This BBC News article talks about an interesting dilemma for Israeli Jews this year. This is the Sabbath year, in which the land is supposed to lie fallow to give the earth a rest. I see it as an amazing test of faith -- you trust the Lord for His providence during that year -- as well as good environmental practice.
However, people have managed to find ways around the Sabbath year, as expected. During this year, many farmers sign their land over to rabbis, who then proceed to "sell" the land at really cheap prices to non-Jews. This apparently allows the farmers to still grow crops on the land, and observe the Sabbath year. (How the non-Jews come into this and lets this work out, I don't understand. I just take the article at face value.)
Interesting what sort of loopholes people can come up with, when there's money to be made!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Sabbath Year... what a pain. How do we get around it?
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Do we follow the letter of the law? Or do we follow the spirit of the law. If the latter, then we probably should not try to find ways to get around it. In fact, we don't need to, as long as we are following the spirit, right?
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