Moed Kattan 3 Sabbatical Year Preparation: the Ten Saplings

During the Sabbatical year, there are four categories of labour that are punishable by flogging.  These are sowing (and pruning, a subcategory), reaping (and gathering, including grape-picking, a subcategory).  Torah law dictates these restrictions and this punishment.  The rabbis discuss Torah law that is handed down from Moses on Mount Sinai and Torah law that is written.  They wonder whether there might be exceptions to this halacha of flogging.

To avoid punishment at all, it is necessary for the rabbis to create clear guidelines around these practices.  Exactly when must one end their sowing in advance of a Sabbatical year?  What about other related practices, including watering, fumigation, mending?  Beit Hillel tell us to use Shavuot as a marker, while Beit Shammai tell us to wait until we notice seasonal signals.  

It is clear that the rabbis want us to benefit from fresh produce for as long as possible.  They clearly wish to minimize the inconvenience and suffering of their communities.  They also want to get it 'right'. The rabbis want to be careful to set their fences very carefully - finding that sweet spot between stringency and leniency.

We learn today about the law of the ten saplings.   If ten saplings are planted in a field at a particular time before the Sabbatical year, the field may be tended for longer.  Fewer than ten saplings would mean that only the ground just beneath the trees could be tended.  More than ten saplings would constitute an orchard, and the trees might survive without our intervention.  

These agriculturally based laws recognize that the long-term health of our produce is key to our survival.  Care for the land and the land will take care of us.  Somewhere along the line we have forgotten the importance of that consideration.