Talk:Shmita

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From the article:

The Sabbatical year is still enforced in Israel and the seven year cycle has not been lost. The time of the occurence of the Jubilee Year though, has been 'lost'. Observance of the Sabbatical year is of high accord and one who doesn't, may not allowed to be a witness in a Jewish court.

I find this difficult to believe, because cancellation of debts is a practice incompatible with modern finance, and the population of the present State of Israel is too large to survive without continuous land cultivation (don't know how much food they import, but still). It's possible that a heavily modified version of the custom is practiced, though. Could someone give evidence/citations?

Zack 18:33, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Zack: You are correct, there are "ways around it" and I have made the corrections within the article that this is a matter relating to Torah observance/s within Orthodox Judaism. IZAK 10:10, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The cancellation of debt only applies to outstanding loans. Jon513 19:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it said that in the 6th year before the Sabbatical year there will be THREE times the produce grown, which will be more than enough grain for the Sabbatical year? I have also heard that there is backed up by empirical evidence today. I've done some brief searches with no results. If anyone can find the source please add it!

[edit] Name and Structure of article

As the above discussion notes, this article concerns a contemporary Jewish practice which has evolved substantially since Biblical days. Why not, as with other contemporary Jewish practices, focus on the contemporary practice and then explain its biblical roots and the history of how it changed during the days of the Mishna and Talmud, and since. It would be like an article on Dietary Laws (Bible) that mentions as an afterthought that Jews still follow them. This article is as misleading as such an article would be. It fails to take into account that many of the rules Modern Jews follow are based on Oral Law and rabbinical decrees, not the Bible itself. I propose renaming to Shemita with Sabbatical Year redirecting to it, and restructuring the article to describe the contemporary Jewish practice, giving the biblical roots of the practice and explaining how it was affected by subsequent rabbinic rulings and historical events. Best, --Shirahadasha 07:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I decided to be WP:BOLD and make the changes. No content has been lost, it's just been reorganized. The intro and other relevant sections are now in the present rather than the past tense, and are geared to the contrmporary rather than the Biblical practice. A small amount of additional content has been added explaining the reasoning behind the approach taken in modern Israel. Material on the Talmudic device of Prosbul )for loan remittance) has been added. The Biblical criticism material questioning whether the practice was actually carried out as described in Biblical times has been moved to a separate section. The way rabbinical authorities handled Shmita at the dawn of Zionism a century ago represents a classic and very notable example of how Jewish law develops in ways that both remain faithful to and nonetheless alleviate the dificulties of a problematic Biblical injuction. The underlying thought process may be relevant to various contemporary Jewish-law discussions as Orthodox Judaism tackles contemporary social issues. This is important to have on Wikipedia which is, after all, for a contemporary rather than a Biblical audience. I believe the article approach is a change for the better. --Shirahadasha 08:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biblical criticism perspectives

The section currently (after rewriting to attribute to the current source) has the following:

According to the 1897 Easton's Bible Dictionary, debts were to be suspended for the year rather than remitted entirely. This practice was, presumably, instituted to prevent the resources of the debtor, already stretched thin due to the land lying fallow, being exhausted by the discharging of debts.

I'm wondering if this language is presenting an independent theory about pre-Rabbinic Biblical society, or is simply retelling the previous discussion about the introduction of Prosbul. The reason I'm suspicious that the latter may be the case is that the presumed reason Easton's gives for the change is the same reason as the one the Talmud gives for why Hillel introduced it. If Easton's information is simply a rehashing of Talmudic sources and it is not providing an independent modern critical perspective, I'd suggest either removing the material or noting that Easton's agrees with the traditional Jewish perspective on this issue. --Shirahadasha 18:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Looked up the Sabbatical Year entry in Easton's and the entry does not contain most of the information in this section. This section is therefore unsourced and will need to be removed per WP:V unless sources are provided. Thank you. --Shirahadasha 18:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)