take them from inside the house to outside. When Shemitah arrives—uh, when Sukkos arrives—and I want to remove the roof, and now the potted plants are suddenly exposed to sunlight, am I allowed to do that or not? So the halachic authorities say this: if you do it close to Sukkos and everyone sees that you’re doing it for the sukkah, there’s no need to be particular. There’s no reason to prohibit it, because your actions make clear that you don’t intend to help the plants grow, and it will only be for a short time. The growth, after all, would only happen after many hours of absorbing the sunlight, or after days, and you’ll soon—

25:04 Speaker 2 put up the sechach, so you don’t need to be particular about it. Some people would do it at night: they would remove the roof, and they were more stringent and would bring the potted plant inside the house at night, when the sun wasn’t doing anything for it, and then bring it out again. But again, this isn’t... The same applies on Erev Pesach. Sometimes people clean the house and take things out onto the balcony, and so on. If it’s for a short time and it’s obvious to everyone that you’re doing it now for the cleaning—it’s clear why you’re doing it, and it’s only for a short time—then you can take a plant out and bring it back in. But you don’t just take it out for no reason. The same applies if you buy a potted plant and carry it through the street. Strictly speaking, there’s no reason to be stringent. People move house in the middle of Shemitah. There’s no obligation to be stringent and wrap up the potted plant when you carry it outdoors from one house to another. But it could happen that someone holds an event outdoors and brings flowers and potted plants. Then you do need to check whether they’re potted plants. It really is a problem how to place them; they shouldn’t be set down outdoors if they came from a nursery. It’s very important to know: you may not buy potted plants or flowers from a store that does not observe Shemitah. There are quite a few problems with that. Some flowers have the sanctity of the seventh year—fragrant flowers have that sanctity—and if you buy something with the sanctity of the seventh year, the money takes on that sanctity. We’ll talk more about that. That’s the first problem. Even flowers that don’t have the sanctity of the seventh year: if someone sowed them during the seventh year, a prohibition was committed. We don’t use things produced through a prohibited act. Even if there are halachic authorities who might permit it, we wouldn’t do that in the first place. In addition, there are other problems, including what’s called being “suspected of violating the laws of the seventh year.” It’s hard to go into all—

26:39 Speaker 2 the details now. There are concepts called a connection to the seventh year. There are four or five problems with buying flowers from a nursery that operates as usual during Shemitah. So you need to find stores that observe Shemitah and buy from them, whether it’s flowers for Shabbos or potted plants or other things. In general, I don’t see much point in buying potted plants during Shemitah, because how are you going to grow them? How are you going to care for them beyond what you were doing before? But, uh...

27:05 Speaker 5 You need to ask the—

27:06 Speaker 2 We need to be careful about this and do things in a permissible way. We also need to make sure there’s no price gouging—someone doubling the price just because of a kosher certification sticker or something like that—but that’s another subject. We really do need to be careful about this. As was mentioned earlier, with vegetables we follow the time of picking. Whenever they were picked, if they were picked during Shemitah, the sanctity of the seventh year applies to them, regardless of when they grew. In practice, today we won’t find vegetables with the sanctity of the seventh year in mehadrin stores, for a number of reasons. So anyone who is used to buying produce at the market during the year can’t do that now, because the vegetables we’ll find available now are already being sold under the heter mechirah. And we don’t rely on the heter mechirah, because it is a strained leniency. I’ll explain it in a moment, but let me just finish the previous point. So our solution, if we want vegetables that haven’t been worked on in a prohibited way, and that we can eat without a great many problems... In general, if the leniency isn’t valid and the sale isn’t valid, then the produce has sanctity, and the money you paid is... The produce itself remains holy. There may also have been other prohibited work done on it. So vegetables certainly can’t be bought that way. We won’t find vegetables with the sanctity of the seventh year in mehadrin stores, and we certainly can’t buy them elsewhere. But there may be one item with the sanctity of the seventh year: bananas. Some bananas now come from other regions, but later in the year, toward Pesach or before then, we may have bananas with the sanctity of the seventh year. That means you need to eat the entire fruit. If you have leftovers, you need to treat them—

