Ep 57: The Shmita Year, the Year of Release

In our current pandemic-, racism-, and climate-change-ravaged times, April and Tracie talk about the Shmita Year, or Sabbatical Year, which we just began at Rosh Hashanah. How does one live out the values of the Shmita year when most of us are no longer working as farmers in the fields? They discuss how we can use this particular moment to lean into its themes, reconnect with the Earth, and find greater balance in what we endeavor to control and what we allow to happen organically. 

Learn more about the Shmita year here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Check out  the 5 genders in the Talmud here: https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/gender-diversity-in-jewish-sacred-texts/

Read more about Hayim Nahman Bialik here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hayim-nahman-bialik/
The essay “Halacha and Aggadah” can be found in Revealment and Concealment: Five Essays.

Check out Judaism Unbound’s episode on the Shmita year here: https://www.judaismunbound.com/podcast/episode-287-shmita-project

Listen to our episode on Teshuvah here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53 

Listen to our episode about Elul here:
https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-49

Learn more about Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife here: https://www.keshirahalev.com/about

Learn more about Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen here: https://www.jewishtimes.com/tag/rabbi-elissa-sachs-kohen/

Transcript

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- [Tracie] The current Jewish year is a Shmita year, a sabbatical year. Our ancestors and predecessors were obligated to leave their fields fallow during Shmita, but an important lesson for us is that fallow is not the same as barren.- This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice" with April and Tracie, weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker. In a complex world, change takes courage. Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. I know we've mentioned it a few times, but I think it might be good to really take our first crack at opening up, intentionally opening up or initiating officially a conversation between the two of us and our friends about Shmita from the Joyous Justice,"Jews Talk Racial Justice" framework and vantage point. To me, this feels a little complicated, but it's not that really any different than any of our holidays, where I think for accessibility, it would be great for us to give a primer noting that for a number of people and a number of our friends who listen and they're involved in the Jewish community, and Shmita is very sexy and has been talked about a lot, but also I think there's still a lot more meaning and insight and personal meaning making that we can cultivate in ourselves and do collaboratively with our circle.- Yeah, for sure. So Shmita means release. It is sometimes translated as the sabbatical year because it is the seventh, it's on a seven year cycle, much like Shabbat. So on the seventh year, in the days when we were an agricultural based people, the seventh year, we were instructed to allow our fields to lie fallow. And there were other things as well. So it wasn't just the earth, it was a whole host of things that needed to be released that were needed to be given a Shabbat for a year. So servants, indentured servants, debtors, debts were forgiven. And so there was a whole literature of like, how do you then figure out the value of something when you're loaning, depending on how many years away you are from a Shmita. It's a complicated moment of release. And so today, when those specific economic and agricultural rules don't apply to most of us.- Aren't as common. Right, yeah.- There are folks obviously who continued to farm and can choose to actually honor the original meaning of the Shmita. But many of us, it's just, it doesn't apply. And so how do we then make meaning and apply the principles of Shmita of release to our 21st century lives that are divorced from indentured servitude and divorced from farming the land? And I think that's where we really wanna dig in.- And I'd like to add here too, which maybe I'm, just for somebody, I think it's worth naming. Like, and why? Like, who cares? There's so many different customs, commandments, you know? So, why? And I think the draw of it, one is because of its involvement with the land. Although there are also other land related laws. I think, one, I don't think there's a specific answer, but what comes to mind for me is that this is a big deal. This was a big deal during that time. This wasn't just some one-off obscure, this is where it says specifically in the text on how you should wipe yourself or this is the, like any, Jews have so many laws. It was not a surprise to me, it was also a moment of pride and interesting in when I was doing gender studies that some of the first documentation around the presence of gender nonconforming and transgender folks was Jewish law because Jews were trying to fit. There's many different,'cause there's the laws and there's the Talmud, it's not even just the 613, there's a lot happening here. But I think why this rises above is because as you were saying, Tracie, during that time when we were more agrarian and living in an agricultural context and folks had indentured, had different things like this or were enslaving folks or doing different things, which is a whole