Goals of the Shmita Project

• To start to focus attention on 7-year goals within the Jewish community for health and sustainability, especially – though not only – in relation to land. Over the next seven years we aim to see the Jewish community, worldwide, living more sustainably, learning more about health and sustainability, and advocating for a healthier and more sustainable world for all. The Shmita project will enable us to think together and in public about what those seven year goals can, could or should be;
• Secondly, to focus attention on Shmita itself. What does Shmita mean in the 21st century – and what can could or should it mean?
• Thirdly – and representing an amalgam of these first two issues – we want to start a public conversation about the Farm Bill, the omnibus bill that passes through congress every 5-10 years and which has a n enormous impact on food in the US and beyond. If there were to be a Jewishly-informed Food Bill, next time around – say, seven years from now – what should that look like?

Backgound

The Shmita year appears three times in the Torah:

And six years you shall sow your land, and you shall gather in its produce.  And the seventh year you shall release it from work and abandon it, and the poor among your people will eat. 
Shemot (Exodus), 23:10-11

And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to children of Israel and say to them: When you come to the land which I am giving you, then the land shall rest, a Sabbath for the Lord.  For six years you shall sow your fields and for six years you shall prune your vines and you shall gather in their produce.  And in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath for the Lord; you shall not sow your field, and you shall not prune your vineyard, and the Sabbath produce of the land shall yours to eat; for you and your manservant and your maidservant, and for your settler who resides with you.
Vayikra (Leviticus), 25:1-6

At the end of seven years you shall celebrate the Shmita year.  And this is the manner of the Shmita; every creditor shall remit any debt owed by his neighbor and his brother when God’s Shemittah year comes around…
…If there be among you a needy man, one of your brothers, within any one of your gates, in your land which the lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart and you shall not shut your hand from your needy brother.  But you shall surely open your hands to him sufficient for his need in that which he lacks.
Devarim (Deuteronomy), 15:1-8

The Shmita Year, literally translated as the year of release, sets several restrictions on our agricultural, economic, and social interactions. It is a year in which all land is allowed to rest, all debt is forgiven.  A year in which there is no private claim to the produce of the land and resources are shared by all members of the community, rich and poor. It is a year that recognizes the importance of reflection and separation from work and that honors the sacredness of food and its role in building community.
 
There are three main ideas that careful analysis of Shmita can convey.  First, that we need to rethink our concepts of ownership and the inherent entitlement we assume to exploit natural resources for our benefit alone.  Second, we need to cultivate a sense of empathy and compassion for the less fortunate and more vulnerable members of our society.  And third, that our overall goal as a community should be to create systems that benefit the whole rather than encourage the accumulation of material wealth among a minority of individuals.

Shmita is part of a system of mindfulness that teaches us that the earth belongs to God. In a similar way to the idea that brachot teach us to be mindful of the food we eat, the observance of Shabbat informs how we should live our lives the rest of the week, Shmita tells us that we live in a world where God provides for us, and that ultimately our use of the land is a gift to us from God.

Shmita confronts us with the possibility of going without because it asks us to prepare ahead. How would we change what we ate if we knew that there was a year in which we could not harvest? How would we help those without the resources to prepare? How would we confront food excess?

It is challenging for those who have grown up in a world of excess and access to material wealth to truly consider the concept of scarcity. But how would it inform our lives to live as though it might be true--that we have to be mindful of the food that we eat and how it is produced because we could go without it.