Shmita: The Jewish Tradition of Sabbatical Year Naama AgassiContextual Design Design Academy Eindhoven

IndexIntroductionShmita - Origin and EssenceHalakhic Implications TodayAlternative Perceptions of ShmitaAspects of Shmita and Thoughts about Their Current ImplementationConclusion and Going towards a Design Project

Shmita: The Jewish Tradition of Sabbatical Year Naama AgassiContextual Design Design Academy Eindhoven

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Introduction

In this essay, I will present my research about the tradi-tion of the Jewish sabbatical year, also known as shmita (Hebrew: releasing, letting go). I will explain the origin and essence of this tradition, how it is applied today according to halakha (Jewish law) and current alternative perceptions of the idea of shmita. I found great interest in this tradition, as I discovered that it addresses issues that are still rele-vant to contemporary lifestyle. In the following research, I will discuss the aspects of shmita that I found interesting and explain their contemporary value, as I see it, to the field of design.

During my research, I found that among the many aspects of shmita that I had examined, the one that I would like to focus on is the idea of letting go of property. Current sustainable design suggests several approaches, including durable objects, reuse of waste and more. In my project, I would like to propose a complementary approach, in the spirit of shmita: the design of temporary objects, objects that are deliberately created to perish after a certain period of use, thereby shifting the focus from the immediate interpretation of sustainability to the establishment of a different relationship between the object and its owner. While these objects are temporary, their impact could become long-term, because they change the very way we relate to objects: an opportunity to internalise their insignificance, their limitations and our fleeting ownership over them. This approach does not aim to create ecological objects, but rather to undermine our emotional attachment to objects. Temporary objects give us an opportunity to learn how to let go of property, adjust and change – as a reaction to the current reality.

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Origin and Essence

The year of shmita (literally: releasing, letting go), also called the sabbatical year or shevi’it (seventh), is the sev-enth year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the land of Israel, which is still observed in contemporary Judaism. During shmita, all agricultur-al activity is forbidden and the land is left to lie fallow. Halakha (Jewish law) forbids ploughing, planting, prun-ing and harvesting. Preventative cultivation techniques, such as weeding to prevent appearance of pests, may be performed. Additionally, any fruits that grow of their own accord are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, con-sumption and disposal of shmita produce. All debts, except those of foreigners, were to be remitted. Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus promises fruitful harvests to those who observe the shmita, and describes its observance as a test of religious faith.

Even though I am Jewish, I only heard about the tradition of shmita about a year ago. While reading about this tradition, I realised that apart from being a smart interference in capitalist discourse, it has the potential to be socially and economically relevant in today’s world. I found it to be a commendable and simple suggestion to stop our routine in order to question common perceptions. It is also highly relevant to working with materials and the understanding of basic design concepts. I was intrigued by this concept and wished to learn its different aspects and they can be employed in order to achieve a better understanding of basic elements in my work.

The sabbatical year is mostly known today as a year of rest from work, whereas under shmita the stopping of labour is perceived as a challenging demand, with rest serving merely as a secondary value of this tradition. Interpretations concerning the theoretical and practical

notions behind the rule of shmita include: subversion of the concept of nature as human property under human control, allowing the land to regenerate, an opportunity for social rehabilitation and greater equality and a temporary forced stop of materialistic labour for the benefit of a renewed perspective.

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“At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord’s release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release”(Deuteronomy 15:1–3)

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Halakhic Implications Today

When examining the ancient tradition of shmita, I found fascinating the manner in which it was differently applied in different historical periods. In each period, there was a renewed discourse about the relevance of shmita, its appli-cation and ways to go around it.

The idea of shmita was developed at a time when most Jewish people made a living from agriculture and wealth was manifested in land and property. Today, the tradition is applied by Jewish farmers, who are only 3% of the Israeli population.

Shmita is one of a number of special Jewish laws that apply only to the land of Israel. The Jewish population mostly started coming back to Israel in the late 19th century, after long years in the diaspora. Therefore, shmita was not practiced for approximately 2,000 years and needed to be rethought and reconstructed. Presently, a large part of the essence of this law and its interpretations is dismissed in favour of convenient detours and symbolic gestures.

Three options for bypassing shmita are currently employed. In one, agricultural areas owned by Jewish people are temporarily sold to non-Jewish buyers, in order to be able to continue their cultivation (by the original owner); this solution is called heter mekhira. In the second, the farmer can continue to cultivate his land as long as he gives all crops to a designated organization (otzar beit din), which will sell it for cost price. The ultra-Orthodox community rejects both of these options and instead imports all fruits and vegetables during the sabbatical year.

Religious organizations, which have interest that Israeli farmers will maintain the tradition, raise money in order to help them survive the sabbatical year.

