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The sabbath year ( shmita; , literally "release"), also called the sabbatical year or shǝvi'it (, literally "seventh"), or "Sabbath of The Land", is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah in the Land of Israel and is observed in Judaism.This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain. Sabbatical year—every seventh year, during which the land, according to the law of Moses, had to remain uncultivated (Lev. 25:2–7; comp. Ex. 23:10, 11, 12; Lev. 26:34, 35).
During shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden by halakha (Jewish law). Other cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing) may be performed as a preventive measure only, not to improve the growth of trees or other plants. Additionally, any fruits or herbs which grow of their own accord and where no watch is kept over them are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone.Mishnah Shevi'it 9:1 A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of shmita produce. All debts, except those of foreigners, were to be remitted.
Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita, and describes its observance as a test of religious faith.
The most recent shmita year was 2021–2022 or Anno mundi 5782 in the Hebrew calendar. The next shmita cycle will be in 2028–2029, year 5789 in the Hebrew calendar.
The 2 Kings passage (and its parallel in Isaiah 37:30) refers to a sabbath ( shmita) year followed by a jubilee ( yovel) year. The text says that in the first year the people were to eat "what grows of itself", which is expressed by one word in the Hebrew, saphiah (ספיח). In Leviticus 25:5, the reaping of the saphiah is forbidden for a Sabbath year, explained by Rabbinic Judaism to mean the prohibition of reaping in the ordinary way (with, for example, a sickle), but permitted to be plucked in a limited way by one's own hands for one's immediate needs during the Sabbath year.Yosef Qafih (ed.), Rabbi Nathan Ben Abraham's Mishnah Commentary, in: Perush Shishah Sidrei Mishnah (A Commentary on the Six Orders of the Mishnah), appended at the end of the book: The Six Orders of the Mishnah: with the Commentaries of the Rishonim, El ha-Meqorot: Jerusalem 1955, s.v. Shevi'it chapter 9.
There is an alternative explanation used to rectify what appears to be a discrepancy in the two biblical sources, taken from Adam Clarke's 1837 Bible commentary. The Assyrian siege had lasted until after planting time in the fall of 701 BCE, and although the Assyrians left immediately after the prophecy was given (2 Kings 19:35), they had consumed the harvest of that year before they left, leaving only the saphiah to be gleaned from the fields. In the next year, the people were to eat "what springs from that", Hebrew sahish (סחיש). Since this word occurs only here and in the parallel passage in Isaiah 37:30, where it is spelled שחיס, there is some uncertainty about its exact meaning. If it is the same as the shabbat ha-arets (שבת הארץ) that was permitted to be eaten in a Sabbath year in Leviticus 25:6, then there is a ready explanation why there was no harvest: the second year, i.e. the year starting in the fall of 700 BCE, was a Sabbath year, after which normal sowing and reaping resumed in the third year, as stated in the text.
Another interpretation obviates all of the speculation about the Sabbath year entirely, translating the verse as: "And this shall be the sign for you, this year you shall eat what grows by itself, and the next year, what grows from the tree stumps, and in the third year, sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit." According to the Judaica Press commentary, it was Sennacherib's invasion that prevented the people of Judah from sowing in the first year and Isaiah was promising that enough plants would grow to feed the population for the rest of the first year and the second year. Therefore, Isaiah was truly providing a sign to Hezekiah that God would save the city of Jerusalem, as explicitly stated, and not an injunction concerning the Sabbath ( shmita) or jubilee ( yovel) years, which are not mentioned at all in the passage.