29:10 Speaker 2 These leftovers have the sanctity of Shemitah. You must not destroy them or throw them in the garbage, as long as the leftovers are fit for human or animal consumption. Banana peels themselves are not fit for anything, but sometimes a little of the banana flesh remains on them. That part must be treated with the sanctity of Shemitah. If you removed the peel completely and none of the banana remained on it, then the peel itself does not require this. But sometimes what children call “honey,” or something like it, remains on the peel, and you have to take care of it. You cannot destroy it. That does not mean you have to eat waste or eat something you cannot bring yourself to eat. No. There is no such requirement. But those pieces you cut off and do not use, for whatever reason, must be left somewhere to rot on their own. We used to call that a Shemitah bin. Right. There were years—and perhaps this is still the case; I say this with some reservation—when they also permitted tying them up in a bag. And this is not just about bananas. I am using a banana as an example, but in a moment we will also discuss all the Shemitah fruit that will grow during the year. We will start seeing Shemitah fruit from Pesach onward, or from the end of Adar, and it will remain with us into 5783. So these things have the sanctity of Shemitah, and we will need to take care of the leftovers. The practice used to be to put them in a bag, tie the bag—or use two bags—and throw them in the garbage. I do not know how things work here in Nachlas Har Chabad, but there are places in Israel today that are very concerned about the environment. Jerusalem, for example. There are other places, too, where sorting teams go through the garbage. It

30:49 Speaker 2 first goes through recycling. Then a team of people sits and goes through the heaps of garbage item by item. They separate plastic bags from other materials—what is biodegradable and what is not. I was amazed to learn that this exists, and that it exists here. There are people who can do this; it is their job. So here we run into a problem that extends to other things as well. I am not going into it now. You will understand how broad its implications are. Some people put the piece of challah that has been separated into a plastic bag, and throw out the maaser. That is a subject we now need to discuss more fully and investigate how far it applies, but it is an issue wherever this sorting takes place. The idea behind putting Shemitah leftovers in a bag and throwing them in the garbage was that, from the moment you throw them into your household bin until the waste reaches the point of incineration or disposal, about ten to fourteen days pass. By then, they have had enough time to rot on their own inside the bag. You have not done anything to them; the matter is taken care of. You have not touched them. You have solved the problem. You do not need a Shemitah bin. But if the garbage is sorted after two or three days and the bags are separated, then you are effectively causing someone to destroy the fruit. So we need to go back to the Shemitah bin, as we did when we were younger. That is how it was at home: there was a Shemitah bin, and you put the leftovers there. Much of what you buy in stores probably will not have the sanctity of Shemitah, but whatever does must be treated accordingly. I will return to the sanctity of Shemitah in a moment. We will come back to it. Now let us think this through. We need to remember why we have to be careful about these purchases. Why do we need to shop in mehadrin stores? Because we eat mehadrin. But there are issues here. We are a community that observes everything, and does so to the highest standard. But there are several problems here. Let us start

32:27 Speaker 2 with this concept. What is heter mechirah? Heter mechirah arose when the economic situation in Israel was extremely difficult. Farmers were barely making a living, and agriculture was almost the foundation of the country’s economy. So letting the land lie fallow and bringing produce from abroad—there was no alternative source of income. The farmers would have lost their livelihood entirely. There were not many other options, either. So a number of prominent rabbis permitted selling the land to a non-Jew, so that it would belong to him. A non-Jew is not obligated in the laws of the sanctity of Shemitah, and that was the basis on which they relied. They restricted the permission with several conditions. First, they said that only the non-Jew could sow the land. Only the non-Jew could perform any of the forms of work prohibited by Torah law; a Jew could perform only work prohibited by rabbinic law. The land had to be sold through a fully valid transaction, and so on. Even then, they said that this was a dispensation for a time of pressing need. Major poskim disagreed with it, but everyone agreed that it was meant for a time of pressing need. Over the years, things deteriorated further: the dispensation became a situation in which the seller himself does not even know that he sold anything. The kibbutz office arranges a sort of authorization for him, like the sale of chametz. Well, it is not at all like the sale of chametz. Many people ask about that, so I will explain the difference. When you sell chametz, you are simply selling it so that you do not transgress the prohibition against owning chametz on Pesach. You are not planning to eat the chametz. We do not sell it in order to eat it. Here, you sell the land so that you can eat produce grown through work done during Shemitah. You actively work the land; you sow it yourself, as a Jewish worker, and Jews are doing the work. That is not in keeping with the original conditions. People work on kibbutzim today. Some of the workers are now Thai, but there are

