So does anyone really know when the next Sabbatical year is and does it apply outside of Israel. What I really want to know is should I plant my vegetable garden this year and harvest my fruit trees or not.
According to many Jewish web sites, this year is a Sabbatical year. The following is from a Jewish web-site:
http://www.chabad.org/li...2016/jewish/Shemitah.htmThis coming year on the Jewish calendar, 5768 (Sept. 13, 2007-Sept. 29 2008), will be the next Sabbatical year (Shemitah).
The year following the destruction of the second Holy Temple (3829 from creation, equivalent to 68-69 CE) was the first year of the seven-year Sabbatical cycle. We continue counting seven from then.
Most of the Sabbatical year's observances are agricultural in nature, and are only relevant in Israel.
The year should start in April instead of September according to Leviticus 23. This is all confusing.
I thought this was interesting: Have you read the story about the “banana miracle” in Israel?
A completely secular farmer whose produce is bananas decided that he would undertake to keep Shmitah this time around. He approached the Keren HaShviis for assistance and they stipulated that he would be registered in their program if he would also undertake to be personally Shomer Shabbos throughout Shmitah. He agreed. Keren HaShviis (Here, I was told by Rabbi Bloom, that it was actually the Otzar Bet Din of Bnei Brak) undertook to cover his farming expenses in return for which all the produce would become the property of Otzar Beis Din and would be distributed in full accordance with Halacha.
Israel has suffered a significant cold spell over the past 2 to 3 weeks. Bananas don’t like cold. Cold doesn’t like bananas. Needless to say, they don’t get along. When bananas are still growing and get hit with frost, they turn brown and become rock-solid hard.
The hero of our story, Gibor Koach the banana farmer, knew he was in deep trouble when the relentless cold hadn’t let up for over a week. He lived a distance from his orchard and hadn’t yet seen the damage with his own eyes. He began to receive calls from his neighbor farmers, who have orchards bordering his, complaining bitterly that their entire banana crop had been destroyed by the frost. He decided it was time to inspect the damage up close, no matter how painful it may be.
He drove up close to Tverya (Tiberius) to inspect his orchard, as well as those of his neighboring farmers. As he passed from one orchard to another, he was overwhelmed by the damage. Not a single fruit had survived, no tree was spared. His neighbors took quite a beating. All the bananas were brown, hard as a rock.
He could only imagine how bad his trees must have gotten it.
Yet when he finally got to his orchard, he was awestruck! ALL of his bananas were yellow and green. It’s as if his orchard was not part of this parcel of land. His orchard bordered those of his neighbors, but not a single tree of his was struck by the frost. It’s as if a protective wall kept the damage away. At first he thought he was imagining it, and as he rushed from one section of his orchard to another, the realization that more than the farmer keeps the Shmitah, the Shmitah keeps the farmer hit home.
He immediately called his contacts at Keren HaShviis and yelled into the phone, “Karah Nes, Karah Nes!” ( A miracle happened, a miracle happened!)
A miraculous modern-day manifestation of “V’Tzivisi Es HaBracha”.
There is no way to explain this other than that HaKodesh Baruch Hu keeps His promises. He says keep Shmitah, and I’ll take care of you. He sure does!
Read the entire story at Tamar Yonah’s Blog from Israel National Radio.
http://www.israelnationa...ws.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/3What Scripture actually says:
Leviticus 25
And Yahuweh spoke to Mosheh on Mount Sinai, saying, 2“Speak to the children of Yisra’el, and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall observe a Sabbath to Yahuweh. 3‘Six years you sow your field, and six years you prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit, 4but in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to Yahuweh. Do not sow your field and do not prune your vineyard. 5‘Do not reap what grows of its own of your harvest, and do not gather the grapes of your unpruned vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. 6‘And the Sabbath of the land shall be to you for food, for you and your servant, and for your female servant and your hired servant, and for the stranger who sojourns with you, 7and for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land. All its crops are for food. 8‘And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years. And the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9‘You shall then sound a ram’s horn to pass through on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the Day of Atonement cause a ram’s horn to pass through all your land. 10‘And you shall set the fiftieth year apart, and proclaim release throughout all the land to all its inhabitants, it is a Jubilee for you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you return to his clan. 11‘The fiftieth year is a Jubilee to you. Do not sow, nor reap what grows of its own, nor gather from its unpruned vine. 12‘It is a Jubilee, it is set-apart to you. Eat from the field its crops.