The Jewish method of calculating the recurring Sabbatical year ( shmita) has been greatly misunderstood by modern chroniclers of history, owing to their unfamiliarity with Jewish practice, which has led to many speculations and inconsistencies in computations. According to Maimonides ( Mishne Torah, Hil. Shmita ve-Yovel 10:7), during the Second Temple period, the seven-year cycle which repeated itself every seven years was actually dependent upon the fixation of the Jubilee, or the fiftieth year, which temporarily broke off the counting of the seven-year cycle. Moreover, the laws governing the Jubilee (e.g. release of Hebrew bondmen, and the return of leased property to its original owners, etc.) were never applied all throughout the Second Temple period, but the Jubilee was being used during the period of the Second Temple in order to fix and sanctify thereby the Sabbatical year.; Babylonian Talmud ( Arakhin 32b) A Sabbatical year could not be fixed without the year of the Jubilee, since the Jubilee serves to break-off the 7 x 7-year cycle, before resuming its count once again in the 51st year. While the 49th year is also a Sabbatical year, the fiftieth year is not the 1st year in a new seven-year cycle, but rather is the Jubilee. Its number is not incorporated into the seven-year cycle. Rather, the new seven-year cycle begins afresh in the 51st year, and in this manner is the cycle repeated.Maimonides, Mishne Torah ( Hil. Shmita ve-Yovel 10:7), whose ruling, in this case, follows that of the Sages in the Babylonian Talmud ( Rosh Hashanah 9a) After the Temple's destruction, the people began a new practice to number each seventh year as a Sabbatical year, without the necessity of adding a fiftieth year.Maimonides, Mishne Torah ( Hil. Shmita ve-Yovel 10:5–6); Maimonides, R. Moses b. Maimon Responsa (vol. 2), ed. Jehoshua Blau, Rubin Mass Ltd. Publishers: Jerusalem 1989, responsum # 389
Rabbi Joshua Falk, author of Sefer Me'irat Einayim on Choshen Mishpat, holds that shmita nowadays is only a rabbinic obligation, and, subsequently, the biblical promise of bounty for those who observe the shmita (Leviticus 25:20–22) only applies when the biblical obligation is in effect, and hence that the biblical promise of bounty is not in effect today. However, the Chazon Ish, who holds that the biblical obligation of shmita observance remains in effect today, holds that the biblical promise of bounty follows it and Divine bounty is promised to Jews living in the Land of Israel today, just as it was promised in ancient times. However, he holds that Jews should generally not demand miracles from Heaven and hence that one should not rely on this promise for one's sustenance, but should instead make appropriate arrangements and rely on permissible leniencies.
As produce grown on land in Israel owned by Jewish farmers cannot be sold or consumed, fruits and vegetables sold in a shmita year may be derived from five sources:
There is a requirement that shevi'it produce be consumed for personal use and cannot be sold or put in trash. For this reason, there are various special rules regarding the religious use of products that are normally made from agricultural produce. Some authorities hold that Hanukkah candles cannot be made from shevi'it oils because the light of Hanukkah candles is not supposed to be used for personal use, while Shabbat candles can be because their light can be used for personal use. For similar reasons, some authorities hold that if the Havdalah is performed using wine made from shevi'it grapes, the cup should be drunk completely and the candle should not be dipped into the wine to extinguish the flame as is normally done.
The otzar beit din system is structured in such a way that biur remains the responsibility of members of individual households and hence warehoused produce does not have to be moved to a public place or reclaimed at the biur time. Households only have to perform biur on produce they receive before the biur time, not on produce they receive after it.
Because the Orthodox Judaism rules of Kashrut have strictures requiring certain products, such as wine, to be produced by Jews, the leniency of selling one's land to non-Jews is unavailable for these products, since these strictures would render the wine non-Kashrut. Accordingly, wine made from grapes grown in the land of Israel during the shmita year is subject to the full strictures of shmita. New vines cannot be planted. Although grapes from existing vines can be harvested, they and their products cannot be sold.
While obligatory to the Orthodox as a matter of religious observance, observance of the rules of shmita is voluntary so far as the civil government is concerned in the contemporary State of Israel. Civil courts do not enforce the rules. A debt would be transferred to a religious court for a document of prosbul only if both parties voluntarily agreed to do so. Many non-religious Israeli Jews do not observe these rules, although some non-religious farmers participate in the symbolic sale of land to non-Jews to permit their produce to be considered kosher and sellable to Orthodox Jews who permit the leniency. Despite this, during shmita, crop yields in Israel fall short of requirements so importation is employed from abroad.