other conversation, but that this was a huge intentional disruption to fundamental ways of living. And any number of interpretations one takes, it's clear that there is both practical and spiritual are potentially purposes that this serves. And so to me, that is why this is something that a number of us are interested in grappling with because there was a pause. And so there's also that, is that in the context of however we wanna call it, but I'll just say capitalism in high gear and people generally feeling exhausted in the context of a pandemic, which also was about people constantly running and not taking enough time to pause and stop and say, actually our collective planetary wellbeing is important. Let's not have a huge swath of us die, let's figure this out. And our planet mostly couldn't figure that out. There were a number of things we've figured out that I think we can all collectively be proud of. I think Shmita takes on a particular timely relevance where for any number of reasons, the reasons I just said, and the fact that a number of us are feeling like I need a break. And Shmita is about taking a pause, and it also has this added twist of us letting go of what we think we own for a year and not owning it in the same, not being able to control it or manage it in the same way. And a number of us are grappling with how we think about similar themes around our individual and collective responsibility around the welfare and wellbeing of our planet. So, if it wasn't already obvious, I think those are some of the reasons why, not necessarily because everything that has ever been done or practiced within Judaism is something that we need to, necessarily is a reason to discuss it in and of itself, but I think it's incredibly timely and has potential lessons and insights.- Yeah. When I was in graduate school, I was assigned this essay by Bialik called"Holacha and Aggadah." And Bialik basically makes this case that he says, everybody loves "Aggadah," that's 'story,' and nobody likes to talk about "Halacha," that's 'law.' like nobody likes it, but ultimately Halakha is like a vessel. And if you find it empty, it's because you have put nothing in it. I read that 20 years ago and it has stayed with me. And what I'm hearing from you is that this year, this Shmita year, we have something to put in it, right? Whereas in previous years, maybe we didn't have anything to put in that vessel, but this year we really have something to put in it because of our circumstances and--- And the building and the movement building that folks have been doing in terms of movements around conversations about how our societies are run. Movements, building movements, right? Because around environmentalism and a number of things are coming to a head, yeah. And it's an ongoing moment where a number of efforts and collective insights are cresting.- I think about, we've talked before about sort of the spiral of existence. And I think sometimes about the different wheels that Judaism gives us. Like, the week as a wheel and it's inside of the year, which is inside of the Shmita, which is inside of the Jubilee. And they're all, like, they're all turning at the same time. And to actually know precisely where you are in the intersection of all of those different spheres can be complicated. And can frankly feel like a lot of effort sometimes. Especially for those of us for whom it wasn't kind of passed on from, you know, upbringing.- From childhood, yeah.- But there's something that's really, at this moment, both with what's been happening sort of globally with the pandemic, with the movement building, with the state of our environment, the actual ecosystems in which we live, with the changes in, I mean, we are seeing changes in the way people are talking about systemic and structural oppression. That it's become a thing that people talk about around the dinner table in ways that we weren't as a community.- A lot of folks as a collective, yeah.- Like you were. And as of, you know, six years ago, I was. But the--- Broader whole.- Broader community, like the zeitgeist was not talking about it. And all of those changes I think are making us more aware of this specific moment with all of those different circles and where they are aligning in particular to think about release.- Yeah.- That feels anticlimactic, now that I say it, but hopefully it doesn't sound it.- And here's the piece that I want to say, and I'm going to take a slightly agitational approach, but just for the purposes of being engaging and interesting. I wrote a Facebook post about this and was grappling with this about a month ago. And I'm continuing, I've since moved and a number of people wrote in lovely insights and shared different things. And I know our colleagues at Judaism Unbound did what I've heard from our team member Sarah is a great episode about Shmita. