The Brisker Rav says, regarding Shemita stories, that we have to tell over the miracles.
Rabbi David Ozeri was recently in Israel and came back with the following, unbelievable Shemita story:
The rabbi and his wife were invited to go to Shemita moshav/farm about a half hour out of Yerushalayim called Azaryahu. It was a settlement purchased 70 years ago by 30 families, and in their backyards, they have beautiful farmland. The streets of the neighborhood were named after the seven fruits of Israel Zayit, Rimon.. etc.
They were supposed to go to Zayat Street to meet the couple who are keeping Shemitta. It was pouring rain with dogs barking and cows mooing.
Finally, they made it to 14 Zayit St, where they met a couple in their 40s. The man explained, in Hebrew, that he was a third generation farmer. The couple was living in the house his grandfather built when he started out the farm years ago. The wife was an English-speaking American, wearing a pony tail and baseball cap. She explained that she was from Massachusetts originally, and that her parents are currently living in Lawrence, New York. The Rabbi asked her why she isn’t living in beautiful Lawrence, and she told him she would never give up her life for anything.
The couple explained that they had never kept Shemitta until the previous one, seven years ago. Up until then, they were reliant on the heterim/leniencies of selling their land to a goy.
The man explained that it was his wife that pushed him, last Shemitta, to keep the laws to their fullest. He said he was scared and hesitant, but she persevered, and they kept Shemitta for the first time that year, and they had a story to tell about it:
There is an organization, Keren Shevei’it, that comes to help out farmers keeping Shemitta. When the couple started keeping Shemitta, the organization came to see the very large farm (about 100 acres) to ascertain that were really keeping Shemitta properly. The people from the organization noticed that there were eggplants growing in the ground. The man from the organization asked the farmer what that was about. The man explained that he hadn’t told his wife that he was growing them, and that he was relying on the leniency, because he had a contract with Sabra and this was his parnasa. He didn’t know what else to do. The organization, which usually helps with about 1/3 of the farmers’ expenses during Shemitta, told the man that they could not help him now, because he was growing eggplants which was a violation of the strict laws of Shemitta. The man asked what they could do about it, and was told to shut off the water supplying the eggplants. So the wife shut the water. But guess what? The eggplants kept growing. For three weeks, the eggplants did not die. The organization came down to check once again, saw that the eggplants were still growing, and questioned the farmers. The farmers explained that they had shut off the water, but the eggplants were still growing anyway. The people from the organization then explained that they would have to poison the eggplants. The wife followed their instructions and poisoned the eggplants, and they kept Shemitta according to Halacha for the first time.
Sabra then told them that if they would not be able to supply them that year, then they would not be able to guarantee them a contract for next year. The farmer was very worried about losing this big contract, and so they planned to create an open farmer’s market instead, to earn money. They would cement off a big area of the farm, put up a tremendous overhang, and add shelving. They would sell what they had grown, but now as retailers. When that Shemitta ended, they put their plan into action and started selling their vegetables. The people came to buy, and then more people, and then more people. At the end of that Shemitta year, people started knocking on their doors for Berachot. These farmers were simple people, in jeans and baseball caps. Nonetheless, people were coming from Bnei B’rak for blessings. When the farmers questioned why they were coming, the people explained that Rav Chaim Kanievsky said that whoever keeps Shemitta according to Halacha, their blessings are fulfilled. A Hasidic man came with two older daughters who were not married, and asked for a beracha. The wife simply couldn’t imagine giving them a blessing, but she offered to pray for them by her candles on Friday night, while her husband gave them a beracha. Within five weeks, both girls were engaged. Another couple came for a blessing. They hadn’t had a child for 10 years. Nine months later, they had a child. They had many stories like that. It was mind boggling.
Three years later, Covid hit. Because they were selling food, they were considered an essential business, and because it was an outdoor market, it was ideal. Everybody wanted to shop outdoors. While everybody else was sitting home during Covid, doing nothing, they were busy working their farmer’s market. Over those few years, Sabra came back and wanted to renew their contract, but the farmers refused. They were too busy with their farmer’s market! They started planting everything that people put in salads: cucumbers carrots tomatoes, lettuce etc. and business was booming…. until Shemitta came around again this year.
The farmer took Rabbi Ozeri and his wife in his jeep, and drove them around his fields.
The rabbi says that no one can never appreciate Shemitta until you see it with your own eyes. They saw grapes on vines, shriveled. He drove them by a patch of eggplants laying dead on the ground. There were dried out pomegranate trees…. They saw firsthand, man’s parnasa in the garbage.
Their green houses were caving in and everything was covered in mud, like a swamp. It was frightening. But they wouldn’t touch a thing to repair.
Imagine a person who sells shoes, finding all of his shoe stock sitting in puddles of wate! How would he feel?
The Ozeris could not believe the scope of the Emuna and bitachon that they saw from this couple.
He showed them a piece of land roped off and explained that it was land where they do the Mitzvah of pe’ah.
It was amazing to see a couple literally living what the Torah says.
The Rabbi asked the woman how many people she prays for now on Friday nights. She explained that it now takes her over two (and approaching three) hours to pray when she lights her candles, for all the people that she is praying for.
Rabbi Ozeri exclaimed in disbelief at that, so the couple pulled out a large carton filled with papers of people’s written requests for tefilot, from all over the country. These simple people, these Gibborei Koah!
Rabbi Ozeri noticed five donkeys on the farm. He asked about them, and the couple told him they were zoche to Peter Chamor, but they didn’t want to give up the donkeys because only the Arabs want to them, and the Arabs misuse them. They also have horses chickens and cows. Normally, they grow food to feed these animals. But during Shemitta, they have to buy food to feed the animals. The man explained that the life of a farmer is very different. He explained that his expenses include paying his workers for the year. According to Israeli agricultural law, if they don’t pay the workers for the year, they lose their agricultural license. They also have machinery on mortgages, and on lease, and additionally, they lease out large parcels of land from their neighbors. Only the original 30 Dunham are theirs.
When Rabbi Ozeri asked them where they would get the money to pay for all of this, they explained that they believe that Hashem will give them Beracha, and that they will be OK.
Rabbi Ozeri asked them what they are doing this year for Parnasa. The wife explained that she works down the road in a kindergarten, and her husband, under his rabbi’s advice, gives paid tours. Schools pay to come from all over the country to get a tour of a shemitta farm. That is how they are making their parnasa for now.
These are really truly great people. But until you see with your own eyes Shemitta farm, you could never appreciate what it is.