According to the Talmud, observance of the Sabbatical year is of high accord, and one who does not do so may not be allowed to be a witness in a beth din (rabbinical court). Nonetheless, Rabbinic Judaism has developed Halakha (religious legal) devices to be able to maintain a modern agricultural and commercial system while giving heed to the biblical injunctions. Such devices represent examples of flexibility within the Halakhic system.
Hillel the Elder, in the first century BCE, used the rule that remittance of debts applies only to debts between Jews, to develop a device known as prozbul in which the debt is transferred to a beth din. When owed to the court rather than to an individual, the debt survives the Sabbatical year. This device, formulated early in the era of Rabbinic Judaism when the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing, became a prototype of how Judaism was later to adapt to the destruction of the Second Temple and maintain a system based on biblical law under very different conditions.
The rabbis of the Jerusalem Talmud created rules to impose order on the harvesting process including a rule limiting harvesters working on others' land to taking only enough to feed themselves and their families. They also devised a system, called otzar beit din, under which a rabbinical court supervised a communal harvesting process by hiring workers who harvested the fields, stored it in communal storage facilities, and distributed it to the community.
There exists a major difference of opinion between two Acharonim, Joseph Karo and Moses ben Joseph di Trani, as to whether produce grown on land in Israel which is owned by non-Jews also has sanctity. According to Karo, such produce has no sanctity and may be used and/or discarded in the same way as any produce grown outside of Israel. According to di Trani, the fact that this produce was grown in Israel, even by non-Jews, gives it sanctity, and it must be treated in the special ways detailed above.
Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, a noted Haredi Judaism halakhic authority who issued key rulings on Jewish agricultural law in the 1930s and 1940s, ruled like di Trani, holding that produce grown on land in Israel owned by non-Jews has sanctity. Karelitz's ruling was adopted first by the religious families of Bnei Brak and is popularly called Minhag Chazon Ish (the custom of the "Chazon Ish").
The rabbis of Jerusalem, on the other hand, embraced the opinion of Karo that produce farmed on land owned by non-Jews has no sanctity. This opinion is now called Minhag Yerushalayim "the custom of Jerusalem", and was adopted by many Haredi families, by British Mandate Palestine, and by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
These respective opinions are reflected in the way the various kashrut-certifying organizations publicize their shmita and non- shmita produce. The Edah HaChareidis, which follows Minhag Yerushalayim, buys produce from non-Jewish farms in Israel and sells it as "non- shmita produce". The Shearit Yisrael certifying organization, which subscribes to Minhag Chazon Ish, also buys from non-Jewish farmers in Israel, but labels the produce as such so that customers who keep Minhag Chazon Ish will treat these fruits and vegetables with appropriate sanctity.
By biblical law, Jews who own land are required to make their land available during the shmita to anyone who wishes to come in and harvest. If the land is fenced etc., gates must be left open to enable entrance. These rules apply to all outdoor agriculture, including private gardens and even outdoor potted plants. Plants inside a building are exempt. However, the rabbis of the Mishna and Jerusalem Talmud imposed rabbinic ordinances on harvesters to ensure an orderly and equitable process and to prevent a few individuals from taking everything. Harvesters on others' land are permitted to take only enough to feed themselves and their families.
