"It is urgent that I go to Ofakim," we are told by Anita-Chana Sa'adon from Talmei Eliyahu with a serious expression on her face, "there is not a single vegetable left in the house! This is the way it is during Shmittah, suddenly I go to Ofakim much too frequently … yes obviously Shmittah applies also to you and to all the Jews in the Holy Land, but by us it is Sh-m-i-t-a-h!" She emphasizes each letter. "Do you understand? Suddenly I, whose house is full of vegetables all years, and if I see that I am running out of tomatoes, I run to the field to bring another carton – have to make an effort to bring a tomato from afar …"

When she speaks I experience another planet of Shmittah. We, the city folk think that we feel the Shmittah by way of meticulous examination of the certificate that hangs at the green-grocer's store, and we gnash our teeth about the prices that sometimes climb sky high and set aside special plastic bags for the sake of the "holiness of Shmittah," put them away carefully in order to not throw away the leftovers in a disgraceful way, and get alarmed about each drop of wine with Shmittah holiness that was spilled. This is the way we observe Shmittah in the most appropriate way.

But there are those who experience Shmittah in an entirely different way. "Without in any way slighting all the families who observe Shmittah in the most appropriate way and do all that is necessary to ensure complete conformance to Shmittah laws," says Rabbi Shmuel Borenstein, Kashrus specialist and advisor. "The true valiant people are the farmers about whom it says in the Tehillim: "Valiant Warriors who obey His words," who, according to our Sages, are Shmittah observing farmers. It is not too easy for a farmer to walk pass his desolate field; to act as if it were not his, to irrigate it only to the halachically required extent. The heroism of each such farmer calls for unlimited spiritual strength."

We extol them, and rightfully so. But at times we forget that behind every valiant farmer there is a not less valiant woman. Also she opens the window to the view of crumbling clods of soil, family property duly recorded in the land records, and she knows that this year it is not their. The Creator commanded to leave it unattended and unsupervised, nobody works it and nobody nurtures it. People may enter, pick whatever is there as if it was theirs …

On the eve of 7 of Cheshvan, the date on which we start praying for rains, we went out to speak to the valiant farmer wives. A drawing showing a farmer who raises his hands to heaven with a prayer that rains should fall as needed still remains in our memory from the time the kindergarten teacher hung it on the wall.
Now only the drawing of the farmer remains on the wall. He himself drives the tractor or pedals the bicycle to study in a Kollel, leaving his farm behind. Yes, a farmer with callous hands from stories and drawings, not a virtual, but a real person who breathes and learns. His heroic wife breaths farming even when she does other things.

"Heroic women?" all of them modestly decline the title. Many of farmers' wives whom we contacted refused to be interviewed. Coaxing by the husbands did not help. We have nothing particular to tell," was their uniform response." We don’t work the field on Shmittah and that's it. What else has to be said."?
Is this so?

"Imagine that for an entire year of thirteen month you may not fix anything or do any maintenance work in your house." (Rivka Weil, the Beth Hilkiah settlement)

The heavens look closer when viewed from the windows of the Weil family in Beth Hilkia. The blue background spotted by white feather clouds, abuts at the horizons on the family's choice vineyards that are gathered to be processed in the Shor wine cellars in the Mishor Adumim and on the select ethrog plantations not far from them.

Mrs. Rivkah Weil, whose family observes Shmittah for the fourth time, confesses that previously she was more active in the family's farming activities. "We also had a wheat field, we grew sunflowers and watermelons. True, we had seasonal help, but there is always need for an additional pair of hands for field work. The field, the vineyards and the plantations are a second home to me. Did you ever smell a true smell of the soil? The smell of plowed soil is very enticing. I bend down, the smell enters my nostrils and is highly enticing. Just like people become enticed by the smell of cooking food, we are enticed by the smell of freshly plowed soil."

On the eve of Shmittah the family got ready to observe Shmittah during the coming 13 months. They wanted to prune the trees in Ellul, but the actual pruning time is January-February. "The Ministry of Agriculture agent tried to persuade us not to prune the vineyard, but to work it on Shmittah, since otherwise this may cause a many-years damage. We explained to him that we observe Shmittah without any reservations and shall only perform work per instructions of Torah authorities. So, we were tested already before Shmittah started …"
To tell the truth, it is not too difficult to imagine the challenges facing Shmittah observers even though for all of us the distance between us and the soil is just about as great as that between a fork and a plow.

