Q&A: Soup with the Sabbatical Year
Soup with the Sabbatical Year
Question
Blended soup, quite tasty.
Most of it is vegetables from non-Jewish produce, sold under the sale permit, from the borders of those who came up from Egypt, sixth-year produce, and the like.
A minority of it is vegetables that have the holiness of the seventh year [a religious court storehouse].
As for what remains, should one treat it with the holiness of the seventh year? Or do we follow the majority?
Answer
https://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/26900
There they suggest the reasoning that this is something that can become permitted, since it is possible to use the entire mixture in a permitted way. However, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) disagreed about this (whether in such a case it is considered something that can become permitted or not), and since this is a rabbinic prohibition (the Sabbatical year nowadays), in my opinion there is room to be lenient.
I also saw there the reasoning that the prohibition against wasting seventh-year produce is not because of its holiness, but because it is ownerless, and the Torah granted it only for eating. Therefore, it may not be wasted. But this too can be rejected, since that itself is nullified by the majority. Beyond that, what is the prohibition against wasting ownerless produce? Moreover, fruits that do not have holiness are also not ownerless, and the reasoning that the Torah granted them only for eating does not apply to them either.
All this is regarding wasting them. As for taking them out of the Land of Israel and the like, those same reasonings do apply, and the claim that it has no connection to holiness is irrelevant.