When certain farmers began to secretly sow their fields during the Seventh Year and to harvest what they had planted, and to cover-up their action by saying that such produce was a mere aftergrowth from last year's planting, the Sages of Israel were compelled to enact restrictions on Seventh Year produce and to forbid all aftergrowths () of grain, legumes and those vegetables which are usually planted by mankind, in order to put an end to their deception., s.v. Hil. Shmita ve-yovel 4:2–3 Other rabbinic authorities prohibit only the aftergrowths of vegetables, but permit the aftergrowths of legumes and grain.Rabbi Nathan ben Abraham, President of the Academy in Palestine, held a different opinion to that of Maimonides concerning grain and legumes which grew of themselves in the Seventh Year. R. Nathan permitted to eat the aftergrowths of legumes (pulse) and grain, since, according to him, there was an abundance of provisions all year-round, both in grain and in pulse; when one harvest ended, the other harvest began, and there was never any need to gather-in the aftergrowths of these plantings because of a want or shortage of food, excepting only vegetables. Even so, aftergrowths of grain could only be collected in an irregular fashion and without the aid of a sickle. (, s.v. Tractate Shevi'it, chapter 9). They permitted, however, to pick the fruits of trees that grow of themselves during the Seventh Year, for one's immediate needs, and to gather such vegetables and herbs that are not normally planted by humans, such as wild rue ( Ruta chalepensis), either wild asparagus ( Asparagus) or amaranth ( Amaranthus blitum var. silvestre), purslane ( Portulaca oleracea), wild coriander ( Coriandrum sativum), parsley growing alongside rivers ( Apium graveolens), garden rocket growing in marshlands ( Eruca sativa), sweet marjoram ( Majorana syriaca), white-leaved savory ( Micromeria fruticosa), and the like of such things.Cf. Mishnah ( Shevi'it 9:1)Jerusalem Talmud (Shevi'it 9:1) Had any of these been kept watch over in the courtyard of a house, their aftergrowths would be forbidden to eat in the Seventh Year. Rabbi Nathan ben Abraham permits the gathering of aftergrowths of mustard greens ( Sinapis alba) during the Seventh Year., s.v. Tractate Shevi'it, chapter 9
An ancient practice in the Land of Israel was to permit the gathering of spring onions which grew of themselves during the Seventh Year, after the first rains had fallen upon them and sprouted.
The laws governing Aftergrowths apply only to crops grown in the Land of Israel.
The heter mechira was accepted by Modern Orthodox Judaism and is one of the classic examples of the Modern Orthodox approach toward adapting classical Jewish law to the modern world. However, this approach has not been universally accepted in the Orthodox community and has met with opposition, particularly from Haredi posek (authorities of Jewish law).
In contemporary religious circles these rabbinic leniencies have received wide but not universal acceptance. In Israel, the Chief Rabbinate obtains permission from all farmers who wish to have their land sold. The land is then legally sold to a non-Jew for a large sum of money. The payment is made by a cheque post-dated to after the end of the Sabbatical year. When the cheque is returned or not honoured at the end of the year the land reverts to its original owners. Thus, the fields can be farmed with certain restrictions.
Although the Orthodox Union's Kashrut Division accepts Minhag Yerushalayim and hence regards the produce of land owned by non-Jews as ordinary produce, it does not currently rely on the heter mechira because of doubts about whether the trust arrangement involved effects a valid transfer of ownership.
Some Haredi farmers do not avail themselves of this leniency and seek other pursuits during the shmita year.
Because under this approach land cannot be sown but existing plants can be tended and harvested, the approach is applied to orchards, vineyards, and other . A beit din, or rabbinical court supervising the process, hires farmers as its agents to tend and harvest the crops, and appoints the usual distributors and shopkeepers as its agents to distribute them. Individual consumers appoint the court and its designees as their agents and pay monies to court-appointed designees as agents of the court. Thus, under this approach, a legal arrangement is created whereby the crops themselves are never bought or sold, but rather people are merely paid for their labor and expenses in providing certain services. In modern Israel, the badatz is notable for adapting and supervising such arrangements.
The Orthodox Union notes that "to some, the modern-day otzar might seem to be nothing more than a legal sleight of hand. All the regular players are still in place, and distribution rolls along as usual. However, in reality, it is identical only in appearance as prices are controlled, and may correspond only to expenses, with no profit allowed. In addition, the otzar beit din does not own the produce. Since it is simply a mechanism for open distribution, any individual is still entitled to collect produce from a field or orchard on his own. Furthermore, all agents of the beit din are appointed only if they commit to distributing the produce in accordance with the restrictions that result from its sanctity."
