Debt forgiveness, not just for students, is a very ancient Hebrew concept, worth learning from and adapting.
This Jewish new year starts with an additional reflection on the importance of the year we’ve just left behind - the Shmita year, the seventh year of release. Rarely practiced anymore these days in true expression of its original biblical charter, this radical invention demands a regular societal reset. Every seven year we are told to release our hold and control, to let go of our work, let the earth lay fallow, rest and be renewed, and let the debts be released. Restart. It’s not complicated to understand how this ancient agrarian concept, echoing the sacred sabbath cycle, is not a big favorite in today’s 24/7 corporate capitalist global economy. But what of Shmita can still be of reliance to us today - as we begin, today, the preparation for the next one, in 7 years? Does the dire state of our planet that gets no rest, not require us to pick up this tool as yet one more vital option for our survival?
Chapter 15 in the Book of Words continues Moses’ speech with instructions for the future settling in the Promised Land, including details of Shmita. But unlike the references to this concept in earlier books - the focus here is on the remittance of personal loans:
וְזֶה֮ דְּבַ֣ר הַשְּׁמִטָּה֒ שָׁמ֗וֹט כׇּל־בַּ֙עַל֙ מַשֵּׁ֣ה יָד֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר יַשֶּׁ֖ה בְּרֵעֵ֑הוּ לֹֽא־יִגֹּ֤שׂ אֶת־רֵעֵ֙הוּ֙ וְאֶת־אָחִ֔יו כִּֽי־קָרָ֥א שְׁמִטָּ֖ה לַיהֹוָֽה׃
“Now this is the matter of the Release:
One shall release, every possessor of a loan, will release one’s hand, what one has lent to one’s neighbor.
One is not to oppress one’s neighbor or sibling,
for the Release of YHWH has been proclaimed!”
The poetic image here is that the one who gave the loan will open up one’s hand, again, to release what is owed, forever. This act of generosity is called for so as to balance the gap between those who have and those who have less. The prose and facts behind this aspiration have to do with what Shmita was like in previous generations. Familiar to the writers of this socialist manifesto. If one’s land is lay fallow for a full year - how are the small farmers to make it? That’s where, with time, this idea of loans that are not just interest free but also forgivable, must have come from. It’s familiar from other Near Eastern traditions, often when a new king sits on the throne (or when election season is near?) but was not a regular occurrence.
It’s possible that the authors of Deuteronomy, living in Jerusalem, under Persian rule, around the 5th century BCE, were already faced with rising urbanization and the need to systematically address the growing economic gaps. By the time the Romans were in charge Shmita debt release became impossible and the rabbis came up with a clever but sad option that mostly disabled this loan relief option. The addition of debt release to the Shmita guidebook that shows up on in today’s chapter is one of the items that is still on people’s minds these days as we try to imagine what of this Utopian Release concept may still be helpful to our rarely restful, market driven lives.
Does anybody owe you anything? A loan, a borrowed item, an apology? What debts of sorts do you owe today? Maybe the convergence of this chapter on this day invites us to open our hand, and release, not just the breadcrumbs (or other eco-friendly substitutions for transgressions) that we’ll throw into the water to release when we practice Tashlich but also imagine what and who we are ready to release - inside?
What can we commit to today so we help each other live more healthy, just, and sustainable lives?
Shana Tova.
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections: Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. January 2022-July 2025
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