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Opinion | Shemita Year: Actually, it's not just for the religious Israel today

2022-01-18T02:06:32.982Z


Shemita unites in its inner idea almost every religious and social idea that floats in the space of a world • Perhaps the JNF should spread the gospel of the shmita, thus presenting the Zionist idea


Well, admit that it was one of the most beautiful moments in the history of the Jewish wars in Eretz Israel: Likud members went to the Negev to plant JNF, and the opposition was called out claiming that this year is the year of the shemita and planting is forbidden in one day. This crazy period, and when the students receive texts by Yulia Malinowski about the desecration of the shemita, they will be completely entangled and sadly leave the zoom (or the class, if they return to normal learning by then, which is unlikely to happen).

The debate is interesting, it must be said. Take away from him for a moment the political positions, and you have received a classic halakhic debate. In such a case, of plantings whose function is to express a Jewish presence and Jewish ownership in the regions of the land, should their existence be permitted? Or should they also be banned here in the year of the shemita? (Answer at the end). But other than that, the mention of the shemita and the discussion around it suddenly brought up the pain of missing out on not engaging in this beautiful mitzvah in the days as their correction. The fact that the commandment of the shemita, both in its strict and restrictive configuration and in its more lenient configuration (sales permit), is the conscious property of only religious people, is a great loss. Also from the Jewish point of view, but mainly from the Zionist point of view.

What is a shemita? By and large it is a mitzvah that unites in its inner idea almost every religious and social idea that floats in the space of a world: the socialist nucleus (unrelated of course to the contemporary term with a similar name), compassion, peace of mind, recognition of God's greatness, striving for spiritual life, equality, community, animal love , Ecological balance - everything. It is also a mitzvah that is observed only when Israel is on their land, under Jewish control and at the end of the adaptation arrangements. Meaning - the most Zionist mitzvah imaginable.

Developed Israeli agriculture in all parts of the country, which sanctifies Jewish law and operates according to all the mitzvos that depend on the land - could have been the pinnacle of the realization of the Zionist-Jewish idea. She is the wall, she is the tower. This could have been a synergistic meeting point between Jewish and Zionist values ​​in a way that would emphasize both, claim the founding settlement idea in its entirety and also create on the way a minute and a half of rapprochement. It may not be exactly the cells, even for technical reasons, for the first generations. Today, however, it certainly could have been implemented. This could have been in a universal Israeli line of the value idea behind this mitzvah.

As for planting in the Negev - without going into the details of the halakhic question of whether it is allowed or forbidden - imagine a situation in which once every seven years, in the year of the shemita, Tu B'Shvat plantings of the JNF do not take place.

In their place is distributed by the organization in the shmita line - the idea behind it, reading and study materials and more.

Isn't this in a line that expresses the Zionist idea - even in the disputed land in the Negev - a thousand times more than a planting picture, hot and cute as it may be?

In the meantime, we will have to make do with mentioning the subject only, if only through a political debate, and we will take solace in the fact that so many have never dealt with the mitzvah of shemita as this year.

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Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-01-18

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