"Imagine," says Rivka, "that for a full year, for full 13 months, you are prevented from performing repairs and maintenance work in your house. The bulb burned out? You don’t replace it. The window blind slats are askew? They will remain so. The window cracked and got shattered? The wind will celebrate with all the noise. Should I continue describing the situation by means of dripping faucet, plaster flaking off and the picture that slid off the wall?"

To tell the truth, this is not completely similar, because lack of home maintenance can be remedied easily after the year is over without the house suffering from a profound slide for a long time thereafter. But a field is not like this.

Rivka and I are trying an additional comparison: one leaves one's house unattended for an entire year. Guests may enter whenever they want, sit down, take things. True, they are under obligation not to break or demolish things, but still, the house dweller who knows that now the house is not is, looks on on them happily.
Or, a teacher goes on her sabbatical, but no one promises her a salary like during the past six years. Everyone who at some time took a sabbatical performed a very careful check as to what it entails before during so. Farmers' families know that there are no negotiations to be carried out concerning Shmittah observance.

"In the past, "confesses Sara Dan from the south, whose family grows tomatoes and peppers, and who, for the past half year started growing pest-free vegetables, "we depended on the heter mechira. We were religious Zionists, we sold by soil via the offices of the Chief Rabbinate and worked on Shmittah in a most regular manner, just like many others in our place. Before the previous Shmittah major rabbis started lecturing in our settlement, my husband started studying with them and became more serious in his Torah observance."
"One day he came home and said: 'during the next Shmittah I do not wish to depend on the heter mechira.' I would like to observe it the way it says in the Torah, we shall forget the soil and not work it.' I must confess that at the beginning I was somewhat apprehensive: 'what will we live from' I asked. 'What will happen if I should want to buy something large for the house, or G-d forbid, an unexpected major expense will suddenly descend upon us?'

The Difficulties

"I would stand in front of carts full of tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants and would know that if we were not Shmittah observers I would not have to go out and purchase them. They were supplied to me in bundance by our fields." (Anita-Chanah Saadon of Talmei Eliyahu."

All of us love to hear stories about miracles, stories with a "happy end" that terminate in a chain of powerful descriptions about a family that merited a special blessing, double and triple, in the merit of Shmittah observance.

But in real life everything goes on gradually and it is impossible to get to chapter 119 (in Tehillim) without completing the previous chapters. Miracles also are preceded by challenges and difficulties.
"Do you know what it means not to see our field for an entire year?" asks Sara. "During the previous Shmittah we did not go out to the field and did nothing except for maintenance of the structure, according to instructions of the Keren Hashvi'is rabbis, who told us in the name of Torah sages what is permitted, when it is permitted and how it is permitted. Other members of the settlement, all of them Shomrei Shabbos, gave us strange and highly non-complimentary looks: 'are you sane? On what will you live? You are losing the wholesalers with whom you worked all these years!'

Sara confesses: "The anxiety about losing our ties with the wholesalers with whom we worked all these years, was perceptible. For many years now, including Shmittot when we depended on the heter mechira, we worked with wholesalers of a well-known chain and with private wholesalers too. It was difficult for them to accept the fact that we are not supplying any produce during the Shmittah year.

Suddenly instead of a house full of tomatoes I would at time find in the refrigerator a single tomato from which I had to prepare sandwiches for all the children. I would pick it up as if it were an expensive gemstone, slice from it thin and transparent slices and would pray and be positive that this thin slice will bring them lots of health.

after Shmittah is over, and our field will continue growing tomatoes and peppers that we shall indeed find wholesalers who would take our produce in quantities and at a price to which we got used all these years?
"On top of this, it is not so easy to run daily into neighbors who continue to go out to their fields daily and are positive that what you are doing is incorrect and insane," she says.

