Shmittah came to the world and all work came to a halt. No sowing and no harvest. The vineyard awaits. "The grapes of the sixth year were harvested and now is the time to prune the vines so that the next crop can grow. But Ayal is a champion; he restrains himself and waits. In the middle of the winter, when the time is ripe for pruning, he brings a team of workers to cut back the entire trees, that is permissible according to halachic guidelines. The branches are chopped off before his eyes and the entire vineyard loses its vibrant greenish-purple hues, to stand bare and parched, small and pale.
His friends stand by, expressing their concern but Ayal is calm and at peace with himself. "I am content with what I have done and consider it a great privilege to observe Shmittah. I am confident that Hashem in His benevolence will help me."
Now, at the tail end of Shmittah, most of the year is already behind him and Ayal smiles with gratification. All those who were concerned and dubious, all of his friends who feared for the outcome of their grape crop, all the experts who expressed their view that this drastic cutback was dangerous for the vineyard, are invited to view it and see with their very eyes how in every place that he made the cutback the vines have shown renewed growth. The branches have grown, notwithstanding, and slowly his vineyard takes on the look of a flourishing garden. And in those places where one can already see tiny clusters of young grapes, it is evident that these will become superior fruit in plentiful measure. While he won't be able to cash in on them this year, he is still relieved that the vineyard, per se, has not been damaged and will continue to produce fruit in the coming year, with promise of a very bountiful and high quality crop.
When the people of the Keren Hashevi'is visited him, he told them an interesting story which developed in conjunction with his Shmittah observance, with one mitzvah leading to another.
The residents of his yishuv were collecting money to renovate their ancient shul. Ayal, feeling himself drawing closer by the day of mitzvah-observance, wanted to know about the four sifrei Torah reposing in the aron kodesh not in use since they were posul. Perhaps their reconstitution should also be part of the overall project, he suggested firmly, but was told that their budget did not cover such an expensive repair. Thereupon, Ayal decided to take this opportunity in hand and order an expert sofer STaM at his own expense to at least evaluate the Torahs. One of the scrolls in question was a very ancient and rare one from Iraq, written about three hundred years before. It had found its way somehow to China, where Ayal's grandfather brought it to Israel about 70 years before. Ayal felt that this beckoned to him personally, and truly, in the wake of his keeping Shmittah, he was aroused to perform this very precious additional and rare mitzvah, using his own funds and raising enough to cover the rest from his friends.
This is Ayal's first Shmittah, his first opportunity to be a halachic hero, coming from distant Australia to Israel, straight into the embrace of a vineyard in the Holy Land. He is, of course, determined to continue along this path in the coming shmittahs.
