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Parshat Mishpatim
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו

Inviting the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

And the Seventh Year You Shall Abandon the [Field in Shmita]

‘And may our eyes see Your return to Zion with compassion. Blessed are You HaShem who returns His Holy Presence to Zion.’

The more Jews come to settle in the Land of Israel, the more the power of the Holy Presence in our Land is magnified, leading to a state when the majority of worldwide Jewry lives in the Land of Israel. This state of the majority of worldwide Jewry living in the Land of Israel has many halachic implications that involve the Biblical obligation for the taking of teruma and maser, and also in regard to the existence of the Biblical Shemita and Jubilee year. Although the Biblical Shemita and the Jubilee years are dependent on the Jewish population residing in the Land of Israel, they also require that the Jews in the Land be divided into their respective tribal territories. For these reasons, many of the poskim consider the Shemita year of today to be of Rabbinic ordination only, and there have been many halachic authorities who have made more lenient rulings pertaining to the Shemita observed today, in accordance with the general principle that in regard to laws of Rabbinic origin a posek may rule more leniently, as in case of doubt or great need, than in a similar situation that involves Biblical commandments.

One such lenient ruling in regard to Shemita of today pertains to permitting Jewish farmers to expropriate the fields from the obligation of shmitta by selling them to a non-Jew, popularly known as the ‘Heter Mechira’. Not many know that the first halachic ruling that describes such a permit originated in Hebron, about 250 years ago, when one Jew bought a vineyard in Hebron and asked the then presiding Chief Rabbi of Hebron, and one of Hebron’s great Torah luminaries, Rabbi Mordechai Rubyo, what to do on Shemita year. In his responsa, ‘Shemen HaMor’ [acronym of She’elot MiNHarav Mordechai Rubio], which was published posthumously, Rabbi Rubio answers that he may sell his field during Shmita year to a non-Jew, although basing this permit partially on the fact that, according to Ottoman law, property was not really owned by the buyer, but rather ‘rented’ from the government. About a hundred years later and till the present, when Jewish settlement of the Land has become more pronounced, this ruling has been very influential in regard to the Heter Mechira. Indeed, this is not surprising considering the fact that this ruling originated in Hebron, Beacon of the Holy Land.

Rabbi Mordechai Rubyo grew up in Jerusalem and was the disciple of Rabbi Yitzhak HaCohen, author of ‘Batei Kehuna’. He later settled in Hebron and became the Rosh Yeshiva of ‘Hesed LeAvraham ve’Emet LeYakov’, and he also held a prominent position in Yeshivat ‘Kneset Yisrael’ in Hebron. In 5503 (1742) he was sent as an emissary to Turkey to collect funds for the Jewish community, and he returned the next year. In 5534 (1774) he was appointed as the Chief Rabbi of Hebron. Rabbi Mordechai Rubyo passed away in 5543 (1783).

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #254

‘My brother-in-law sent a set of seforim from Northern Israel with a messenger just before ‘Shabbat Hebron’ to Kiryat Arba. My brother-in-law does not know where I live in Kiryat Arba, so he definitely did not know where to direct his messenger. Suddenly, after not talking for several hours, while I was returning home from buying popsicles from the neighborhood’s kiosk, my brother-in-law called to give me the messenger’s cell-phone number. I called just then and it ‘turns out’ that out of the thousands of possible locations this messenger could have been in Kiryat Arba, he ‘happened to’ be next to the mikveh, at the same time I also ‘happened to’ be there.’

Sources: Sefer Hebron p. 140 and Wikipedia

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