The social difficulties in settlements with a large variety of population are much greater than in places where all the farmers are Shmittah observers and everyone encourages the other one. Anita-Chana Saadon, a mother of eight that works as a bride advisor, is among the ten families that returned to their sources in Talmei Eliyahu, located to the south of Ofakim, and remained there, fully observant Jews among a large majority of non-religious. "The question 'did you fall on your head'? we heard many times from all, to the point that we knew that this question would come up even before anyone opened his mouth. I almost decided to move around with a sign, 'we did not fall on our head'. We walk on our feet and use the head that the Creator gave us in order to observe the Mitzvah without any playacting!

"The first Shmittah that we observed, 21 years ago, was the most exciting and the most difficult," she remembers. "It was a short time after we became observant, we took upon ourselves many things and among them, of course, Shmittah. We were so excited about it that we did not dream of any difficulties."

The Saadon family grows flowers for export, and vegetables – tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and artichoke for the Tnuvah marketing giant. They were particularly encouraged to observe Shmittah by Rabbi Shimshon Pinkus Z"L and Rabbi Issochor Mayer from Tifrach, and Anita-Chana recalls with excitement also rebbetzin Esther Horowitz from Ofakim.

"The observance of the first Shmittah was so spontaneous. In retrospect, we behaved in all respects according to the dictum "follow your G-d unquestioningly." At that time there was something beautiful, sincere and true, to jump into a storming sea and to start observing the Mitzvah. The 3rd of Tishrey came, we got up in the morning. I always helped with sorting the flowers and in picking if it was necessary, and here suddenly – quiet. We don’t go to work, do not get in touch with wholesalers and exporters, who think that we are not normal.

"Whatever produce was left in the house was used up rather quickly and I found myself going to Ofakim to purchase vegetables instead of picking them up from our fields. I would stand in front of carts full of tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants and would know that if we were not Shmittah observers I would not have to go out and purchase them. They were supplied to me in abundance by our fields." But we have chosen to observe Shmittah and one cannot gain reward for performing a Mitzvah unless one toils on it and goes through the difficulties.

"The last tomato that was left is etched in my memory forever. And it was not the only tomato of this kind. We used to buy vegetables relatively frugally as compared with the abundance of the previous six years. Suddenly instead of a house full of tomatoes I would at time find in the refrigerator a single tomato from which I had to prepare sandwiches for all the children. I would pick it up as if it were an expensive gemstone, slice from it thin and transparent slices and would pray and be positive that this thin slice will bring them lots of health."
It is still somehow possible to get along with thin slices of a tomato, but Anita-Chana tells us that in another several months, as they entered more deeply into Shmittah, the difficulties of earning a livelihood started being felt. "I wrote a letter to the head of the Israel parliament finances committee at that time, Rabbi Shlomoh Lorentz, and described our difficulties. He answered that there will be a discussion of this situation in the Israeli parliament and indeed we obtained a paltry monthly sum as support. We have learned to live on a tight budget and suddenly the house acquired different values."

"My difficulty is caused by the smell the soil, particularly at the time of sowing," she confesses. "I already said that the smell of the soil is something that I cannot resist. In the winter, when I pass along plowed and sowed fields, and the smell of plowed soil hits my nose, and I know that things have to be done also in our plantation and vineyard, but it is not permitted – I feel that my husband and all the Shmittah observing farmers are indeed valiant men who do the Creator's bidding.

I walked about all the time enveloped by a heavenly feeling, as happy as one can be, feeling close to the Creator. Also, my husband is learning in the Creator's honor! We have the merit of both observing Shmittah in the most proper way and to be a Kollel family involved in Torah learning. The great blessing in the house was primarily spiritual.

During the years that we depended on heter mechira we were not aware of any blessings. But during the past Shmittah we have suddenly received a tax refund and this assisted us greatly in sustaining ourselves for a number of months (Sara Dan, a farming wife from the South).

We do not wish to recycle the well-known Shmittah stories, also our farm families tell of the triple blessing that came upon them after they decided to observe Shmittah without any subterfuges.

"But the subject is not only the blessing in the crops," say all of them and decide to speak about the kinds of marvelous blessings of the seventh year that maybe we did give it enough thought.