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm very excited to listen. I know that Rabbi Lex Rofeburg is a Shmita nerd and really among other subjects. So I'm excited to hear what Lex and Dan and their guests discussed. As someone who's been really thinking about this for a while, here's the thing that I want to say that's agitational right now about this. But I also don't want to, if someone if this feels really true to you, I don't wanna be discouraging, but I also want to be lovingly agitational. I'm not a fan of when the meaning of Shmita gets collapsed into rest and to being about rest. And to being about rest. We're taking a break for the planet or ourselves, which I think is interesting, because in general, I am a huge fan and a huge proponent of the planet and ourselves, and also reminding ourselves that we are literally made of earth, both from our tradition and literally as Thich Nhat Hanh teaches, we are all interconnected and we are the stuff of oceans and clouds. And literally what we consume, the organic material we consume is of the planet. Biologically, it came from organic materials, right? So these things are interconnected. And so I think it's worth naming that interconnection, that these things aren't separate, which is one of the insights I got during some of my Kohenet training and education this summer. I think Shmita provides us with, as many Jewish observances and holidays do, some very potent sacred invitations. And I don't want the sacred invitation around release and what that can really mean around both desired as well as undesired releases to attachments to things that bring us money and profit. I don't want us to lose the potential deeper agitation, and not that I'm saying that folks need to necessarily literally do that thing, but I would like us for those who are interested in thinking about these themes, be willing to engage in these explorations and considerations and chewing on it, because actually maybe there are a number of things we can do that we can move in the direction of. And so, there's a lot of meaning and implications that Shmita has. And as you and I discussed the other day, Tracie, so I'd like this to be the beginning, not the end of the opening of this conversation for several reasons, because the Shmita year is a year for a reason. It's going through a full cycle. And I suspect for some of our listeners, they may have a pretty clear sense of what they want to doing over the course of the year, but one that will likely evolve. And for a number of folks, this may be the first time or somewhere in between that they're really hearing about this and starting to think about these themes. And luckily we have a year to start to explore these pieces, but I just wanted to put it in practical terms that there is a way in which some things are resting, but not necessarily what we think of when we think of rest in our day to day life now. So whatever the equivalent is. So if we had fields, so like if we had stocks or, I'm trying to think of what other, something of value that we have that we would say for this year, I am not going to, and actually, if I recall from rereading some of the texts about Shmita, it doesn't say that we can't necessarily partake of our field, just the we're not going to explicitly harvest it. But that passer by, that animals, or that we can take an eat some, but that it's not something that we are harvesting or hoarding might be a little strong, but that we are taking into sell for, we can't sell it.- We're also not working the land, but that doesn't mean the land isn't working, right? I think there's something really interesting about the idea of the fallowness.- Right, good point.- Right, like fallowness is not the same rest, but it's an active rest, right? The Earth is still doing their thing, right? Like, the natural processes of breaking down and rising up again are all still happening, but they're not happening through our control in fallowness.- I love this, may I interject? What's coming to me right now as you're clarifying this is, and I'm not one who usually says this. I'm typically all about, once you have a sense of the holiday, feel free to find the personal meaning that's relevant for you and engage in community. But you know, you can make it your own. I'm a big fan of that, but this just seems, Shmita at this moment in time seems too valuable for us to not be mindful and brave and really explore some of these themes. And to your point, what you just shared, like what it helped me articulate in my mind and hopefully translate through my mouth right now, let's see if I can do it, is that I think it is a sacred and important task for those of us who are interested in noticing how far from the earth many of us have become in different ways and that the nature of our relationship with earth, with the production of food that we consume, it's so distanced that I think it's actually sacred work to do what we're doing here in an effort to both being conversation and also to teach of before we can even fully assess what it means, there's a distinctive process of Teshuvah, to come back to a recent theme we've discussed of engaging in return in our mind. Because that's part of what the challenge that I'm grappling with,'cause our mind is here, and connecting with agrarian agricultural earth based living is here, and most of us don't do that, and yet most of us are still dependent on people and at times corporations, but whatever it is for this. So I think it's actually valuable for us to take time to study this and to do some of the intellectual work and exploration that Tracie was just modeling around actually going to a place that most of us aren't familiar with of using words that we don't even use even though they are still relevant in this day and age. It's not like we're familiar with it in the way that we are familiar with leaves falling from trees, with the parts of natural cycles and living that we haven't been distanced from. And so there's a way of return of Teshuvah and of becoming reacquainted with some of these cycles and processes that feels like an important