The Sabbatical Year Controversy in Palestine, 1889–1948

The circumvention of economically inhibitive laws has a long history in Judaism, beginning with the Talmud (redacted in the 6^th century). For example, the rabbis introduced new procedures for authentication of contracts, legalized usury between Jews, and came to accept negotiable debt instruments. Each of these circumventions became part of the rabbinic consensus. 
This paper is a case study of a circumvention that sparked a tremendous controversy.  Under Biblical law, the Land of Israel must lay fallow once every seven years; most agricultural activities are prohibited. According to Rabbinic interpretation, this prohibition is limited to Jewish-owned land.
In the late 19^th century, Jews immigrated to Palestine and set up an agricultural economy.  Material conditions were extremely difficult; a yearlong ban on agriculture would have jeopardized the survival of the Jewish community. In 1889, four rabbis proposed a circumvention known as the “permit of sale” (heter mechira). Jewish land would be sold to non-Jews, so that the Sabbatical prohibitions would not apply. From its inception, the permit generated a heated rabbinic controversy. Its detractors denounced it as a travesty; its proponents defended it as an emergency measure, to be rescinded as soon as conditions improved. The permit and its associated controversy have persisted to the present day.  
Why was the permit so controversial, unlike previous rabbinic circumventions? Ultimately, the controversy was not about the permit’s technical permissibility. Rather, larger ideological issues were at stake: What is the spiritual significance of the “return to Zion”? Should rabbis cooperate with secular Zionism? How should rabbis deal with economic modernization? Both sides of the debate were strongly influenced by the past effects of the Jewish Enlightenment. As this case study shows, the interpretation of economically inhibitive laws is likely to depend not only on economic factors, but also on ideological, spiritual and institutional factors.