Q&A: And If You Say, What Will We Eat?
And If You Say, What Will We Eat?
Question
According to the Sema, who holds that with rabbinic Sabbatical observance there is no blessing of “I will command My blessing,” is the argument “What will we eat in the seventh year?” a reason not to observe the commandment of the Sabbatical year?
Answer
According to the rules governing setting aside a positive commandment: one is not obligated to spend more than a fifth of one’s assets on a positive commandment. But clearly this cannot be built into the very absence of the blessing, because otherwise the Sages could not have enacted the Sabbatical year on a rabbinic level, since by definition it would be impossible to observe it.
Discussion on Answer
The Sabbatical year in our time is rabbinic. Beyond that, when one uses the sale permit, there is certainly no Torah prohibition and no negative commandment. At most there is a prohibition inferred from a positive commandment regarding the produce (according to the view that it has holiness even on land owned by a non-Jew).
The Sages can enact anything. After they enact it, if we run into a problem we act according to the general halakhic rules for pressing circumstances. Even on the Torah level, that does not mean that when there is no blessing we are exempt from the commandment, or that the obligation depends on the blessing. There is a promise of blessing as a bonus.
Who said anything about the sale permit? (Was the Sages’ enactment from the outset to sell to a non-Jew?)
What does the Rabbi mean by saying that the Sabbatical year in our time is rabbinic—how is that connected to the rule of one-fifth? For a rabbinic prohibition, a person does not have to spend all his assets?
I have no doubt that the Sages can enact anything; I came to challenge the Sema, because it makes no sense that the Sages would come and enact something that the Torah itself commands and at the same time promises a blessing for.
The “Sabbatical year” nowadays is a memorial to the fact that Israel continues to sin and not observe the commandments of the Torah.
Once it was unintentional. Today it is intentional. There are intentional sinners among intentional sinners who have made others sin intentionally, like the intentional sin of the sale permit.
I explained that there is no basis for the claim that the obligation of the Sabbatical year depends on the blessing. The blessing is a bonus. I also added that the sale permit addresses the hardships that arise (from the absence of a blessing, or from what the blessing does not solve, such as the loss of overseas markets).
As for spending all one’s assets to avoid a rabbinic prohibition, I believe the halakhic authorities disagreed about this. Some tied it to the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides regarding “do not turn aside,” but in my view that is not necessary.
Does it sound reasonable to you that the Sages would enact something where the Torah, in commanding it, gives a bonus alongside it (from the wording of the Torah it sounds like a bit more than a bonus, but fine…), and when they enact it, it remains a command without the bonus?
Absolutely.
A) The Sabbatical year also includes prohibitions. B) As for the positive commandment of letting the land rest, seemingly one should also have to spend all his assets, since it creates a prohibition against working the land.
In the Torah it is explained that there is a claim of “What will we eat,” and the answer is “I will command My blessing.” How can the Sages enact Sabbatical observance without a blessing?