Avocados and the Shmitah

By Sam Kessler Gilbride
New York University

August 2007. I sit in the passenger seat of a ’95 Toyota pickup, just south of the small Israeli town of Afula, in the Jezreel Valley of the southern Galilee. My immediate view is of an avocado farm, but if I raise my chin and focus my eyes out over the crowns of the trees, the northern edge of the Judean Hills comes into focus—the ancient home of Israel—and to its east the beautiful outline of Gilboa Mountain.

The truck slowly makes its way along the rock-strewn road around the edge of the farm. Between roars of the engine, I hear the chatter of birds, hidden from the afternoon sun among the thickly shaded branches. A white butterfly appears from behind a clump of weeds in the middle of the road. It swoops in front of us, then opens its wings and glides smoothly over the windshield.

From the side on the right, I can see deep into the shaded grove. I catch sight of two men standing, conversing, one waving his left arm skyward, both leaning against the trunk of a rather magnificent looking tree. The pickup stops and the driver, a friend of mine and the wife of one of the men standing between the trees, explains what they are doing. "He is a religious man," she says, pointing to one of the two figures. Her English is good, her accent Israeli; she is slow and careful with the words. "He comes to check the fields, to talk with my husband. With the shmitah year coming, the farm has to be checked by the government. He is working with us for two days."

"So the man," I say, "the religious man, he has to know a lot about farming. He has to be as good as the farmers."

"Oh yes, of course," she responds. "And he is."

We sit still for a while, both of us looking out at the farm that has been the work and the fruit of these two people’s entire lives. The sun shines down hard from the sky, as if daring us to remain motionless much longer. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply.

This is it, I say to myself, quietly and under my breath. This is what the Torah is talking about. Here, in practice, is the true essence of environmentalism—the practice that gets past all the hype, past all the unsigned treaties and international scandals, past all the lobbying and lies, past all the television specials and Hollywood movies and doomsday novels. These two men, I thought, are doing what Jewish men have done in the land of Israel for three thousand years. These two men are following a mitzvah that has been one of the defining and characterizing points of Judaism for its entire existence. There must be—according to our Torah and our rabbinic tradition—concern for the whole world, concern for all of God’s creation. Not worship; not idolatry. Respect. The land is a Being that must be cared for, which must be cherished like a possession, loved and revered.

But then, too, it is an access point, a way closer to the Divine Presence. Those of us who live so far from the land, who rarely touch true ground, often forget its true worth. It is hard to remember everything, to be thankful for everything. But Judaism has its ways of reminding us. Let us hope that in this coming year, this Year of the Remission, that because we Jews have been reminded of the sanctity of the soil, that perhaps our secular society, too, will find its way of thanking God, of giving back to the Earth what she has so willingly and wonderfully given to all of us.

Sam Kessler Gilbride is currently a sophomore at New York University, working toward a degree in History. Sam is also an alumnus of the Winter 2006 Taglit-birthright israel program with KOACH. Now is your chance to apply!

[Posted 09/12/07]