This year, we’ve also had the special merit to be ambassadors for shemittah

Ilana Toweg, as told to Yosef Herz

MY

name is Ilana Toweg, and my husband Doron and I are the proud owners of a large, sprawling farm in Moshav Azarya, a small settlement in central Israel. We’re on the cusp of completing our second shemittah. What a journey it has been!

We kept our first shemittah eight years ago, in 5775; until then we had relied on heter mechirah. That first year presented a huge challenge, exacerbated by the fact that we hadn’t fully come around to the decision until we were already precipitously close to shemittah.

In fact, the week after Rosh Hashanah, Doron planted some 20,000 pounds of eggplant in our greenhouses, under the impression that it was permissible to do so. We had a million-shekel contract with Sabra Foods to provide them with eggplants, and so this was a considerable part of our business. But when we told the rabbanim of Keren Hashviis about it, they told us that planting in greenhouses was indeed forbidden during shemittah, and that the eggplants had to be destroyed.