Shmita | Part 2 - Preparing for the year of Shmita

[Music] we're going to start learning some of the laws of shemitah and i know many people are eager eager to ask their question what do i do with my uh with my zucchinis but we first have to learn all the laws in order to start uh understanding the basic things so first we have to understand what are the laws prior to the shemitah and that means that till the 15th day of which already passed you're allowed to plant trees after 15th day of valve you can't do that anymore so if you miss that opportunity that's it it's gone fruit trees and and uh there are many reasons for that but it's a little bit less important right now we missed it so that's it you can't plant any fruit trees anymore till next year if you already have them planted that's a whole different thing but to plant from now and on you can't now you're allowed to to uh plant what's called ate sac let's say sak is uh any other tree that it just doesn't bear any fruit and all sorts of other plants that you're allowed to do but there's different rules the majority go by that you can plant it till the 15th day of elul so you can still plant that but not not trees that will bear fruit now in order to understand this much much better we have to understand the concept of what's called shvitata aritz lasted yesterday we learned a little bit that the land has to stop it has to cannot work the land now we have to understand the the concept before we understand what we need to do so if you want to go to the source that can be found in the book of chapter 25 verse and it says that's the commandments which the translation the land shall rest a shabbat to the lord that's the commandment now comes an argument between our sages what does that really mean does the land have to stop working or i have to stop working because some say okay maybe the land has to stop working but i can still work or maybe it's the other way around that i'm not allowed to work on the land but if i put the land on auto autopilot or hire some foreigners maybe they can do it so one opinion holds by that i'm not allowed to work the land the other opinion holds by that the land itself has to strike now in order to understand that we have to understand the concept of the strike because the word that is using is using the word shabbat and even in the translation it says shabbat which of course shabbat means to strike and and and when the torah is talking about the word shabbat then of of course that it's similar to the concept of shabbat now in shabbat i'm not i'm not allowed to do any labor on shabbat but i'm also not allowed to have my animals do any labor and this is called shvitat that i'm not allowed to work my animal is not allowed to work now some people say okay maybe i can rent the animal for the shabbat so now in our days you don't really rent a cow but there is the concept a lot of jews they have a business and really the main part of the business is shabbat so there are loopholes how the business owners can rent the business to a non-jew of course and have the business running and they still make somehow money i'll give you one example to many have a friend who has in america those kiosks in the malls the ones who jump on you in the middle of the mall and put some cream on your face so he's probably the one of the pioneers in the industry and he's very very big and he told me many years ago listen shabbat is the day how you're talking here but loss of hundreds of thousands has to be some type of a loophole and the loophole we went of course to bring posse at the time and then the rabbi said okay evaluate what you think your kiosk is worth for that day and rent it to somebody or you can even do even better you sell it for that day like you sell your commits for one week sell your your kiosks for one day with a contract and from this time to this time that's it it doesn't belong to you anymore and you want to get per kiosk whatever 20 000 of course the person who's buying it or renting it has to make a large profit if not he won't want to do it but at least you still made money and the rent has to be weekly or monthly bottom line the loopholes how you can do stuff like that but when it comes to an animal you're not allowed to do that the animal is not allowed to work for anybody else because the animal belongs to you so comes a big argument in alecha is that for an animal or anything so the aloha says no it's only for animals the tools you can rent so hypothetically 500 years ago you can rent your tools in our days what tools do we use so i gave you one example of many that he rents the the business a tool not necessarily is your car but in our generation i can have my tools work for me i can turn the air conditioning on as long as i turned it on prior to shabbat or it turns on by itself because it has a timer i can do that i can have my hot plate running i can have a hot water and work on shabbat i can do many things i can set a lot of things prior to shabbat and let it work on shabbat so the tools i'm allowed to make them work for me so it's a concept that we have to understand when it says when the land has to stop then i have to now take that concept from shabbat and bring it into the concept of shemitah so just so we can make things clear i'm not allowed to do labor on shabbat my animal is not allowed to do labor on shabbat but my tools are allowed to do labor as long as i sell them rent them or set them up prior to shabbat technically i don't think people really do it but i can rent my car on shabbat in israel you know when you own a car in israel and you pay for insurance if you declare that you are observed shabbat the insurance company gives you a big discount it's not going to work with geico or