34:13 Speaker 2 still Jews who freely do agricultural work themselves, sowing and so on. So there is no comparison between the two, especially when there are other ways to make this possible for the farmers. We can support and strengthen them. These are not the conditions of those earlier times. Therefore, today this dispensation is not one we use. For us, it is entirely out of the question. The Rebbe addressed this from both sides. There was a fairly sharp letter to Rabbi Zevin, who had discussed the subject but had not sufficiently mentioned the problem of heter mechirah. The Rebbe wrote to him: Why did you not write about what Rabbi Kalman Kahana, who worked with the Poalei Agudas Yisroel settlements, wrote on the subject? You mentioned it only in passing, the Rebbe wrote to him. More needs to be written about it. On another occasion, the Rebbe said that in Chabad we do not rely on it, and so on; he mentioned this to someone. On the other hand, there was Rabbi Dushinsky of the Eidah Hachareidis—the grandfather of the present-day rabbi. He was in yechidus with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told him that it would be worthwhile for observant Jews, people from our own community, to study the laws of heter mechirah, so that if it is going to be done, it will be done in the best possible way. The Rebbe held both sides of this: not to dismiss heter mechirah, in order to protect Jews who are eating the produce in any case from transgression. There is an opinion they can rely on to some extent, but of course it is not for our community. So when we approach this, we need to ensure that the Shemitah produce we buy in stores is entirely separate from heter mechirah. The market is flooded with heter mechirah produce. And there is another problem here: they bring in merchandise. They know that observant Jews buy from the West Bank, or from Gaza if possible, but mainly from the West Bank. So they send trucks carrying Jewish produce into Judea and Samaria and bring them out

36:01 Speaker 2 bring it back as Palestinian produce. Then you buy it and eat it, because they know there is more demand for it and they get paid more. So the reliable kashrus agencies—the Vaad, the Eidah Hachareidis, and Rabbi Landau—I haven’t read about the others; these are the ones I’ve seen—have put a great many measures in place to prevent this problem. One of them is that Rabbi Landau’s organization recently announced that they regularly check whether, at a given time of year, produce is being marketed from Israel to Judea and Samaria. So if, say, peppers are being sent from here to there, during that period they won’t accept produce from Judea and Samaria. They take it only when we aren’t sending produce to them and are only receiving it from them. That’s one solution. The Eidah Hachareidis has an arrangement that lets them go into the crossing. They have several Arabs, and Jews of Iranian origin who are disguised and accompany them. They also use technology, including body cameras. They accompany the farmer; they know the truck’s exact number and weight beforehand, and compare that with its weight afterward, when it crosses the border. There is a great deal of supervision. Of course, everything depends on help from Heaven, but they take great care because of this concern. In addition, the produce comes from other places too, not just the ones I mentioned. It comes from abroad—from Jordan, Turkey, and various other places. There is no shemittah issue with that. A little produce will also come from the sixth year: potatoes, carrots—no, not carrots—onions. Certain things can be kept for several months, so they’re stored in warehouses here in Israel, and some produce will come from there too, as well as from abroad. And then there’s something else: vegetables grown on plots of land belonging to

