This is the shmitah year – the year of letting go, in which we leave our fields fallow and release debts. In this series we will look at shmitah-related texts and react to them, seeing what they inspire in us.

Session 2 Today

Today we look at Rabbi Hillel’s prozbul – a legal device that allows some debts to survive the shmitah year. What’s behind this? What ideas might we draw from this about working with shmitah values in a complicated world full of compromise?

Session 3 (May 18th)

In this session we will look at shmitah from a perspective of land justice and land transition. Does the land itself have a voice that needs to be part of conversations about land control and ownership? Can we think about land differently in a culture in which land is property? How might new thinking affect us?