During my research, I interviewed a farmer named Itzik Stern. While he is aware of the limitations, he prefers the

In this video, an Israeli Rabbi explains how to perform a Kosher 'Pruzbul', a Jewish law created in order to bypass debts cancellation in the year of 'Shmita'.

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second option – selling his produce through otzar beit din, and he claims that this hardly changes his regular cultivation routine. According to him, the main difference is that he has to sow before the new Jewish year (around September), which might hurt his production since the rainy season starts later. Other than that, he says, there is almost no difference in the amount of work during the sabbatical year.

Stern, who is a religious Jew, mentions in the interview that he observes the shmita only in order not to lose customers who require kosher produce. He says that he does not spiritually relate to the idea of shmita. He has been a farmer for 40 years, which spanned 5 cycles of shmita, and yet he does not perceive any added value to the current application of this tradition.

However, an interesting point of view might come when looking at the shmita outside the context of agriculture. As Rabbi Beny Lau wrote: “The shmita is a challenge to any person who lives in a society where man is threatening to take over the world. The law of shmita is the spiritual reality in which a human being examines his place in the story of creation, reduces his possessions and makes room for the whole experience of existence.” If we observe shmita from the ideological and ecological perspectives, we can apply it to the current realities in innovative ways, which are no longer related solely to agriculture. I will examine these perspectives and their application in the next sections.

Alternative Perceptions of Shmita

Today there is an unorganised discourse about the applica-tion of shmita to contemporary lifestyle, which is separate from the classical Halakhic application related to agricul-ture and the consumption of agricultural products. Most of these contemporary interpretations discuss an individual application, outside the context of an economic system, such as education or reduced consumption. The intensified discourse surrounding this topic in the most recent sabbat-ical year (2014-2015), compared to previous ones, demon-strates the relevance of this tradition to the current reality.

An Israeli initiative from 2013 successfully mobilised large financial institutions in order to help people with debts repay them during the sabbatical year. The initiative also established a volunteering system, where people could contribute one or two hours a week for volunteer work (hafkarat sha’ot).

Another lesson that can be learned from the concept of shmita was described by Naama Shaked, a teacher of the tradition of shmita whom I interviewed during my research: “The demand to desert the land and its cultivation for one year shows how strong the connection with it is during the other six years.”

I found the discussion concerning new suggestions to practice shmita today to be fascinating. As for myself, I would like to examine the perspective offered to the farmer in ancient times in order to extract its potential applications for the designer today.

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Aspects of Shmita and Thoughts about Their Current Implementation

From the different aspects of shmita, I selected three that I found most relevant to the time we live in and to my own work. In the next chapter, I will explain each of these aspects in theory explain their contemporary value, as I see it, to the field of design. These three aspects are: letting go of property; hefker – declaring private property as public goods; and materialising time.

I. Letting Go of Property

In the tradition of shmita, you are asked to let go of your property in a very specific manner. You are not asked to let go of it for good, rather to take a step back and review the counter force it has when not under your complete control. We use our possessions and our professions in order to describe who we are and to communicate it to the outside world. Possessions, in that manner, have more than mon-etary value, since they help us to phrase and present our identities, what we believe in, what we find important and where we belong. The idea of shmita is very challenging in this perspective: By letting go of what you have, the things you use to describe yourself, you are asked to rethink your beliefs and your perceptions of yourself and the world – to step outside of your comfort zone.

Today, reality is rapidly changing, technology and communication are constantly reshaping our lives. Rephrasing and adjusting ourselves is not merely a nice spiritual idea, it becomes a real need for survival. At the same time, things become easier and faster for purchase. And so, the idea of letting go of things becomes more relevant and even urgent, while at the same time we are socially directed toward constantly purchasing more and more, keeping this idea far from our grasp.

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II. Hefker: Declaring Private Property as Public Goods

Kdushat Shvi’it is the sacred status of whatever grows during the sabbatical year. In addition, it is deemed hefker (ownerless), which means it is temporarily not someone’s private property, but rather public goods. Deeming property as ownerless is fundamentally different from sharing or giving. Deeming it hefker, to my understanding, is acknowl-edging that something is not yours to give in the first place. By limiting this experience to a certain period of time, the sabbatical year allows the practitioner to experience loss of control within a limited space of action. Deeming posses-sions as ownerless is another form of letting go of property, as mentioned above.

Rabbi Minna Bromberg writes about her first shmita experience after moving to Israel from the United States: “This tiny handful of mustard seeds is not enough for a lunch for me, let alone for all my neighbors – but they are plenty to remind me that when we let go of our attempts at cultivating and manipulating and ordering according to our will, we let ourselves be surprised by everything that plants itself in our lives all on its own.”