piece of the puzzle before we can start and really go back into that place, but kind of walk a mile in the shoes or do some perspective taking as much as we're able, which is limited, but I still think worthwhile and can bear some fruit, ha ha, no pun intended, around helping us get to a place where we're positioned for those of us who are interested. And specifically because there's a couple of ways of interpreting this. One of the ways that Shmita resonates most with me, which I think is helpful to say early on is in terms of my spiritual internal landscape. I'm committed over this year to doing some courageous release around things that have brought me advancement that I used to think were things that I thought were helpful that I'm starting to realize are some manifestations of internalized depression. In my case, I think that's what I'm currently calling them spiritual assimilation. There are parts of my native and black or African spirituality that I've suppressed in order to advance professionally to be seen as an intelligent black woman, different things. And I'm planning on doing a lot of work around that as well as doing work around becoming more intimate with the divine. I'm taking a class with Kohenet Keshira HaLev Fife who's amazing, hi Keshira! And about the Shmita year and we're meeting once monthly. And I can't remember if cause Keshira shared it or somebody shared it in the chat, but one interpretation to lighten this a little bit before I circle back to what I was just talking about. Doing that nonlinear brain thing again. Someone mentioned that one way of thinking of Shmita is as an extended Elul. And we talked about this in a previous episode about this idea of Elul being about "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li." I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine as it relates to the divine. And I did a lot of spiritual work and ritual around that in Elul, and the thought of not doing exactly what I did do it during the specific Elul, but continuing that courageous and scary work of becoming more intimate with the divine in my day-to-day living, I both think it's okay for which us to reach beyond the surface of what we think this holiday or this, not holiday, but process, this moment on the Jewish calendar can mean and also, like really unpack and explore that and all of its meaning.- The thing that I'm thinking about in what you're saying and what we're talking about with Shmita for me in my thought about fallowness is there are some relationships in my life where I have been expending a lot of effort, but I don't mean with that other person. I mean like up here, like in my brain efforting. There's all of this drama with a couple of people, but it's all entirely internal that I've been trying to control and trying to keep things in neat rows like a farm field. And I'm thinking to myself, what would it look like? What would fallow look like?- I love that question. Can we just pause? Like, what would fallow look like, right? I love that.- What would fallow look like for these specific cases that have been causing me some agita, as my grandmother would say. They've been agitational for me, but not because of what the other person is doing, right? But because of the way I'm thinking about.- Tracie.- What would fallow look like for me to just let go and let the natural processes, the metaphorical earthworms and other breaking down and rising up just happen. And stop, you know? Those of you listening, you didn't see April, but when she was describing we're over here, our brains are over here, and agriculture is over here, and she was sort of, you know, her left hand and then her right hand, or maybe it was the opposite, whatever. But they were, you know, shoulder width apart. I'm imagining like the, my effort is up here in my head space. And what's happening is down here in my heart space. And if I could just stop, if I could just release this head space and pay more attention to the heart space, maybe that's what fallow could look like for me in these relationships. And I think that this is relevant, not just for my interpersonal like work, but also for our work together and thinking about justice and thinking about accountability, and thinking about like responsibility. There is is head work in this. I don't wanna suggest otherwise.- No, it has its place.- And too often, I'm speaking for myself only, the heart work is not prioritized enough.- Tracie, I just had a huge epiphany. Can I just--- Please, I love your epiphanies.- Sorry, I wanna hear the rest of what you're going to say.- I'm done, I'm ready.- So one, I love what you just said because it spoke, it gave more words to what I articulated a moment ago around my own goal around my relationship with the divine that I think in terms of embodiment, that is very much part of it, but I just had this huge epiphany around this work that I've been doing that's been building and shifting and evolving and has been really, I already used this word, but like cresting. It's really like reaching a pinnacle increasingly. And what you just said is a part of that. And I realized, yeah, that what you said aligned with the work I wanna be doing over this next year on being in a more intimate relationship, and also what you said aligns with a promise I made to myself several years ago, about 10 years ago, to live a heart and spirit led life and use my mind in service of my heart rather than the other way around. And I realize that around