The Parve Baker

Be-Har

Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year, the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. - Leviticus 25:3-4

The Israelites have already been commanded through Moses to make the seventh day of the week a shabbat shabbaton, sabbath of complete rest. [It] shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and was refreshed (Ex. 32:17). Lest some come to think that only they are worthy of this respite, the Israelites are further instructed to cease from labor in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and that your bondman and the stranger may be refreshed (Ex. 23:12).

Once the Israelites enter the Land, they must learn how to cultivate the soil without exhausting it. Just as people and work animals labor six days and then rest for one, there is a seven-year cycle consisting of six years of working the land followed by a year of fallowing. During the shmitah or fallow year, landowners are prohibited from new cultivation and harvesting from their past agricultural undertakings. The poor may eat from the fields, vineyards, and olive groves; anything remaining is left to wild animals (Ex. 23:11). All may gather and consume their fill from uncultivated native vegetation. Like the seventh day, the shmitah year is referred to as a shabbat shabbaton, sabbath of complete rest.

Environmental scientist and ecologist Daniel Hillel holds that fallowing, which appears to have originated in Mesopotamia, was critical in hilly, rainfed Canaan where careful conservation of soil and water made the difference between fruitful and disastrous results for both farmers and shepherds. The Israelites built cisterns to store rainwater and created terraces with stone retaining walls on the steep hillsides where they planted olives, grapes, figs, pomegranates, almonds, and other fruit trees. They sowed vegetables and grains in the valleys and used the unterraced parts of the hillsides for pasture. Only the least accessible slopes and hilltops were left to grow wild. Mandatory fallowing was used to counteract soil erosion and preserve fertility (The Natural History of the Bible, pp.154-155).

Whether we view shmitah theologically as part of a great cosmic cycle in which God and the universe periodically realign through sabbaths of complete rest or materially as fulfilling the needs of the soil to regenerate in order to remain productive, we better understand that regularly taking time to put the beaters down and turn the oven off is beneficial to all.