whatever you have in america maybe it will i don't know didn't you never try but in israel you you if you declare that you are observing shabbat then you get a huge disc on why because the car is not driving but what if i want to rent my car or i want to lend it to somebody of course not a jew i'm not allowed to give it to a jew because then they'll just secrete your body boomer ranks to me so just to make things clear i'm not allowed to work my animal is not allowed to work but my tools can work and i can put them to work and it's important to know because this same concept and now we're going to move it into the shemitah so when i'm looking at the concept of shabbat then there's a big difference between the animal and the tools right now you have to like i said in the beginning a lot of people already said tell me what to do with my zucchinis i don't care about the animals i need to know how to raise my nana but we have to understand some rules and concepts and when we want to do it thoroughly we have to learn not only the the basic things so when it comes to shabbat there's a big difference between the animal and the tools with that said comes the big question in is that the exact same thing with shmita because the shmitah according to the torah is called shabbat it doesn't say shmita and again go back to book of chapter 25 verse 2 the commandment that we have shabbat lashem that the land has to strike it because it's a shabbat hashem so it's using the word shabbat doesn't hear the word shmita or any other word it uses the word shabbat now comes now and tells me is the shemitah exactly like shabbat which really shabbat you have six days of work throughout the week and then shabbat is the day of rest so this is the same cycle just with years so comes a big question here is the shvita the strike falls on me or on the ground right because i'm not allowed to work the ground there's no question here but what about the land maybe the land can be on autopilot and for that we're going to have to learn all the rules because i will give you a quick sneak preview yes if you set things up on the sixth year it will be able to work itself during the seventh year with a lot of exceptions if you remember yesterday we learned about a a term that is called sepia that's something that comes out by itself you didn't do an action so there are many exceptions to the rules but in general like for example if you have a backyard if you have an automatic watering system set it up on an automatic watering system let it work it's exactly like putting the air conditioning on your oven or whatever it is before shabbat so we're gonna have to more go into deeper about the concept if the shivita the strike falls on me or falls on the ground what am i allowed to do what is the what is the ground allowed to do and before we even go into the year of schmitta we need to know know all the rules prior to shmitah because we still have a whole month you can do a lot of things in this month especially when it comes to things that are easy to uh plants and that's what we're going to briefly go through today so according to the alexa means before the act then you want to make sure that you plant everything till the 15th day of elul when it comes to fruits that are bare trees that are bearing fruit your limit is is 15 ab it passed already that's it you lost it but any other thing you can still plant and you have another 15 days and and and when it comes to seeds by the way that's three days before rosh hashanah so you can still plant seeds of whatever you have edible fruit or vegetables and you have three days before rosh hashanah to do it because it needs to we're going to go now through some of the rules but it either needs to sprout or it needs the roots to grab the ground already now there is our sages say two weeks the fifteenth of elul because in most cases the roots need two weeks to grab the ground so or not maybe i'm using the wrong term grab the ground rather the word hebrews is that the plants or the tree is able to spread its root roots and grab the ground strong enough and that will take two weeks but like i told you and again we're going to learn everything a little bit more thoroughly but just that you know the major rules 15th of obvious for trees that a bear fruit fifteenth overlord is for anything else that a and if it's edible and it seeds you can do it even three days prior to rosh hashanah with that said we're gonna learn we're gonna have to kind of break in the classes according to sections so now it's very important to know a few major rules and with that we're going to be able to see how we're allowed to do certain things now i'm going to read i rather read the actual halacha and then translate and explain than just to give it over so it says as follows what we're going to follow today is what's called netiavestila shalha is two different things in hebrew but in english it's the same thing it's planting it's how it's just a different way of planting chorizo means it's exposed almost any plant is called the what does it mean that if you take it from the ground wash the the soil and you see the root you can transfer it from one place to another and still plant it and that's most of the greens that you can do that some things you can't once you already expose the root either it will die or you won't be able to move it but what's the title that calls is called that the root can be exposed and you can transfer one thing like a plan from one place to another this is the topic what we're going to cover today very briefly so it says as follows the best way to do it is to do everything prior to spring it really it's really going all the way back to pesach which means after purim the winter is about to be over that's