When a design or a plan moves from the hands of the designer into the public domain, it is usually altered and adapted. Many times, people use things in a way that the designer could not predict. In this aspect, I think that deeming a design as hefker and letting others change it and contribute to its evolvement is another way of relinquishing control, similar to what is suggested under the notion of shmita.

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III. Material and Time

The tradition of shmita creates a break in time: Every seven years, you have to profoundly change your routine. The cyclical characteristic of shmita creates a cyclical percep-tion of time. What a seven-day week structures in days, the shmita creates in years. This is an artificial construct of time, which was invented by someone, someday. Time does have cyclical properties to it – seasons, day and night – but the seven-year cycle and seven-day cycle are manmade, designed.

Seven is a number that might seem random in terms of time, with little explanation to be found in natural references (seven rainbow colours, seven tones in a musical scale). For unclear reasons, it is a typological number is Judaism and particularly in the bible, starting with the story of the creation of the world in seven days.

An analogue clock is physically structured as a cycle. The hands of the clock might suggest that its shape originated from the sun dial. Human perception of time as cyclical is essential, since the constant acknowledgment of the idea of each moment going by with no return is unbearable.

The concept of the sabbatical year shapes and materialises time, simply by marking a moment in time – an action that has an effect not only on perception but also on behaviour. It is shaped to generate a moment that is valuable to the individual and even more so to the social group applying it.

“The agrarian mode of production in general, dominated by the rhythm of the seasons, is the basis for fully constituted cyclical time. Eternity is internal to it; it is the return of the same here on earth. [...] The Middle Ages, this incomplete mythical world whose perfection lay outside it, is the moment when cyclical time, which still regulates the greater part of production, is really chewed away by history. A certain irreversible temporality is recognised individually

in everyone, in the succession of stages of life, in the consideration of life as a journey, a passage with no return through a world whose meaning lies elsewhere.”

- Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

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Conclusion and Going towards a Design Project

In 2011, Ronny and Liron, a couple from Tel Aviv, decided to give up their apartment , get rid of everything they owned and start traveling. They were both able to find jobs that allowed them to work from anywhere in the world, as long as they have internet connection. In an interview with them, which I conducted as part of my research, they told me about the experience of living with minimal possessions: "It’s easier when you’re not stuck to things, you’re not afraid to lose them. When you’re not afraid to lose things, your life is also much lighter. They have less gravity. They are less important. It’s also easier to die this way, I think. [...] And even my favourite jeans, they will become torn, they will have to be thrown out and there will be no escape from going to buy a new pair. Or otherwise to decide, okay, now I’m changing my style and I’m buying leather pants. Not getting stuck on things offers something very liberating, I think."

The virtual world does liberate us from physical possessions in some areas. Taking pictures, for example: We can have an immense number of photos, an amount that even our personal computers cannot store. Yet, the ability to capture every moment forever is an illusion, motivating us to hold our smartphones or tablets in front of us, thereby turning them into a buffer between ourselves and our experiences. Perhaps there are some advantages to the limitations enforced by the physical world. The idea of shmita provides an interim solution: The requirement to let go of one’s property is only temporary.

How is the illusion of eternal possession perpetuated by the design world? In a guided tour of the Vitra museum, I saw the testing room, where the durability and quality of Vitra's furniture are examined. One chair, by Charles and Ray Eames, is tested in a sitting machine; it has been sat on more than 25 million times. "In furniture life, that equals

Ronny and Liron in a skype interview with me

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approximately 400 years of use," explained the tour guide. According to this estimate, if I purchase a chair like that, my great-great-great-great grandchildren could still use it.

On the surface, the promise of such an “eternal” design addresses the ecological crisis we are currently facing. However, the idea of shmita highlights a problem with that concept: How would we be able to change, to let go of old perceptions, if we cannot change anything physical in our world? The ecological solution of durable objects is important, but it does not alter the deep-rooted notions of late capitalism, which make us increasingly attached to material possessions, leading to mass production and increased pollution.

As a complementary approach, I would like to offer designs that – in the spirit of shmita – teach us to be less attached to objects. I seek to design temporary objects, objects that are deliberately created to perish after a certain period of use; not for the sake of sustainability, but for the sake of establishing a different relationship with the owner. While these objects are temporary, their impact is long-term because they change the very way we think about objects; an opportunity to learn how to let go of property, adjust and change.

The tradition of shmita teaches the capacity to let go of property, a capacity that can generate much-needed flexibility, adaptability and mobility. In my opinion, the kind of thinking offered by the concept of shmita is even more relevant now than in the past, since technological developments are rapidly changing our lives. Today, more than ever, we need to the ability to quickly adjust, but without wreaking too much havoc on our planet. Objects, if they are here to stay even after our own existence, are confining. If an object is created deliberately to be temporary, it might have the contrary effect. According to UN figures, the UK exported more than 351,000 tonnes worth of its discarded fashion overseas in 2013 to

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a cycle, or linearity. In the first experiment, I tested a design where the clock

itself turns, instead of its hands, in an attempt to integrate the cyclical element of time perception. The turning of a small axis moves the ring hanging on it. The scale marks on the ring indicate the time.