The Orthodox Union describes the contemporary application of the rules of biur as follows:
Thus, while the obligation of making one's produce available to the public and permitted to all takers can be performed in such a way as to minimize the risk that this availability will actually be utilized, this risk cannot be eliminated. The community at large, including members of the poor, must be afforded some opportunity to take the produce.
Biur only applies to produce that has shevi'it sanctity. For this reason, it does not apply to produce grown under the heter mechira for those who accept it. (Under the reasoning of the heter mechira the shmita does not apply to land owned by non-Jews, so its produce does not have shevi'it sanctity.)
Wine prepared during the Seventh Year (with grapes grown in the same year) may be kept until Passover of the 1st-year cycle. Following the Passover, the wine can no longer be kept over.
According to the Chassidut, eating is not only a way to stay alive but even a necessity so that the soul can continue to be strongly inspired by the study of the Torah and the prayer that the Jew performs every day: this means that something material, the food – food can in fact be from the "mineral, vegetable or animal kingdoms" – becomes "sublimated" to enter the sacred area of devotional service to God.
The main alliance between God and the Jewish people consists in continuous Blessings, transcribed also in the Torah; from Moses to Aaron up to the Levites and to the Jewish people as a whole, in the Torah the pact of revelation is established to bind them forever in the Land which can only be that place where it is possible to realize the Kingdom of God.
The event of the gift of the Torah at Mount Sinai involved the whole world, in fact even the angels and other nations were witnesses or spectators of this miraculous event. With Avodah this event is perfectly consolidated until the messianic vision of the reconstruction of Third Temple of Jerusalem.
Shmita is therefore abundance of Nature until it becomes holy.
Could the passages in Isaiah 37 and 2 Kings 19 be referring to two voluntary fallow years? This might be possible if the Jubilee year was a 50th year separate from the seventh Sabbatical/ shmita year. Young presents a linguistic argument against this interpretation, as follows:
Others have imagined that Isa 37:30 and its parallel in 2 Kgs 19:29 refer to a Sabbatical year followed by a Jubilee year, since the prophecy speaks of two years in succession in which there would be no harvest. But the first year could not be a Sabbatical year, because in it the people were allowed to eat "what grows of itself", for which the Hebrew word is ספיח . In Lev 25:5 the reaping of the ספיח is forbidden during a Sabbatical year. Whatever the exact meaning is for this word, its use in Isaiah's prophecy and its prohibition in Lev 25:5 means that the first year of the Isaiah and Second Kings passages could not have been a Sabbatical year. This rules out the possibility that the passage is dealing with a Sabbatical year followed by a year of Jubilee. The proper understanding of the passage is that the harvest of the first year had been destroyed by the Assyrians, and the defeat of the Assyrian army came too late in the year to allow sowing that year. The destruction of the Assyrian host came the night after the giving of the prophecy (2 Kgs 19:35), so the reason that sowing and reaping were forbidden for the next year must have been because that year, the second year of the prophecy, was going to be a Sabbatical year.Rodger C. Young, "The Talmud's Two Jubilees and Their Relevance to the Date of the Exodus", Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006) p. 76, n. 11.[8]
The year 588/587 BCE was also the year that Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, consistent with the Babylonian records for the reign of Amel-Marduk and the Scriptural data regarding Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. This is in keeping with the statement in Seder Olam chapter 30, properly translated as discussed above, that put the burning of the First Temple, as well as the Second, in the "latter part" of a Sabbatical year. The statement of the Seder Olam in this regard is repeated in the Tosefta ( Taanit 3:9), the Jerusalem Talmud ( Ta'anit 4:5), and three times in the Babylonian Talmud ( Arakin 11b, Arakin 12a, Ta'anit 29a). An example of the caution that must be exercised when consulting English translations is shown by the Soncino translation in Arakin 11b, that the Temple was destroyed "at the end of the seventh Sabbatical year", The Babylonian Talmud (London: Soncino Press, 1938). compared to Jacob Neusner's translation of the corresponding passage in the Jerusalem Talmud, that it was "the year after the Sabbatical year". Taanit 4:5 in The Talmud of the Land of Israel, tr. Jacob Neusner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
That Ezekiel saw his vision at the beginning of a Jubilee year is also shown by his statement that it was "in the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, on Rosh Hashanah, on the tenth day of the month…;" (Ezekiel 40:1). It was only in a Jubilee year that Rosh Hashanah (New Year's Day) came on the tenth of Tishri (Leviticus 25:9), the Yom Kippur. The Seder Olam, in relating that Ezekiel's vision was at the beginning of a Jubilee, does not cite the part of Ezekiel 40:1 that says it was Rosh Hashanah and the tenth of the month, indicating that the fact that a Jubilee was commencing was based on historical remembrance, not on just the textual argument regarding Rosh Hashanah being on the tenth of the month. Ezekiel also says it was 14 years after the city fell; 14 years before 574/573 BCE was 588/587 BCE, in agreement with "the 25th year of our captivity".