when it's the best time to start planting everything that's the best the lolit hotamullakites and don't push it to the summer why can't they shots that the plants will really grab the ground well get uh i don't know the word in necessary in english but they will get connected very well to the ground venn so you know i have to that i can prevent myself from doing any type of work in that year and then it says as follows if i want to plant a tree that has a fruit and also si capri sea is more like a bush or i would stick with a bush right now but also that bears fruit probably he's talking about berries and stuff like that that are not really a tree that it's more growing on a bush but the definition is that it's called ravshnati that the tree is alive the whole year no i'm not really professional in agriculture but i'm sure there are some type of trees and i think one of them is bananas that they they die throughout the cern period and then they have to replant the renew so the rule you have to cut the the the how do you call it a stem it's not a stem really right no it's not no the root okay let's listen i'm not so knowledgeable in agriculture but whatever i miss you help me but their first rule that it's a all year round tree lemon avocado apple whatever it is and sorry and hastu that you can move it from one place to another which means that you can expose the roots and you can move the tree from one place to another it's permissible to plant it on the sixth year which we are now in the sixth year at the zain till the fifth the sixteenth day of now it says at the design i said before till the 15th including the 15th here it says till the the 16th but not including the 16. it's the same date just i'm reading now from the text before i said it out loud and when life so really you have till the 15th day of till the sun goes down sun went down that's it you're done for the year how's about other trees at now etzak is a tree that doesn't bear fruit just to say it as an as a side note because we have a lot of rock but we know that when rasheed is going to come very soon oh there's not going to be a tsr all the trees are going to bear fruit you can imagine how much more fruit and vegetables we're going to have very soon when she comes just imagine how many species of trees there are and some of the fruit is not really edible for humans and some of them don't even look like they have fruit when mashiach is going to come then that's what the prophet says madan is like a treat and they will be common and you'll find it like sand so what does that mean it's not that you're going to pull out chocolate pudding from the ground rather the fruit are going to be like a ma'adan a delicacy and they'll be everywhere so we're just going to be pulling off the fruit from the trees and needless to say what uh what a sensation that will be you know the kids they tell them that the trees will have uh lollipops or candy but it's not really the lollipops rather the fruit is going to be so sweet it will be like uh like a candy or a treat so ate struck there are trees that don't bear fruit and seeking now all sorts of bushes but that they are alive throughout the entire year but shayna many vimperots but they don't give any fruits the ones that the roots can be exposed you can plant them till rosh hashanah even till the last day which means that of course it's not edible stuff but you have a garden you have a backyard you can still plant them but i'm not allowed to water them in the seventh year till they actually got connected to the ground so i can plant it on the last day of elul but i can't water it till i know a hundred percent that it got stuck in the ground the word it's using is cloaked the clot means to absorb or to to receive till the ground actually receives the tree then you can water it it says usually it says it takes about two weeks after you planted it in wet soil so if you have to do something like that wet the soil in the ground wet it real good plant your tree and that can be done the night before rosh hashanah then don't touch it for two weeks and you're good to go therefore it's good to make the planting earlier version some say only till the fifteenth avenue allowed to plant it why could they shake that the tree or the bush should be absorbed and connected to the ground till rosh hashanah so this is very important if you have a backyard or if you want to make your uh whatever porch where you want to make some nice trees or bushes then you can still do it by the way that's it you lost you can't do anymore even for things that are just flowers or you can't plant that anymore you have to set it up now and i will prevent from saying something funny now on the camera the viewers will be very upset jachat will understand what i'm talking about you set it up now sorry and you set it up now that's it smash not just sit and enjoy the smell okay now how is about plants of uh vegetables that are edible any type of plant that will give a vegetable and also and also smell some people plant stuff because they want to have basamine what are you going to do with basamine these are things a lot of people don't even take to consideration right basamine you smell stuff on mozai but how are you going to use that on me so you have to either how do you call it not gather up stock up stock stock stack stock up a lot of bisamim or if you grow your own basamine then you have to know how to grow it for the snack meetup i mean a lot of people what they do is they buy the cloves or whatever but it doesn't have much of a good smell you want mozzai shabbat to smell something very strong so when it comes to plants of vegetables and plants that give smell mutton you're allowed to plant them we're talking about the six