"Suddenly, our lives became lives of nachat," says Sara Dan. "To be a farmer means being independent and to be constantly concerned with the produce, with the plants in all stages through which they go through and to work hard in our dealings with the wholesalers. All the years I was in a pressure cooker of tiring and demanding work that surrounds one all the time. One minute I get a demanding phone call that the produce is being returned, another minute it turns out that another shipment got stuck someplace. One has to be all the time on the lookout worried and concerned about what may happen. Suddenly peace and quiet descended upon us. All years my husband would get up early in the morning for prayer and at six thirty he was already on the tractor on the way to the field. Suddenly he climbs on the tractor and drives to study Torah and not only in the evening as he used to. The demanding phone calls disappeared and tranquility reigns in the house."

The tranquility was accompanied by a blessing. "We were blessed during the sixth year," says Sara." During the years that we depended on heter mechira we were not aware of any blessings. But during the past Shmittah we have suddenly received a tax refund and this assisted us greatly in sustaining ourselves for a number of months. I am also positive that the Creator shields us from all kinds of unknown expenses that may have fallen upon us and bestows a blessing on all that we do.

"At the end of the previous Shmittah we were afraid that we would not be able to continue our dealing with the Co-Op supermarket chain and other wholesalers with whom we worked, because they told us that they may not renew our ties. Surprising enough, they came back; it was a real miracle. We continued dealing with them as in the past, precisely at the point when we stopped with the onset of Shmittah, as if there was no Shmittah in between!"

"Every Shmittah is a new miracle!" says Esther Weil, all excited. "We don’t work for an entire year and in spite of this we manage to live in a most dignified manner. I cannot explain how this happens, but it does. It is a fact. And how can I call anything like that except a miracle? Shmittah is a supernatural Mitzvah. I feel that we are conducting our lives in a supernatural way in another manner. It appears to us maybe natural that we derive our living during the other six years from the soil, but this is not so. This is also a miracle and the Shmittah year is the miracle of miracles."

Rivkah's husband is also among those who learn Torah diligently during the Shmittah year, in the kollel. "He mounts his bicycle every morning and pedals to the regional kollel in the Yad Benyamin settlement. My husband waits for this sabbatical for six years. Here we see how the Torah understood the farmer's soul and his needs and presented him with a gift –Shmittah. Yes, with all the difficulties, one should remember that the coin has two sides, and Shmittah is a gift from Heaven.""

"All farm work is a lesson in faith," says Anita-Chana Saadon, "you place a seed, a dry and lifeless seed in the soil and suddenly you see it sprout; something bursts forth from the soil and grows magnificently. It is a wonder of the creation! A farmer must be a person with faith, he is connected to the Creator's world at every step and awaits His benevolence, receives his abundant goodness. There is no other situation. Maybe the stomach was a bit empty and the refrigerator was pretty much not always full like usual, but the main thing is that the soul is very dull.

"The greatest happiness was when my husband decided to study Torah together with my brother, Rabbi Yehuda Finer, the Rabbi of his settlement. They decided to study together in the Kollel in the Maslul settlement near Ofakim, the entire day.

I walked about all the time enveloped by a heavenly feeling, as happy as one can be, feeling close to the Creator. Also, my husband is learning in the Creator's honor! We have the merit of both observing Shmittah in the most proper way and to be a kollel family involved in Torah learning. "The great blessing in the house was primarily spiritual. But do you know how many people are willing to pay for such a happy and tranquil life? Our entire house changed for the good on Shmittah.

After each Shmittah comes to an end you remain with the feeling, 'a shame that it is over.' It was so wonderful, personality building and enjoyable. True, one returns to the routine, but with renewed strength to again work the soil."

Luckily for her, there are long months left to the end of Shmittah. In the meantime many Jews will walk past the lots of these valiant farmers and will express a great deal of interest.
"During the previous Shmittah, tells us Sara Dan, "buses full of grownups and children would come to see the fields and the hothouses. The family members looked at one another with a smile on their faces wondering as to what is happening. What did you come to see? A desolated hothouse with torn plastic covering that was not fixed because of Shmittah. What is there to be excited about? True, maybe we are used to it and do not understand why both the grownups and the children got excited …"

But Sara is still excited from the reception that took place in the streets of Bnei Brak for the Shmittah-observing farmers – the valiant men. Sara's husband and her son, just like many other farmers, came there for an unforgettable day. "My husband came back all thrilled with tears in his eyes," she tells us and even now also she has tears in her eyes when she recalls the event. "He told us how men, young boys and children spilled into the streets from all the buildings and danced and sang around them; how the farmers who left their land fallow were seated in a honorable place and cheered, how rabbis shook their hands with great appreciation.