The first modern treatise devoted to the Sabbatical (and Jubilee) cycles was that of Benedict Zuckermann.Benedict Zuckermann, Treatise on the Sabbatical Cycle and the Jubilee, trans. A Löwy; (New York: Hermon, 1974); originally published as "Ueber Sabbatjahrcyclus und Jobelperiode", in Jahresbericht des jüdisch-theologischen Seminars "Fraenckelscher Stiftung" (Breslau, 1857). Zuckermann insisted that for Sabbatical years after the Babylonian exile "it is necessary to assume the commencement of a new starting-point, since the laws of Sabbatical years and Jubilees fell into disuse during the Babylonian captivity, when a foreign nation held possession of the land of Canaan ... We therefore cannot agree with chronologists who assume an unbroken continuity of septennial Sabbaths and Jubilees."Zuckermann, Treatise., 31. The Seder Olam (ch. 30) is explicit that this was the case, i.e. that the returned exiles had a renewed start of tithes, Sabbatical years, and Jubilee years. The first instance of a Sabbatical year treated by Zuckermann was Herod the Great's siege of Jerusalem, as described by Josephus. Ant.14.16.2/470-76, 15.1.2/7. Zuckermann assigned this to 38/37 BCE, i.e. he considered that a Sabbatical year started in Tishri of 38 BCE. Next, he considered John Hyrcanus's siege of Ptolemy in the fortress of Dagon, which is described both in Josephus ( Antiquities. 13.8.1/235; The Jewish War 1.2.4/59-60) and 1 Maccabees (16:14–16), and during which a Sabbatical year started; from the chronological information provided in these texts, Zuckermann concluded that 136/135 BCE was a Sabbatical year. The next event to be treated was Antiochus V's siege of the fortress Beth-zur ( Ant. 12.9.5/378, 1 Maccabees 6:53), dated by Zuckermann to 163/162 BCE. However, he also remarked on the difficulties presented to this figure by the text in 1 Maccabees, which would seem to date the siege one year later, and so he decided to leave it out of consideration.Zuckermann, Treatise 47–48. The final text considered by Zuckermann was a passage in the Seder Olam that relates the destruction of the Second Temple to a Sabbatical year, an event that is known from secular history to have happened in the summer of 70 CE. Zuckermann interpreted the Seder Olam text as stating that this happened in a year after a Sabbatical year, thus placing a Sabbatical in 68/69 CE.
