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.




“If I can experience the Shabbos, I can understand
what the earth is experiencing.

Why it needs to rest and heal and regenerate.”
YITZHAK GLASMAN
William and Malya Levin run the Alliance Community Reboot in Salem County, New Jersey.

It’s also perfectly OK for farmers to not take shmita literally, as they aren’t
actually required to by law. Halachic custom states that shmita only applies
to Jews in Israel.

“As Jewish farmers in North America, we have zero obligation,” said Shani
Mink, the executive director of the Jewish Farmer Network, which helps
Jewish farmers across the United States.

So then, according to Mink, the question becomes, what can we learn
from shmita by observing it in spirit?
William and Malya Levin, who run the Alliance Community Reboot, a
nonprofi t farming community in Salem County, New Jersey, took over their
land aft er years of conventional farmers using pesticides and herbicides on
it. But the Levins wanted to go organic, so they needed to detoxify the fi elds.

To get an organic certifi cation from the United States Department of
Agriculture, the husband-and-wife team had to uphold a requirement of
abstinence from synthetic substances for 36 months. It was essentially three
years of shmita, they said.

“It was recuperating,” Malya Levin added.

Photo by Ahron Moeller
Th ree years into its organic farming life, the Alliance Community Reboot,
or ACRe, is using the actual shmita year to cultivate another shmita-inspired
eff ort. Th e Levins are turning a grant from Salem County into a model farm
on a portion of their South Jersey property. Th ey plan to use the model farm
for educational tours.

“Launching during the shmita year is appropriate,” Malya Levin said.

“Taking a breath from commercial enterprise, showing why we do what we
do.” Yitzhak Glasman, who operates the Shalem Farm in Doylestown, is taking
on a similar eff ort.

Glasman described his Bucks County land as “destroyed” when he took it
over a year ago. So now, he’s in the process of “regenerating” it for farming
use. Th e farmer explained that shmita doesn’t apply to him because he doesn’t
live in Israel. But he still believes in using its concepts to “manage and heal
the land.”
Glasman also said that, “If I can experience the Shabbos, I can understand
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