"When he told me this, I suddenly felt that we are not alone! Also city folk that live in crowded apartment houses in Bnei Brak, who do not even have a private garden and never weeded a single blade of grass, understood what happened to us during an entire year. They value the fact that we left the field fallow, left it as if it were ownerless and survived the great test decreed upon by the Creator. I can say that this was an injection of energy for the proper observance of the following Shmittah."

In the Merit of Valiant Women

"If there is some meaning in the saying that behind each great person stands a great woman, then this applies to the farmer wives," says Rabbi Ben Zion Kugler, the Chairman of the Keren Hashvi'is. "The woman who stands behind the scenes manifests itself precisely in farming where, if the husband is a farmer – the entire house revolves around farming and around the soil. This is not the case of a person who leaves the house in the morning for eight hours of work and comes home. A farmer's work envelops him for 24 hours a day. In most cases the piece of land, the plantation, vineyard, watermelon patch, hothouse or field are located very close to his house, something that reinforces the involvement of the house in the farming cycle. As a result of this, the wife is very involved in this work, even if she does not actually assist in it, she breaths the plants, is aware of the sowing times, looks forward to rains, is involved in growing the crops and in their quality, is involved in the difficulties and problems that arise, looks forward to the harvesting, picking and reaping dates. Everything is available right behind the house, all one has to do is open the window and see."
It is hence little wonder that Shmittah observance is a common endeavor. "Toward the start of Shmittah we have received many requests in the vein: 'My wife has to strengthened, somebody should speak to her to convince to observe Shmittah properly and to not depend on the heter mechira.' Or, 'my wife asks, whether it would be possible to use the Shmittah produce in the field'? Many questions that point to the full partnership come up and we call upon the best of our staff to assist in bringing still another family into the Shmittah observing community.

"On the other hand, obviously, the merit of the righteous women also manifests itself. Many farmers tell us: 'I observe Shmittah only because of my wife. She has strengthened me in my resolve and encouraged me not to seek any leniencies'!

Before Shmittah we received a phone call from a woman who told us that she heard a lecture by the Rabbi concerning Shmittah and she got so excited that she has decided to observe Shmittah unconditionally. She told us that this was discussed within the family and it was decided to take the Mitzvah upon themselves and she is calling for assistance in observing it.

"As a part of the work that was done before Shmittah, we visited a farmer with extensive land holdings. We spoke to him about the commandment of Shmittah. He listened attentively and said with deference, "I don’t know what to tell you, because it is my wife who decides all the spiritual matters in the house.' "His wife was not present when we spoke to him and when we met her she immediately agreed to have the entire huge farm observe Shmittah."

Rabbi Abraham Heilprin, member of the Keren Hashvi'is governing board in the USA, told us that two Shmittot ago at the end of the year 5755, a reception was held in the Kommemiyus settlement in honor of the heroic farmers. At the end of the reception, when Rabbi Mendelsohn left the hall, he was approached by a farmer's wife who told him, "I do not have the proper words to tell you how much I appreciate that you have persuaded us to observe Shmittah unconditionally. Rabbi, I want you to know that the Shmittah caused my husband to become an entirely different person, one that I simply don’t recognize. His tenderness, softness, patience and compassion could only come from his Torah study during the Shmittah year."

There are also farmer's families that became religious because of Shmittah. Being traditional families, who are very far from bona-fide Torah observance they were convinced to observe Shmittah. These farmers decided to "take a sabbatical" and at the end of the year it was impossible to recognize the families. From families far from proper Torah observance, who would follow the tradition in a most frivolous way, they became fully observant. Without attending a return to the roots seminar, without running into a gathering with fiery orators, they became fully observant, step after step. The year during which they took time out and devoted it to the Jewish soul within them, caused them to be different from what they were before. The advance was noticed month by month and the next stage was always in sight. The Shmittah year left an impression not only in the field, but also on the entire family forever.