this internalized oppression about my spirituality, that in recent years, I have not, I have not. I have not been living, because I think of myself as living into that promise pretty consistently. And what I've currently been thinking about is when I made that promise to myself, I didn't realize how bold my heart would become over the years and what that would mean. And I also see it bearing fruit and being purposeful, and I think this is really huge. This lesson that I learned from a spiritual teacher 10 years ago. Because oftentimes people think it's either or. Oh, somebody's just all emotional with their heart or the mind, and I like that this is both and and it places it in a particular order. That this is the purpose of brain has. The brain is here to protect us, but the heart is also a major electrical center within our body and spiritually, I believe, you don't have to believe it's necessarily, friend tuning in, but that is a source of profound wisdom and insight that doesn't have the same fears or limitations that my mind does that has focused on survival and protection and protection of self it, you know? But anyway, that's just a big epiphany for me. I could keep rambling, but the point is of like, oh right. In recent years, I've been doing a lot of learning and development. And I don't know if any of you have experienced this or if you've experienced this, Tracie, but what's happened for me in my life in recent years in being someone who's been committed to continual evolution and learning, and also someone who's really dedicated and committed is I found myself a couple of years ago before I began Kohenet feeling like I was living a lie. And not fully sure how that, I mean, I guess I did know how it happened. I actually do know, but that as humans, we are really complicated ecosystems. I started noticing actually my whole life is this other thing, but it hasn't been my front facing self and I'm in a process of reconciling that. And I think that my through line through that is through relationship with the divine. And I love what you just said because it combines different parts of my knowing and aligns it, which I love about all of my life learning and work is I find that not everything is the same, but that the more I learn, the more everything starts to click in different ways. And they're not disparate things, but they're either layered or overlapping or interrelated. So I just really love and appreciate you, Tracie, for clicking to profound. I've been working on this daily for a year now. And thank you for helping to fit two pieces together around my evolving relationship with divine energy and noticing that perhaps this key lesson that's been so guiding for me that there's a core part of my living where it hasn't saturated or permeated.- It seems like we both have work to do. Or work not to do, I guess.- Yes, absolutely.- Fallowness. I feel like I also need to give a quick shout-out and credit to Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen who talks not in those precise words, but invited her congregation to think about relationships and effort in a sermon regarding Shmita year.- So hopefully Tracie and I have done a sufficient job of sharing with you that there is so much to explore, unpack, experiment with, commit to, depending around different ethical, cyclical, and purposeful forms of release that we can take in our lives. And as Keshira taught about a month ago in the first class around the Shmita that we had that, that you modeled in your share, and hopefully I did too, is that as we are stepping into and walking into this beautiful, complicated Shmita year, we not just look at the things that are easy to release, because that clearly is not what Shmita is about. It's about, it's not necessarily releasing for forever. It's not saying people are letting go of their fields, but it is a redistribution and a release, and extended temporary release and laying fallow and looking at relationships and debts and releasing those and a suspension and a release of different things that are tied to people's livelihood. That are tied to things that feel central. And that I know we just got through the high holidays, but also this might be a nice tie-in in the Shmita year as, so I would give us an invitation if you haven't already to not dismiss things that we know we need to release and we're ready to release, but also to hold tenderly and be willing to explore and consider things that we're either getting inklings or clear calls from our heart that, or our mind or our ethics maybe even that is something that we need to consider, whether it's for a year or something of letting it lay fallow or releasing that doesn't feel as easy, but that's purposeful. And I would also add that I'm not, and we're also not saying that you need to make any rash or sudden decisions here. The Shmita year is a year, and I think it's a sacred invitation for us to rigorously engage in these themes and for us to explore new possibilities and connect with who we are beyond specific worldly attachments. Tracie, anything else you want to say?- I look forward to continuing this conversation throughout this Shmita year.- Me too. Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @ElliotHammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit JewsTalkRacialJustice.com where you can send us a question or a suggestion, access our show notes, and learn more about our team. Take care until next time, and stay humble and keep going.