here by the way we're not doing into the metallics only if it will absorb in the ground and again i think i'm using the wrong word means that the ground accepts it sometimes you plan something three four days it doesn't take the ground doesn't take it it dries out and you have to replant it and i'm not talking about seed seeds it's a whole different thing because the seed the ground will take anyways and here we're talking about something that you went to the nursery you bought a little plant and you put it in the ground so as long as it will be accepted in the ground before rosh hashanah why here it actually says in parenthesis from the word klita they're that they're pla they're the roots they're starting to go out and getting and grabbing the ground now if you don't do it if it doesn't happen before rosh hashanah then you'll be prohibited to use it it will still stay in the ground but you can't use it not the vegetable and not the flour or whatever it is to smell it that will be considered speak that it just came out by itself you have to be very careful usually takes three days for the plant to get absorbed and connected so you can plant it safely till the 27th day of elul so for the ones who are thinking a little bit forward yeah go get your seeds go get your little plants and make yourself a little corner in your backyard and and you can plant it now it might not going to be now five tons of carrots but it might be something and maybe some herbs or basic things and some of the things if you plant mint mint like nana that will just grow within two three weeks it's gonna be all over the place so again this is not to feed a whole city but you have something and we're gonna learn how you continue it into the land at the time of shemitah and of course if you have seeds then you can start planting some seeds and later on we're going to also touch what do you do with the things that already exists which is not much of a problem now we're talking in your preparation in the sixth year now is about if you have a nice backyard and you want to put some flowers in flowers and all sorts of plants that don't bear any fruit or a smell which means that they don't last over years they will be for a season and then die then you can plant it to rosh hashanah so if you want to have a nice backyard that's the time when you have seeds of vegetables that are edible i don't know if there are much vegetables that are not edible maybe they are but that's what the text says maybe there is something that is a vegetable that is not edible so if you have the seeds or you have seeds of plants that only give smell but they don't last it would only be for a season or maximum a year muthal you're allowed to plant it only if the the sprouting which i actually looked up the word when i looked for the translation of nevita didn't come out sprouting i i was familiar with the word sprouting the word that came out is germination never heard that word but event apparently that's nevita your eye from what i'm familiar with is sprouting generation where it's loud i can't hear you in the ground okay so that's good to know so when the seed stops becoming a shape of a seed and it starts getting a shape of a plant stops being a seed so that's good to know so now we know uh here he says in parenthesis that it has to pick a little bit out of the sand so that's why my mind was sprouting but it has to well to pick out a little bit from the sand and that when does that have to be rosh hashanah it has to be before rosh hashanah if not then it will be prohibited from the prohibition of sapir how is about when you have grain or i i have the problem with the same thing with ecclesiastics with the lugames legumes so it's two words already that's kidney ot okay we have coherent and kidney oats both with the koof so forgive me so grain and kidney oats you know how to plant it or to put it in the ground unless the grains will become minimum a third of their size prior to rosh hashanah okay i'll say it again the size like the if it's legumes then the size how do you how would you call it because grain will be the gargle right and the legumes how would that be called before it really gets to its maturity then you'll have to dig a little bit and see if it uh how how it how what's the size of it or if you are a farmer you know more or less but the rule is that it has to get to at least a third of its mature size prior to rosh hashanah because either that will be prohibited from the same prohibition of sapir see now we're talking just about the seed and not the plant itself because if it's the plant then it's already sprouted it's already above the ground we have no problem because don't forget that we said that three days before rosh hashanah you can still plant it but if i know that i'm going to plant now whatever beans and it will take more than three days to go to get for over a third from its mature size then i have to make sure that i'm planting it prior no no of the of the grain or the fruit or the vegetable itself not the plant because some of the plants are very large so if it's you know whatever beans or whatever type of grain then you need to see what the size when it's mature or when it's ripe and a third of that has to be ready prior to rosh hashanah next muttarla this is so not so relevant i don't think many people do it in our generation but there's a concept that is called lehigh is that you mix two the the branches together you put the branches together and then they become either one or they become stronger or they bring other branches out grafting so let's just learn that i don't think people really do it maybe some do but we'll learn you're allowed to do that another opinion say till the 27th of elul that the grafting should