38:03 Speaker 2 non-Jews who live within the borders of Eretz Yisroel. In this matter, our community follows the longstanding practice in Jerusalem. Let me give a little background. There is a dispute between the Beis Yosef and his contemporary, the Mabit, about whether produce grown by non-Jews within Eretz Yisroel must be treated as having shemittah sanctity. The Beis Yosef ruled that it need not be, while the Mabit held that it must. The Beis Yosef spoke very sharply about this. There is a letter he wrote—I don’t have to read all his wording, given how sharp it is. He wrote: “I, Yosef Karo”—he says that after a certain sage, whom he names as the Mabit, tried to act according to his view in the previous shemittah year and was stopped, “in this shemittah year, 5334, he hardened his spirit and steeled his heart to insist on acting according to his view with a high hand. All the sages of the city arose, examined his earlier and later arguments, and saw that they had no substance, and announced in the synagogues, under threat of excommunication, that everyone…” In short. And he signs, “The humble Yosef Karo.” There is a debate about what the threatened excommunication concerned. The Beis Yosef and the Mabit disagreed on several matters during that shemittah year. But some halachic authorities hold that it applied to this too—to someone who would treat non-Jewish produce as having shemittah sanctity. Others don’t hold that way. In Bnei Brak, they accepted the practice of treating non-Jewish produce as having shemittah sanctity, and they have authorities to rely on. Rabbi Landau also accepted that practice, following the Chazon Ish, and that is the arrangement he makes personally, though they handle it somewhat differently. Our community, however, has always followed the age-old Jerusalem custom of not treating non-Jewish produce as having shemittah sanctity during the shemittah year. So some of the produce we receive will come from Arabs here in Eretz Yisroel, in the Triangle or

39:57 Speaker 2 in various other places where they supply produce. They sow it and harvest it, and we treat it as not subject to shemittah, even though it is within the borders of the Land. So we’ll have far less produce with shemittah sanctity than stores that follow the view that this produce has shemittah sanctity. Those stores even have vegetables with shemittah sanctity, which I hadn’t mentioned earlier, because they bring in this produce from the Arabs. But to make sure it really belongs to non-Jews, the Vaad did an enormous amount of work. That’s important, and it’s why I’m emphasizing the Vaad: this really is one of the greatest potential pitfalls. There are maps dating back to Ottoman times. The agricultural plots haven’t changed since then. The land was divided into individual plots, with passageways between them. There was some Arabic name for the passageway between one plot and the next. When the land came under state administration, each plot still belonged to its owner—to whichever Mohammed or Ahmed had inherited it from his ancestors—but the passageways, which had belonged to the government, now belong to the Israel Land Authority. They belong to Jews. Over time, it stopped being worthwhile for a farmer to work only his own plot. Today, one person leases land from a hundred farmers, or fifty, and cultivates it all. He sows the entire area, including the passageways. The passageways no longer exist on the ground; they appear only on the maps. And that creates a problem: some of what is harvested may come from land belonging to Jews. So the Vaad went through more than 680,000 dunams. They sat down with the people involved and mapped the land. First, they identified some plots that had been taken over the years by a Jewish receiver from various Arabs who had failed to meet their obligations.

41:53 Speaker 2 So those plots now belong to Jews again. They excluded that land; they don’t buy from places they established belong to a Jewish receiver. Then they sat down with the growers and agreed: If you want us to buy produce from you, during the shemittah year you must leave this part unused. You must not touch those passageways. I don’t know how, but they say there is now technology that lets them identify, using maps, a deviation of fifteen meters in either direction. They have satellite images. That’s how they ensure that the produce reaching our stores comes only from land that still has an Arab title deed and has not passed into Jewish ownership. Otherwise the problem is compounded: the non-Jew is also working for a Jew, there is also the issue of instructing a non-Jew to work, and there is shemittah produce as well, and… So we do need to be aware of what we’re buying. We have a way to identify it. We really need to know. You need to know about something called an otzar beis din, which you mentioned earlier. This otzar beis din—the Eidah Hachareidis does not use an otzar beis din except for esrogim. They explain that Tosafos writes that shemittah produce involves a great many serious prohibitions, too many to describe. And otzar beis din does not appear in the Rambam. There is a passage in the Tosefta describing how people who had a lot of fruit would bring it in. The beis din would give each person enough food for three meals, put the rest in a storehouse, and later distribute it to the poor for free. From that, a later solution was developed in which the beis din sets the prices and the rates, and the Jews working in the field are essentially just agents of the beis din. With esrogim there is no other option, so

