In what is being called a precedent-setting decision, the IDF has decided to largely adhere to haredi stringencies for the shmitta (sabbatical) year, drawing sharp criticism from of Israeli farmers, most of whom, unlike haredim, have actually served in the IDF.
IDF Partially Adopts Haredi Rabbinic Opinion, Shocking Many
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
In what is being called a precedent-setting decision, the IDF has decided to largely adhere to haredi stringencies for the shmitta (sabbatical) year, drawing sharp criticism from of Israeli farmers, most of whom, unlike haredim, have actually served in the IDF.
“The Defense Ministry and the army have declared war on Israeli agriculture,” the Israel Farmers Union Chairman Meir Zur said in a statement released yesterday, the Times of Israel reported.
The Torah mandates that no crops be grown and no fields be tilled during the shmitta year, which falls once every seven years.
The prevalent custom even among very Orthodox non-haredi Israelis has been to make pro-forma sales of their agricultural land through a rabbinical court to a non-Jew, and then work the land as usual.
Land owned by non-Jews does not fall under the rubric of shmitta prohibition.
Selling agricultural land to non-Jews for the shmitta year was approved in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor of Kovno, Lithuania – one of the top two or three haredi rabbis in the world at that time.
His ruling allow pro-forma land sales, known as heter mehira, has been ratified by hundreds of leading Orthodox rabbis ever since.
But haredi – especially haredi rabbis who are staunchly opposed to Zionism and the State of Israel – opposed Spektor’s ruling much in the way they opposed many other rulings from leading rabbis that either benefited the political Zionism or were seen as endorsing modernity or aiding the Reform or Conservative movements, which they view as heretical.
Spektor’s ruling was endorsed by the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and was adopted by the State of Israel’s first chief rabbis as the policy of the state.
Spektor envisioned his ruling as a temporary one.
“It must be explicitly stated that this exemption is only for the year 5649 (1889) but not for future shmita years… Then further meditation will be necessary…,” he wrote.
But there were no other feasible options available and, to prevent mass starvation and death, Spektor’s heter mechira continued to be used.
Haredi rabbis insist that with modern farming methods, commercial canning and other food preservation advances, and the ability to ship fresh produce worldwide, the heter mechira – which their ancestors opposed anyway – should not be used.
Zionist Orthodox rabbis and secular Zionist leaders note that all haredim accept an ancient rabbinic ruling similar to Spektor’s heter mechira – the pruzbol, which effectively nullifies the shmitta law that wipes out all personal debt each sabbatical year no matter how much is owed by transferring that debt’s ownership from the individual personal lender to a beit din (Orthodox religious court). This pro forma ‘sale’ of the debt to a beit din allows the actual lender to recover his money from the borrower, despite shmitta.
Israel’s High Court of Justice has also ruled that Spektor’s heter mechira is the law of the country, and all state-employed city and town chief rabbis must accept it and allow heter mechira produce to used in facilities they provide kosher supervision for.
The haredi fight against heter mechira and the Zionist Orthodox and secular fight in support of it has become a sharp dividing line between Zionist Israelis and their anti-Zionist, anti-modernity opponents.
But now, to accommodate haredi soldiers expected to be drafted under the country’s new draft law, the IDF has decided to forgo the heter mechira and import produce from abroad. (In reality, almost no actual haredim serve in the IDF and hundreds, maybe even thousands, are currently draft-dodgers under the law.)
The decision to do this “is an unprecedented step in which the Defense Ministry and the IDF chose to go with the extremist [branches of the] haredim and not purchase heter mehira from farmers in Israel, as has been the case since the 19th century,” the Israel Farmers Union wrote in its prepared statement, adding that the IDF’s decision was a form of “cheap populism.”
The farmer’s union also pointed out that the IDF could easily purchase foreign produce for the small number of haredi IDF soldiers and buy the rest of the military’s produce from Israeli farmers.
Imported fruits and vegetables are more expensive that locally grown produce and are often of lesser quality, meaning the move to imported produce could cost the IDF millions of dollars.
The IDF responded to these complaints by citing an exponentially inflated number of current haredi soldiers favored by the government and the Likud-controlled Defense Ministry– even though independent assessments have found that the number may be inflated by a multiple of eight or even ten.
“The population of the IDF is diverse, including over 5,000 ultra-Orthodox soldiers, who do not recognize the heter mehira [loophole] during the sabbatical year. In order to preserve the unity of the camp, and to allow the entire IDF population to eat in a single kitchen, and in order to reach the national goal of drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF… the army rabbinate has decided to avoid procuring vegetables [grown under] the heter mehira for the first half of the sabbatical year, until the end of February 2015,” the IDF reportedly said in statement, adding that most of that produce would come from the Arava Desert in southern Israel near Eilat, which is technically just outside the biblical border of the Land of Israel and therefore exempt from shmitta laws. “Only in the event of scarcity will there be a limited purchase of non-Jewish [i.e., Arab] or imported goods,” the IDF insisted.
The actual number of active duty haredi soldiers is actually much closer to 500 than 5,000. But the government and the IDF count ex-haredim who are now secular, right-wing haredi-Zionist Orthodox known as harda”l, ba’al teshuvas and Sefardim who went to Shas religious schools but who are themselves traditional but not Orthodox as haredim, inflating the number of actual haredim in the IDF from several hundred to approximately 5,000.
From March onward, the IDF said it will buy heter mehira produce. From then until the end of the shmitta year, haredi soldiers will eat catered meals served on disposable plates and sealed packages of fresh imported produce, the IDF said.