Shmita

(1) Adonai spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: (2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of Adonai. (3) Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. (4) But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of Adonai: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. (5) You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. (6) But you may eat whatever the land during its sabbath will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound laborers who live with you, (7) and your cattle and the beasts in your land may eat all its yield. (8) You shall count off seven weeks of years—seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. (9) Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the Day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land

(1) שבת לה׳ [THEN SHALL THE LAND KEEP) A REST ‎'לה‎ — This means a rest in honor of Adonai (not a rest for Adonai, as in v. 4: שבת שבתון יהיה לארץ, “there shall be a strict Sabbath for the land”, i. e. for the land to rest) in the same sense as these words are used in the case of the weekly Sabbath (lit., the Sabbath of Creation) (Exodus 20:10) where 'שבת לה‎ cannot mean “a day for God to rest” (Sifra, Behar, Chapter 1 2).

לא תקצור THOU SHALT NOT REAP [IT] — to take it as your exclusive property as you do with other harvests (with the harvest in another year) but it shall be free (הפקר) to all and then thou also may reap of it.

'והיתה שבת הארץ וגו‎‎‎‎ AND THE SABBATH OF THE LAND SHALL BE [FOOD FOR YOU] — Although I have forbidden them (the fruits of the sabbatical year) to you by stating “thou shalt not harvest etc.”, I do not mean to forbid them to you as food or to be used for any other beneficial purpose but what I meant was that you should not comport yourself in respect of them as the exclusive owner but all must be equal as regards it (the Sabbatical year’s produce) — you and your hired servant and your sojourner.

(3) לך ולעבדך ולאמתך [and the Sabbatah of the land shall be food for you]; for you, your servant and maidservant — Because it states (Exodus 23:11) “[but in the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still]; that the needy of thy people may eat”, one might think that they (the fruits of the Sabbatical year) are forbidden as food for the rich (and thus also for the owner of the field and his household), Scripture therefore states here: “[it shall be for food for you,] your servant, and your maid servant” — thus you have the mention of the owners (the rich) here as well as of the servants and the maid servants (Sifra, Behar, Chapter 1 6).

(4) ולשכירך ולתושבך and for your hired servant and your sojourner — Even non-Jews (Sifra, Behar, Chapter 1 7).

(10) Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; (11) but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves.

(1) Every seventh year^-a you shall practice remission of debts. (2) This shall be the nature of the remission: every creditor shall remit the due that he claims from his fellow; he shall not dun his fellow or kinsman, for the remission proclaimed is of Adonai...(7) If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that Adonai your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman. (8) Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs. (9) Beware lest you harbor the base thought, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching,” so that you are mean to your needy kinsman and give him nothing. They will cry out to Adonai against you, and you will incur guilt. (10) Give to him readily and have no regrets when you do so, for in return Adonai your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings. (11) For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.

(18) You shall observe My laws and faithfully keep My rules, that you may live upon the land in security; (19) the land shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill, and you shall live upon it in security. (20) And should you ask, “What are we to eat in the seventh year, if we may neither sow nor gather in our crops?” (21) I will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years. (22) When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating old grain of that crop; you will be eating the old until the ninth year, until its crops come in.

(2) One only incurs guilt according to the Torah for either sowing, pruning, harvesting or reaping. And it is the same whether it is [done to] a vineyard or other trees...

(4) How is this? We incur guilt according to the rabbis if we are one who digs or plows for the sake of (preparing) the ground, or removes stones or fertilizes and that which is similar to these of the other types of work on the land; and likewise to one who bends [a branch into the ground] or grafts or plants and that which is similar to these of the other types of care for trees.

(1) Anything that the land produces on the seventh year is all permissible for eating: Whether it is from a seed that fell before the seventh year or whether from the roots cut earlier but grew back and produced [food] – and both of those are called, "aftergrowth" – or whether it is from the herbs and vegetables that grew on their own and do not have seeds. And even a field which had been improved upon in the seventh year and brought out its produce – that [too] is permissible for eating.... Rather he must reap a little bit at a time, pound [it] and eat.

(2) And it is from the words of the Scribes (rabbinic) that all of the aftergrowth is forbidden for eating. And why did they make a decree about it? That one not go and plant one's grain, legumes and garden seeds in his field secretly; and when they grow, he eat from them and say, "They are aftergrowth." Hence they prohibited all of the aftergrowth that grows in the seventh year.

(3) Behold you have learned that, of the produce of the seventh year, we only eat the produce of the trees, and herbs – such as rue, wild yarbaz, and everything which is similar to them – since most people do not plant them. But vegetables, the way of which is for most people to plant them in their gardens; and types of grain and legumes – everything that grows from them is forbidden by the words of [the Rabbis]. And one who picks them is given lashes for rebellion.

(13) We may not transport produce of the seventh year from the Land of Israel to outside the Land, even to Suria [modern day Syria, a rabbinic stronghold]. And we feed a lodger produce of the seventh year.

(by Rav Kook)(4) The sabbatical and Jubilee years are interconnected in time, like the sun and the moon in the universe, like Israel and humanity in the world of souls. The particular and the universal are profoundly interdependent in the most vital and spiritual sense; the particular needs the universal, and the universal needs the particular.

(11) “Just as it was said about the Sabbath of creation, ‘it is a Sabbath for God,’ so, too, it was said about the Sabbath of shmita, ‘it is a Sabbath for God.’ ” The distinctive character of the people and the land dovetail with each other. Just as the people has a special aptitude for reaching spiritual heights from within the depths of everyday life, so, too, the land—God’s land—forms the people who dwell there as an everlasting inheritance that comes through a covenant and promise, with faith in the Eternal One of Israel, and is founded on the divine nature immovably infused in this wonderful country, which is married to the people whom God chose. The soul of the people and the land intertwine, working from the basis of their being to bring into existence the intricate patterns of inner holiness that lie within them during the sabbatical year. The people works with its soul force on the land, and the divine seed is revealed through its spiritual influence; the land, too, works on the people, refining their character in line with the divine desire for life inherent in their makeup.