43:40 Speaker 2 They do it. But with other fruits, the Eidah Hachareidis doesn’t do it. On the other hand, great rabbis have done it. But it does say there that one of the conditions is that the price must not be higher than the market price for that fruit. And that is very hard to carry out. The rabbis who sit on an otzar beis din are not economists. They are very great rabbis. Yes, you mentioned Rabbi Landau, who is well known, but there are great rabbis everywhere who serve on the kashrus bodies of otzar beis din. The problem is that it’s hard to carry out—not because they want to make money off us, but because you have to take into account that the amount of land is small and the number of workers is large in proportion. Say you have ten dunams and five workers. If you have fifty dunams, you don’t need twenty-five workers for that; fifteen would be enough. So the more land there is, the greater the demand, and it would be easier to keep costs under control. But when there isn’t, the costs are higher. On the other hand, this is one of the foundations of otzar beis din: it says the beis din is your agent. There’s a principle: “I sent you to improve matters, not to make them worse.” You appoint an agent to put things right, not to spoil them. I’m not sending him to charge me prices more inflated than the market’s. It’s hard to carry out. There are batei din—I heard Rabbi Revach say that during the previous Shemitah, his beis din paid twenty thousand shekels, not out of his own pocket but from its funds, to cover the costs and keep prices below the limit. They try. You need to bear that in mind. There may also be competition and things like that, so you have to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m not... The choice

45:16 Speaker 2 before us is to observe the sanctity of Shemitah as much as possible. It’s a mitzvah, and Hashem will help us fulfill it as... as it is written. Still, we need to be aware of these things. Because I mentioned the sanctity of Shemitah earlier. We don’t know—we are stringent regarding the question of heter mechirah, and we treat the produce as having the sanctity of Shemitah. I said that the Rebbe found grounds to defend those who aren’t careful about this, but we are not going to rely on this heter mechirah, especially given what I told you. [unclear] signed on everyone’s behalf. He didn’t make a formal acquisition; I don’t know exactly what happened. I think Rabbi Loren[?], the current one, did sit down more with the farmers during the previous Shemitah, but I don’t know how far they managed to reach everyone. There is somewhat more... I don’t want it to sound as though we’re dismissing it. The Rabbinate also tries to be more careful about this, but it still isn’t at a level that those who are particular about mitzvos can rely on. We wouldn’t eat meat with that level of supervision, so there’s no question that we wouldn’t eat something like this. But there are several points here. First, we are careful: if someone knows that food was cooked in certain utensils, then ideally we don’t use those utensils unless they have been kashered by hagalah or something similar. After the fact, some poskim permit relying on the sale, even if twenty-four hours have passed and the utensil hasn’t been kashered, because the sale was valid. But ideally, we don’t. In other words, we wouldn’t go and buy it. That’s what I mean. You wouldn’t go to a place where the caterer sometimes uses heter mechirah produce and sometimes uses other produce. If the utensils haven’t been kashered, then we need to be

46:37 Speaker 2 aware. This touches every part of our lives. It isn’t just about what we buy, but which events we attend during the year and all those things. We need to be aware that the vegetables and fruits will turn up in all kinds of forms. Now, if something has the sanctity of Shemitah, that has several implications. The first is the prohibition against trading in it, but you won’t encounter that, as we discussed. The second is what I said earlier: when something has the sanctity of Shemitah and it is bought, the sanctity transfers. It doesn’t leave the fruit; it also transfers to the money. I bought tomatoes that have the sanctity of Shemitah, and it is forbidden to trade in Shemitah produce. Someone sold me the tomato. So now the tomato remains holy as it was, and the money I gave the seller also becomes holy. All right? Now that money is sitting in his cash register. Later I come in, and he gives me change. He gives me that five-shekel coin, which has the sanctity of Shemitah. Now I have a problem. I’m holding money with the sanctity of Shemitah. What do I do with it? First, let’s lay out the situation, and then I’ll put your minds somewhat at ease. Any money circulating in the country could potentially have the sanctity of Shemitah. So can’t we get on a bus? Can’t we do anything? No. The answer is this: there’s a principle that says, “Whatever separates from a group is presumed to have come from the majority.” Most of the money circulating in the country doesn’t come from vegetables and farming. It comes from other sales. So generally, you needn’t worry about money you receive. But when you go into a store that sells fruit and vegetables, if we know for certain that... We need to be certain; it won’t always happen. Let me explain another point. If someone paid by credit card, there’s

