Jewish Farmers
Try to Fit
Shmita Practices
into the Modern World
A portion of William and Malya Levin’s farm in South Jersey
Photo by Nathan Kleinman
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
32 MARCH 31, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Rustic / iStock / Getty Images Plus
I n our modern capitalist society, Jewish farmers can’t really observe the shmita year — the once every seven years
tradition of letting the land lie fallow so farmers can rest and refresh themselves. Th ere are too many economic forces
at play.

But Jewish farmers can at least follow the spirit of the tradition, they say.

Th ey can let pieces of the land lie fallow for the year, or they can use parts of it for more communal purposes like
education. Following the spirit of the tradition still allows farmers, both locally and outside the Philadelphia area, to get
some of the benefi ts of a traditional shmita year, like time for refl ection and then a gradual re-centering and reorientation
to the grind of cultivating the land.

As rabbinic authorities explained, shmita is like an extended Shabbat and, in a modern context, it can be like the
current-day observation of the Sabbath: Jews fi nding a way to recharge, even if they’re not strictly following the letter of
the Jewish law.

“How can you have more practices that nourish you?” said Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann, the founder of Kol
Tzedek in Philadelphia and a spiritual leader at SAJ in New York City.

“A wide view of what it can mean to your life,” she added.