Here’s
a recently-asked question for you. Since you’re not allowed to give holy
produce to a non-Jew, why is it ok for the Rami Levy supermarket in Gush Etzion
to sell kedushas shvi’is produce, when it could be bought by Arabs?
I thought that the answer was quite
beautiful. Only a Jew activates the holiness of Shemittah.
Many mitzvos have an element of the cheftza
and an element of the gavra. A mitzvah on the gavra means
that the person must acquire an item in order to perform that mitzvah
with it. A mitzvah on the cheftza means that when a person has the
object in their possession, they have to do the mitzvah with it.
For example, tzitzis is on the cheftza—namely
the four-cornered garment. A man is not obligated to wear a garment with four
corners so that he can wear tzitzis, but when he wears a four-cornered
garment, he has to put tzitzis on it. Shaking the arba minim on
Succos is a mitzvah on the gavra. Even though you cannot do the mitzvah
without arba minim, man is obligated to get hold of them in order to do so,
rather than doing it if he happens to have them in his possession.
Shemittah involves elements of both gavra and cheftza.
If a tomato grows in Israel during the Shemittah year, it is a holy
tomato. You have to treat it with respect, eat and enjoy it and dispose of it
in a respectful way. It’s forbidden to let Shemittah produce go to
waste. So it’s a mitzvah on the cheftza.
But that tomato is only holy if it’s owned by
a Jew. When it’s owned by a non-Jew, its holiness is deactivated. But when he
gives it to his Jewish neighbor, suddenly the kedushah becomes live and it’s
all holy tomatoes again. Which gives Shemittah an element of the gavra
too, because it needs a Jew to make it holy.
This cheftza/gavra duality is why
Rami Levy doesn’t need to do anything to prevent a non-Jew buying kedushas
shvi’is produce. Once a non-Jew buys it, it has no holiness. (Note that
fruit and vegetables which grow during the Shemittah year are hefker
(ownerless). This is why everyone is allowed to help themselves from food
growing in the fields, both Jew and non-Jew. The kedushas shvi’is
produce sold through the Otzar Beis Din is also still hefker, so anyone,
Jew or non-Jew, can buy it.)
And this segues neatly into something which
is relevant (finally!) for everyone reading this in chutz l’aretz.
It’s forbidden to export kedushas shvi’is
produce. Because of this, Jews living outside of Israel are (mostly: some
rabbonim may rule differently) told not to buy Israeli produce during Shemittah,
so as not to risk buying holy fruit or vegetables that were exported in
violation of the halachos.
So you could wonder why it’s better to leave
all this potentially holy produce for non-Jews to fail to treat with the proper
respect, when it could instead be bought by Jews who would eat it and enjoy it
(and possibly get very excited and write articles about the experience)? Even
though it should never have been exported, once it has made it to Diaspora
supermarkets, isn’t it better that it be bought by Jews than by non-Jews? But
no, because of the cheftza/gavra duality. If a Jew buys it, it’s
‘illegally exported’ holy produce. If a non-Jew buys it, it’s just a tomato.
It’s beautiful to think that the ownership of
a Jew is all that is needed to activate a tomato’s latent holiness. Let’s try
to activate holiness in all areas of our lives.