In the second experiment, I created a hole in the ring, causing it to fall down on the floor after completing a full cycle.

In the third experiment, I replaced the ring with a roll of paper. In this experiment, the paper piles up on the floor as time passes, and printed marks indicate time similarly to the marks printed on the ring in the previous mechanism.

destinations like Poland, Ghana, Pakistan and the Ukraine.The spirit of shmita might suggest to deem unwanted property as hefker (described above). A new French law that forbids food waste by supermarkets demonstrates this contemporary notion. In this spirit – thinking about objects and possessions, second-hand shops and free shops – designs that re-use old objects designs might suggest a solution. In this project I would like to create objects that are deliberately not durable. Initially, I will experiment with the creation of functional objects from paper. In these objects, I will look for several qualities, all derived from the conclusions of my study about the implementations of shmita today.

I do not intend to create unappealing objects. I want to create desirable and functional objects, but the material will potentially help the user to take them less seriously and let go of them more easily.

As noted above, I believe that one of the values of objects in our possession is their ability to express our taste, so that we can identify with them and surround ourselves with object that express our character, as we see it or as we would like others to see it. With temporary objects, a user can easily choose to change an object’s appearance, thereby participating in the design process and altering it, or he can create his own idea for an object.

The shmita also highlights ideas of community and sharing. In this spirit, as I progress in the process of design refinement, I will try to allow and include changes in the design, and for other people or designers to use this idea and interface as raw material.

I arrived at the concept of designing temporary objects after researching various aspects of shmita and options for their current implementation in the field of design. For example, as part of my research, I tried to apply the idea of cyclical time to a paper clock, in order to examine which aspect of time was perceived more strongly: a point in time,

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In my project, I would like to experiment with the design of deliberately perishable objects to examine the conclusions of my research. I would like to create objects that manifest the idea of letting go of property in their temporary appearance in the user’s life. Many objects are designed to function temporarily, in order to maintain their profitability. However, unlike ordinary temporary objects, I intend to design objects that will not mislead their owner with the promise of durability. The materials and appearance used will reflect the disposability of these objects, in order to design them in a manner that undermines our emotional attachment to objects. Current ecological approaches to design, which seek to reduce waste and pollution, focus only on the object: its durability or its re-use. However, following the lessons learned from the tradition of shmita, I choose to focus not only on the object but also on the user, to change not only the objects but also our relationship with them. In short, to design objects that make it easier to let go of them, thereby undermining the contemporary perception of commodities, which we fetishise as a means of constructing and communicating our identity.

In this process, I am primarily interested to discover if such objects could still remain desirable, and if their temporary existence will have the power to change, in any manner, the owner’s approach towards them in terms of emotional attachment or maintenance. One thing that I find interesting to test is personal taste: Since objects are temporary, would their less binding properties invite people to play with their choices, to become more flexible? Once they know an object will not be remain in their immediate environment for a long period of time, will this enable them to play with a different image of their house or environment? Will the deliberately and obviously temporary

character of objects create a less dependent relationship with its user?

These are the questions I seek to address in the coming design process.

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Bibliography:

Wikipedia, “Shmita”

The Bible, Deuteronomy 15:1-18, Leviticus 25:1-24, King James Version

Matthew George Easton (1897), Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld (1972), Shemittah and Yobel, Soncino Press

Eli Ashkenazi (2008), “As Shmita Ends, Gardeners Gear Up for Hard work,” Haaretz

Benjamin Lau (2008), “In Search of Spiritual Calm,” Haaretz

Guy Debord (1970), The Society of the Spectacle, Black and Red

Alain de Button (2012), Religion for Atheists, Penguin Books

Iaspis in Collaboration with the Interactive Institute (2011) Design Act: Socially and Politically Engaged Design Today

Minna Bromberg (2015), “Torah Gone Wild,” Hebrew College

Einat Kramer (2014), “Israeli Shmita,” Beit Hillel Blog

Lucy Rodgers (2015), “Where Do Your Old Clothes Go?,” BBC News

Media:

Beit Habad TV, “Pruzbul”

Agnes Varda (2000), “The Gleaners and I”

Christian Marclay (2010), “The Clock”

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (2012), “Alter Bahnhof Video Walk,” dOCUMENTA (13)

Places Hamburg (2013), “Vitra Eames Lounge Chair in der Testbox”

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