shemitah

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Pronunciations

shemitah (SHMEE-tuh) listen

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Definitions

  • n. The seventh (sabbatical) year during which plowing, planting, watering, and harvesting were forbidden and all debts were forgiven.

Example Sentences

  • "The rabbi won't buy any Israeli produce during the shemita year." (Glinert)

  • "If the purpose of the work is to protect what has already grown prior to Shemita so it should not get ruined, or if trees are in danger of dying, certain activities are generally permitted to protect them." (source)

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Languages of Origin

  • Textual Hebrew

Etymology

  • שמיטה 'lit. release'

      • Who Uses This

      • Religious: Jews who are engaged in religious observance and have some Jewish education

      Regions

      • North America

      Dictionaries

      • The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
      • The Joys of Hebrew, by Lewis Glinert (New York, 1992).
      • Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).

      Alternative Spellings

      shemita, shmitah, shmita

Notes

  • "According to Leviticus, all the land in the Land of Israel was to lie fallow every seventh year; plowing, planting, watering, and harvesting were forbidden. In addition, all debts were to be forgiven. Every seventh sabbatical year was a Jubilee year; at this time, Jews were to free their slaves and return any land bought since the previous Jubilee. Later, more lenient interpretations of the shemitah allowed Jews to sell their land to Muslims for two years and then buy it back. Hillel introduced the prosbul, a legal formula for reclaiming debts after the sabbatical year; its purpose was to encourage wealthy people to continue to lend money during this period. These sabbatical year practices were largely abandoned by the Middle Ages.
    Some of Israel’s Orthodox rabbis have tried to reinstitute these shemitah observances. In the fall of 2000, which was the start of a shemitah year according to the Jewish calendar, they called on Israeli farmers to observe these biblical rulings. The rabbis asked farmers to let their land rest and fire their workers, and demanded that consumers boycott agricultural products grown in the State of Israel." (JPS)

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