By Rabbi Moshe Pogrow
The right of private ownership of the land is null and void during the shemittah year. Nothing grows exclusively for the owner of the field. All—man and animal—have a share in the land’s produce. There is no special right for the owner.
One is forbidden to stop people from entering his field; rather, he must allow free access for both man and to animals, and it is forbidden to prevent them from picking and eating the produce. During shemittah, all the produce of his field is hefker, and he, the owner, like everyone else, may only take home small quantities, enough to eat for a limited period.
The Torah says in Shemos (23:11): v’hashviis tishmetena u’netashta v’achlu evyonei amecha v’yisram tochal chayas hasadeh—in the seventh year, you are to let the land lie fallow and abandon it, so that the poor among your people may eat of it, and what they leave over, let the wild animals eat. The owner of the field does not even have the right to distribute the produce to the poor. Men and domesticated animals can eat in the house—as long as the wild animals can eat in the field. As soon as each kind of produce stops being available in the open for animals, the right to keep it in the house ends.
There is a particular time at which each kind of peiros shevi’is must “disappear” from the house. This time is called shaas habiur, and it applies not only to produce, but also to any money that has become invested with kedushas sheviis through the sale of the produce.
In practice, the sheviis laws constitute an unparalleled act of homage. Through its fields, gardens, and meadows, through every fruit and blade of grass, a whole nation proclaims for an entire year: “Our land belongs to G-d, and we are merely gerim v’toshavim, strangers and sojourners, with Him.”
Without haughtiness, without pride of ownership, they join in complete equality with the poorest of men, becoming equal even with the wild animals of the field. During shemittah, G-d alone is exalted.
Based on the commentary of Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch zt”l on Chumash, with permission from the publisher.
