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Don’t forget to check our website at www.hobartsynagogue.org
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have to decide: is there enough chance IPCC is right, and that the effects they predict will be
harmful, to warrant action now?
Will Howard
Bill Stuart is moving house
For those who might be interested, I will be moving house, hopefully on 18th December. I have
my name down for an ‘independent unit’ in a new aged care/retirement complex being built in
Sandy Bay. The idea being that I would get priority for care if/when I reach the need for it. I
have some regrets, having been associated with Taroona since the bridge fell down thirty years
ago. I am having a potluck in my new home in March and I hope to see you all there.
Bill Stuart
What is Shmitah?
After having agreed to contribute half a page or so about the sabbatical, or shmitah year, and
later receiving an e-mail of an article from The Jerusalem Journal, which I think came to us via
Will Howard, giving a professionally written account, I was struck by the thought, “what can I
add”? It seemed to me that the subject had been well and truly covered, just a bit of deft cut and
paste to condense it a bit, and that’s that.
Then a couple of things happened to change my mind; while in Melbourne at the weekend, I
picked up an orthodox Israeli publication which had an item about the shmita year, and, on
returning to Hobart and sitting at the keyboard to make a start, I was struck by the words
“Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company” at the end of the e-mailed article, words
which strike terror into the hearts those of us who are not able to hire a team of top lawyers.
So I decided that I now knew enough to write a few words myself, after all!
This year in the Hebrew calendar, 5768, is a sabbatical (shmita) year, when Jewish owned land
in Israel is supposed to be left fallow, and any crop it produces may not be sold, but the poor
may collect it for their sustenance. This occurs every seven years, to allow the land to rest, and
is a direct commandment from the Torah, Exodus 23:10-11:
“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it
rest and lay fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the
field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.”
It is relevant to note that, although modern farming practices are said to have made the
periodical resting of the land unnecessary, this is not without a cost, mainly from the intensive
application of fertilisers and the resulting run-off, etc. and it has been found, according to some
research and among the organic farming enthusiasts, that the traditional ways are more
sustainable and the loss of production entailed in resting the land periodically can be at least
partly offset by increased production afterwards. The real problem for Israel is that it is
commanded that this be done on the same year throughout the land.
In the early years of the modern State of Israel, conditions were so harsh that keeping this
commandment could actually lead to a dangerous lack of food, and therefore the chief rabbis of
the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities devised, according to religious law, (halacha), a
“heter mechira” which is a sale permit, similar to that used by the orthodox for selling our
“chometz” throughout the world during Pesach, which allows Jews to temporarily sell their land
to non-Jews for the year, so that the produce can be harvested and sold.
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