Sound The Trumpet : Israeli Fields Enter Biblical Shmita

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“Israeli Fields Enter Biblical Shmita - Fallow Year”
by Israel Today
September 30th, 2014

The new year that began last week on Rosh Hashanah (year 5775 by Jewish reckoning) is a biblically-mandated shmita year in which all farmland is to lie fallow.

While the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) is a day of rest for man, the shmita is to be a year of rest for the land every seventh year. It is commanded in Exodus 23:10–11, which reads:

"And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard."

It is estimated that some 5,000 Israeli farmers obey the above commandment, and the state sets aside around USD $28.5 million to support them during a year without crops to sell.

The largest and oldest Israeli environmental organization, the Jewish National Fund, also strictly adheres to the shmita, and will not prepare any land for new forestation efforts during the fallow year.

At the same time, many Israeli Jewish farmers fearing a significant loss of income circumvent the rules of the shmita, which are encoded in Israeli religious law, by “selling” their land to a non-Jew for a token amount of money. Once the land is in non-Jewish hands, the farmer is free to work it as usual.

Many also believe there is increasing reason to violate the shmita due to a downturn in Israeli agriculture over the past 30 years. Whereas Israel could once boast some 40,000 farms in its tiny corner of the Middle East, today there are only around 13,000 farms in the Jewish state.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13