48:27 Speaker 2 no problem. If they paid by check, there’s no problem. It’s when someone paid cash and the money was received that the sanctity attaches to it. So if I know for certain that someone paid cash and money with the sanctity of Shemitah came into this place, I have a problem with the change that comes from there, because there’s a concept called “fixed in its place.” When the money is there in that store, and I know for certain there is money with the sanctity of Shemitah, the change I receive may have that sanctity. Where might this happen? As I said, either in stores that sell Shemitah produce or with cash you withdraw from a bank. If a dealer in Shemitah produce deposited money at that branch, it’s possible that the money you receive includes proceeds of Shemitah produce. What’s the solution? The solution isn’t to stop taking money. You’ll still have money.

49:15 Speaker 6 Does today’s money count as money?

49:18 Speaker 2 They discuss that, they discuss it. Good question. But in practice, the ruling is that it does, and the sanctity transfers to banknotes too, even though they aren’t money in the original sense. The advice given by the Minchas Yitzchak is this: if you know that you withdrew money or received change today from a place like that... Again, there’s another basis for leniency. Before I give the solution, there’s another basis for leniency that accounts for many cases. When I buy a product and receive change, who says I simply received change? Perhaps I made a kind of exchange with him. When he gave me the five shekels that had the sanctity of Shemitah, I gave him something in return. So as I gave him the money, I effectively transferred the sanctity back. I didn’t actually receive anything with sanctity. You can also look at it another way: I made a purchase, gave him money and received money, and the money he returned to me had its sanctity transferred onto the money I gave him. So it all stayed with him and never reached me. Therefore, strictly speaking, one can rely on that. But suppose you don’t know, or you went to collect a donation from someone: you gave nothing and only received money, perhaps from someone who sells such produce. Or, as I said, you might have withdrawn money from the bank. So the Minchas Yitzchak said to take some food, once it’s ready to eat. If it’s something with a peel, for example, you’ve peeled it. Not food that already has the sanctity of Shemitah—just ordinary food. In fact, you could even take a wafer, or even a cup of water, whatever it may be. Take an amount you can begin and finish consuming right now. Then

50:52 Speaker 2 you say, “All the proceeds and exchanges of Shemitah produce in my possession shall have their sanctity transferred onto this cup of water,” or onto this slice of apple. You consume it in accordance with the sanctity of Shemitah—that is, without wasting it—and you’re done. You’ve cleared up the whole concern.

51:10 Speaker 6 It isn’t on the same day.

51:10 Speaker 2 Huh? So yes, right, the person responsible, when there’s at least a perutah’s worth. That’s one thing we gain from our custom of not treating produce grown by non-Jews as having the sanctity of Shemitah. I’m not encouraging smoking, but tobacco grown in Eretz Yisroel has the sanctity of... It was grown, uh, sown after Rosh Hashanah of the Shemitah year and harvested at the end of that summer. And the poskim write that tobacco has the sanctity of Shemitah. Fortunately for us, all the tobacco is grown in non-Jewish fields. Now, in Likkutei Sichos, volume 36, page 298, there’s a letter, a response the Rebbe wrote to a family suffering from a certain health issue. The Rebbe wrote to them—listen to the wording. Five startling words. He writes: “Surely”—that word, surely—“surely they inadvertently erred in eating matters of Shemitah.”

53:10 Speaker 7 Why us?

53:11 Speaker 2 The Rebbe wro... Do you know the story?

