Trusting the One Who Makes Blessing Grow
There is something unique about the mitzvah of shemittah that we do not find regarding the other mitzvot. The Torah actually gives a guarantee that those who observe it will merit great abundance in the following years. Why specifically shemittah?
The Land Belongs to Hashem
Let us explore the deeper meaning behind this mitzvah. The Sefer HaChinuch explains that there is a natural tendency for a person to feel that the land truly belongs to him, and that its produce is the result of his own effort. In truth, however, all land belongs to Hashem, and all sustenance comes only through His kindness. By leaving the land fallow during shemittah, we openly declare that the land is His, and that everything we have is a gift from Him.
The Zohar teaches that when a person focuses on Hashem’s kindness and expresses gratitude, he becomes beloved Above and draws down blessing. When we recognize that everything we have is truly from Hashem and that He continuously provides for us, we awaken tremendous mercy and blessing. This helps explain why shemittah carries such a special guarantee—it is a powerful expression of this recognition and trust.
A Message for Every Day
Although shemittah is observed only once every seven years, its message applies every single day. A person must internalize that all the good in his life is not merely the result of his own effort, but an undeserved gift from a loving Father. When this becomes real in a person’s heart, he lives with greater simchah and joy, and becomes a vessel for abundant blessing.
The Seeds That Should Not Have Grown
Each shemittah cycle, more stories emerge of individuals and communities who witnessed remarkable blessing against all odds. One such story comes from the pioneering Moshav Komemiyut, which committed itself to observing shemittah shortly after its founding in the early 1950s, despite enormous financial challenges. Their entire livelihood depended on agriculture, yet they believed with simplicity that the land belongs to Hashem and He would sustain them.
At the end of the shemittah year, they prepared to return to farming, but they faced a serious problem—they needed seeds from the sixth year, and these were extremely difficult to obtain. The only seeds available were old and infested, the kind no farmer would normally consider using due to their low chance of success.
The Rav of the moshav, Rabbi Binyamin Mendelson, encouraged them to plant anyway. “The One who causes wheat to grow from good seeds,” he said, “can also make it grow from inferior ones.” That year, rains were unusually delayed and farmers across the country grew anxious. Yet the very day after Komemiyut finished planting, the rains began.
Miraculously, their fields produced an unusually large and high-quality yield—far exceeding even crops grown from the best seeds. Surrounding fields, which had not been careful with shemittah, did not experience such success. News of this spread quickly and created a tremendous Kiddush Hashem (Sanctification of God’s Name).
By Rabbi Daniel Shasha, author of “Living Appreciation”