get connected strong before the shemitah but when you cut the existing tree hakayam que de la the maximum you allowed the minimum you're allowed to leave is 10 centimeters which would be about four inches not really like three and a half inches to just better go with ten centimeters so that's the the minimum of what you can leave for the grafting and last but not least in order for me to prevent from planting as close as possible to shemitah it seems sometimes there are bushes and trees that they grow like that i planted maybe maybe two three weeks ago maybe more i didn't write down the date but uh i don't know if it's called even a bush but the plant of a passion tree right i planted it it was this big now it's like maybe 10 times the size yeah maybe three weeks yeah it's it's real big now it's a vine it's considered a vine but nevertheless i planted two of them my kids love passion fruits i love the passion without the fruit uh [Laughter] but i we planted that i'm telling you it's like ten times the size what it will from what we planted it already so it says yeah it's the manure that goes into i sink to my plants at night uh kedarli mana it's good to prevent from planting these types of them why because if they plant too much and you need to start cutting them then you can't cut them during the shmita year that's the problem we're going to have probably with this with this paciflora you go the passion fruit because i can't cut it so yeah but especially with the free freezing cold of fat i'm sure it will calm down but let's say now in the next three months let's see before we hit december of the cold winter it can go so wild which i don't care but i can't cut it of course it's good my kids will be very happy that's why i planted it but nevertheless why is it profitable to prevent not only that type also some other bushes i've got a few bushes that are it's called me regular they grow real real fast uh and it gives you a few uh types i don't know the word names in english but ceylon i'm sure it's also words that maybe they don't even use it today but nevertheless because they will be required to be chopped throughout the shemitah better might cause you a problem later on better not to do that but if you don't care and you know you're from advance you're not going to chop it down or prune it or cut it then go ahead and and plant it let it grow as much as you want so we're here with concluding this section what is called a hassoufei chorish the ones that are the roots can be exposed and it gives us a little bit of an overview what we can do in the next few weeks if you want to apply it practically then if you're thinking of planting something in your backyard or even in your porch or whatever it is then the conclusion is very simple till the 15th day of you can plant trees that bear fruit that's past the point you're not going to do that till the 15th of elul that's the more strict opinion that you can plant whatever you want that doesn't bear fruit when it comes to vegetables or bushes or plants that creates a good smell then the lineage lenient opinion will allow you to plant the tilk of zine and louvre the 27 of all which is three days before rosh hashanah as long as it catches in the ground grabs in the ground strong enough and you know what that can be sufficient if you have a nice sized backyard or some big porch that might be sufficient to last for a few months today my wife bought some somebody no my wife somebody brought us like a plant of kale and my wife showed it to me and i said you think this will sustain a family of nine for the next winter so it won't so this will be nice for one salad that's it this is not gonna they're gonna be sufficient okay so now we're gonna have to learn how you sustain it that i can take it throughout the time of shmitah and still live off it but again these are small portions we know we neither one of us are farmers that i have to worry now about 40 acres of of carrots or potatoes or whatever it is we're going to mainly concentrate on what it has to do with us medicine depending on the medicine and and the certain rules depending what's the benefit of the medicine but we're going to have to touch that too first we have to more understand the concept of prior to the shemitah so you still have 30 days to prepare yourself if you want of course and and the restrictions and of course you want to you want to prepare the right way later on we'll continue learning the rest of the rules but for now i think for today that's sufficient tomorrow bazaar hashem will do the next section eventually we'll get to more what we call tactless the bottom line what i do with certain things but like i told you especially when it comes to you need to learn the concept and you learn everything so later on you know by yourself already what to do how to do it when to do it it's not a it's not a big deal to call constantly the rabbi what do i need to do now what did he do now a leaf came out can i eat it what can i do with it so the best is to know what to do and of course we're gaining the the merit the scrutiny of learning and learning whether you apply it or not or use it or not it's less important but we want to learn it so we can apply it and know how to do it later on of course we'll touch more things how you buy where you buy from who are you allowed to buy from fruit and vegetables we talked already there you're not allowed to deal with it or do any type of merchants with it but you're still allowed to buy and we are surrounded with the countries that we can buy from and even in israel there are different different rules we'll touch everything we have 30 days to learn that don't worry we'll cover everything you're not going to leave the series hungry [Music] you