Excerpts of Letter on Shemitta – #289 – part I | Beit Din Eretz Hemda - Gazit | Beit Midrash

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Recipient and Background : Rav Yonatan Binyamin Horowitz. Rav Horowitz was a product of the Chatam Sofer community, and originally served as a rabbi in Slovakia. After moving to Eretz Yisrael, he served as an administrator of communal funds (Kollels) and as a representative of Agudat Yisrael. He was, mainly later, a confidante of Rav Kook, who had a major part in organizing and documenting the trip of rabbis, including Rav Kook and Rav Zonnenfeld, through the New Yishuv. We now get to the part of the letter that deals with Shemitta, which is long and most of the ideas have been presented before, including recently. We will skip from place to place for ideas that are somewhat new to us.

Body : We have to try our hardest so that eventually the "Shabbat of the Land" will appear in its fullest form. In addition to it being beloved like any other mitzva of the Torah, punishment for not keeping it is found explicitly in the Torah, from which we can extrapolate its reward – it determines exile vs. inhabiting the Land. The Torah says: "All the days [the Land] is desolate, it will rest corresponding to the time it did not rest when you were living on it" (Vayikra 26:35). The Rabbis wrote explicitly that exile comes to the world because of improper observance of Shemitta. However, it requires study to know how to reach the holy goal.
I believe that we need to reach our destination specifically by progressing gradually. This is in line with the way in which Israel’s salvation is to progress, step by step (Yerushalmi, Berachot 1:1).
The way we rule must be in line with how someone saves property from a fire. Whatever is most expensive and holiest has priority, and then we try to save more. The more beloved comes first, and that which is found in the Written Torah comes before that which is derived based on the Oral Law (see Sefer Chassidim 856, cited by Magen Avraham 334:15). Regarding the need to keep at least the Torah-level prohibitions, this is a major factor, considering that the punishment of exile is involved. It is worthwhile to point out the argument of the Sha’agat Aryeh (24). He proves that the mitzva to recite a beracha before learning Torah must be of Torah law from the fact that the gemara (Nedarim 81a) attributes the destruction of the Temple to the lack of fulfillment of that mitzva. In another words, if they had violated only a Rabbinic law, the stakes would not have been so high. Therefore, by keeping the Torah prohibitions, we are doing a big thing, as we are trying, through settling the Land, to take steps toward ingathering the exiles, and we would not want to be guilty of something whose punishment is exile. Therefore, we must be careful about the matter to our fullest ability.
Whatever is done by a non-Jew will not include a Torah-level prohibition, as is the cases regarding every prohibition of the Torah. Although the Torah writes in terms of the Land resting, the actual prohibition goes on the person who does the work, so that if a Jew has a non-Jew do the work, there is no Torah-level prohibition. This is especially so considering that according to most, Shemitta in our days is Rabbinic, and it is a stringency to try to treat it as if Shemitta is required by Torah law at this time. Furthermore, we also have the sale of the land to rely on, which is a valid leniency. Therefore, there are multiple levels of leniency to rely upon, at least regarding the most problematic actions.