53:12 Speaker 7 Yes, yes.

53:14 Speaker 2 Then I don’t need to tell you the story. Afterward, they wrote to the Rebbe that... they buy only products with the most stringent kosher certification. So the Rebbe raised another matter, serving Hashem with joy, and so on. If you know the story, I don’t need to go into it. This is not, chas veshalom, meant as criticism of what goes on here. The fact is that the Rebbe later also spoke about serving Hashem with joy and all that. But the point is that the Rebbe wants people to be very careful with Shemitah, not to look for unnecessary leniencies. Leftovers of food that have the sanctity of Shemitah—as long as they’re still fit to eat, they certainly need to be kept, as I said earlier, in a bag or a Shemitah bin. Things that nobody saves, bits left on a plate that nobody collects, can be washed off as usual. But if you’ve collected them and they’ve accumulated, you can no longer throw them away. When they’re the sort of small leftovers that people ordinarily don’t collect, the idea is to handle them as usual. Part of handling them as usual is that you can pour, say, wine even if some will spill—but it should spill into the plate. Then use it; don’t destroy it. Wine with the sanctity of Shemitah—and we may find this in stores that sell Shemitah wine, or with someone who makes his own wine—we try not to use it for Havdalah, because afterward you end up destroying some of the wine. Some rabbis have permitted it, but generally the practice is not to... The same goes for the wine on Seder night: don’t destroy it in that way. But any use that’s normally done that way is permissible. Uh, one more thing. I don’t know, this may raise more questions, but you need to know it too. Some vitamins and natural products are

54:47 Speaker 2 made from plants grown in Eretz Yisroel. Usually they have kosher certification, and people rely on it. During this Shemitah year, you need to check whether they’re made from things grown in Eretz Yisroel. I know for certain that the Badatz checks this. Presumably other places do too, if they have a Badatz, but just buying something... Uh, you need to know: if it’s from outside Eretz Yisroel, we don’t have these problems. But if it’s made from plants grown in Eretz Yisroel, all sorts of medicinal herbs and the like, you have to make sure that it wasn’t made from something that was cultivated during Shemitah. Ideally, we don’t consume produce that was worked on; that’s called shamur vene’evad. The Minchas Yitzchak permitted it in his responsa. The Chinuch and others permitted it in a case of... in a case of... He said... How did he put it? That one has grounds to rely on, but there’s... some wording along those lines, that it’s not ideal, but it’s permissible when needed. Ideally, though, we don’t consume such things. So therefore... Again, that’s another reason to make sure these products were made properly and come through supervised channels. Someone who has his own trees also needs to declare their fruit ownerless. That is the Rebbe’s view: it’s not enough to rely on the fruit being made ownerless from above, what’s called afka’ata demalka, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu makes it ownerless. Rather... if a person has a tree, a fruit tree—not every tree; just a fruit tree—he needs to declare its fruit ownerless. Uh, ideally he should say so in front of three people. If he can’t get three people, he may even put up a sign saying that the fruit is ownerless. He doesn’t have to let people damage his tree. He can write that the key is with him, or specify the hours when he allows access, but he has to give people the opportunity to take the fruit. Of course, he isn’t declaring the tree ownerless—only the... only the fruit. There was

56:26 Speaker 2 once someone—this is a story people told, and I’ll finish with it—who sold esrogim and grew esrogim. No, not [unclear]. And he wanted to... he didn’t want to declare the... He wanted to make money from them. He couldn’t sell them at Shemitah prices and have people come pick them according to the law, and so on, without... without charging, without making a profit. So he said he was declaring the esrog ownerless, but only the fruit, not the stem. Right.

57:00 Speaker 8 That’s the catch.

57:01 Speaker 2 That’s the catch in it. So they disqualified all his—

57:05 Speaker 8 A tree that’s orlah.

57:06 Speaker 2 A tree that’s orlah doesn’t need to be declared ownerless. Yes. It really should be marked. If there’s a tree that’s orlah, it needs a sign saying it’s orlah so people don’t inadvertently eat its fruit, since they might take some.