As I noted earlier, haredim are using dubious methods to try to force non-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jews to follow shmita, the sabbatical year restrictions, in a strict haredi way, forcing them to reject the pro forma sale of land to non-Jews in order to continue farming it (heter mechira).
Writing in Ha'aretz, Yair Sheleg notes as I did here that haredim have no trouble relying on other pro forma transactions to get out of halakhic (Jewsih law) quandries. But he makes a much more important point, one I missed entirely until he raised it – haredim are tightening the strictures on the letter of shmita law while ignoring the law's actual intent and its spiritual effect:
…This policy marks a new peak in the chutzpah of the ultra-Orthodox: A population sector that does not participate in military service and whose men have only in recent years begun to join the work force is allowing itself to harm both the Israeli consumer (via expensive imports from abroad) and the Israel farmer (whose produce it rejects). And this whole policy is carried out in the name of "increased strictness," as it were, in a mitzvah (commandment) whose very implementation in modern times is quite problematic. In fact, according to most poskim (adjudicators of Jewish law), in a situation like that of today, when the majority of the Jewish people does not live in its land, there is no biblical imperative to observe shmita.…
The shmita affair demonstrates the old axiom of a Jew who was very removed from ultra-Orthodoxy: Karl Marx, who coined the phrase "social existence determines consciousness." The ultra-Orthodox know how to rely on the permit for selling hametz [leavened food] on Passover and the "transaction permit" that enables the charging of interest, whose logic is no less dubious than that of the sale permit for shmita. This is because their followers would suffer considerable loss if they were unable to rely on these permits. On the other hand, since the ultra-Orthodox are not involved in farming, they don't mind being "strict" at the expense of others.…
But the saddest aspect of the shmita story is the fact that the focus on the demands made by the ultra-Orthodox has diverted attention away from the essence of the mitzvah, which actually bears a tremendous message for our times. At one and the same time, shmita provides a response to three curses of the capitalistic era: the ecological crisis, social disparities and the crisis in spirituality. It expresses the need to slow down the economic race to give the earth some rest, to narrow socio-economic disparities and to provide workers with some leisure time which they can in turn devote to spiritual matters.
A serious religious leadership would take advantage of the shmita year to promote a modern translation of the mitzvah instead of strictly adhering to its ancient version. Thus, for example, it would have been possible to promote Rabbi Yoel Ben-Nun's idea to implement a sabbatical year for all workers in the economy (not only teachers and academics), or alternative ideas such as a covenant on reducing the exploitation of natural resources by one seventh, or creating a giant fund in which one seventh of the profits of business tycoons would be contributed toward reducing economic disparities. In this way, shmita could be transformed from a despised word to one that bears tidings for all of humanity.
I wonder if shmita was ever really followed in the haredi way? Might it even be that shmita was a creation of the first exile, added into the text of the Torah by Ezra to teach something, to make some point now lost to us?
Or perhaps it was just a miracle story, a fictional tale of a nation surviving for more than a year every seven years without farming its land in an era before frozen food, canned goods, chemical preservatives, refrigeration, or easy shipping from foreign lands?
We may never know. But Yair Sheleg is correct. Haredim take but do not give. And haredim lose the message while obsessing over details. But there is no news in this.
What Sheleg is calling for is an ethical shmita. But, as we have seen far too often, ethics and haredim do not go hand-in-hand. And there is no news in this sad fact, either.