All these dates as calculated by Zuckermann are separated by an integral multiple of seven years, except for the date associated with the siege of Beth-zur. Furthermore, his chronology is consistent with that accepted by the geonim (medieval Jewish scholars) and the calendar of Sabbatical years used in present-day Israel. All of this would seem to be strong evidence in favor of Zuckermann's scheme. Nevertheless, some problems have been recognized, beyond just the question of the siege of Beth-zur, which was one year too late for Zuckermann's calendar. A consistent problem has been the ambiguity alleged in some of the passages, notably of Josephus, where it has been questioned, for example, when Josephus started the regnal years of Herod the Great. In a study the chronology of all Herod's reign, Andrew Steinmann presents arguments in favor of dating Herod's capture of Jerusalem in 10 Tishre of 37 BCE, i.e. just after the Sabbatical year of 38/37, based on references to the activities of Mark Antony and Sosius, Herod's helpers, in Cassius Dio (49.23.1–2) and also on other considerations.Andrew E. Steinmann, "When Did Herod the Great Reign?" Novum Testamentum 51 (2009) 8–11.[14]. This date is in agreement with Ben Zion Wacholder's chronology. Therefore, many modern scholars have adopted a Sabbatical year calendar for the Second Temple period that is one year later, although there are many prominent scholars who still maintain a cycle consistent with Zuckermann's conclusion of a 38/37 BCE Sabbatical year.
Among those who have advocated an adjustment to Zuckermann's chronology, the most extensive studies in its favor have been those of Ben Zion Wacholder.Ben Zion Wacholder, "The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles During the Second Temple and the Early Rabbinic Period", HUCA 44 (1973) 53–196; "Chronomessianism: The Timing of Messianic Movements and the Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles", HUCA 46 (1975) 201–218; "The Calendar of Sabbath Years during the Second Temple Era: A Response", HUCA 54 (1983) 123–133. Wacholder had access to legal documents from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt that were not available to Zuckermann. The arguments of Wacholder and others to support the calendar one year later than that of Zuckermann are rather technical and will not be presented here, except for two items to which Zuckermann, Wacholder, and other scholars have given great weight: 1) the date of Herod's capture of Jerusalem from Antigonus, and 2) the testimony of the Seder Olam relating the destruction of the Second Temple to a Sabbatical year. Wacholder gives the dates of post-exilic Sabbatical years in the following table:Ben Zion Wacholder, Essays on Jewish Chronology and Chronography (New York: Ktav, 1976) 6–32.
| + Sabbatical Years in the post-exilic period |
| Remission of taxes under Alexander the Great for Sabbatical years. |
| Second battle of Beth-Zur; summer 162 BCE.1 Maccabees 6:20,49; Josephus, Antiquities 12.9.5/378. |
| Murder of Simon the Hasmonean.1 Macc 16:14–21; Antiquities 13.8.1/234; Josephus, Wars 1.2.4/60. |
| Herod conquers Jerusalem on 10 Tishri (Day of Atonement) just after end of Sabbatical year 37/36 BCE. Antiquities 14.16.2/475, 15.1.2/7; Wars 1.17.9–18.1/345–47 |
| Recital of Deuteronomy 7:15 by Agrippa I in a post-Sabbatical year, making the Sabbatical year 41/42. Mishnah Sotah 7:8; Antiquities 18.8.3/271–72; Wars 2.10.5/199–200. |
| A note of indebtedness from Wadi Murabba'at in 2nd year of Nero, 55/56 CE, indicating 55/56 as a Sabbatical year. |
| Destruction of Jerusalem in the latter part ( motsae, "going-out") of the Sabbatical year 69/70. Seder Olam 30; Tosefta Ta'anit 3:9; Jerusalem Talmud 4.5.6; Babylonian Talmud Ta'anit 29a; Arakin 11b. |
| Rental contracts of Simon bar Kosiba indicating 132/133 as a Sabbatical year. |
| Three fourth- and fifth-century tombstones near Sodom indicating 433/434 and 440/441 CE were Sabbatical years. |
| + The Sabbatical-year earthquake of 749 CE |
| "Sabbatical year earthquake": 23 Shevat=18 Jan., 749 CE. |
Chapter 30 of the Seder Olam gives the year that both Temples were destroyed as be-motsae shevi'it (במוצאי שבעית). Heinrich Guggenheimer's recent translationHeinrich Guggenheimer, Seder Olam – The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) 264. renders this phrase as "at the end of a Sabbatical year", thus unambiguously supporting the Wacholder calendar that starts a Sabbatical year in the fall of 69 CE. The problem, however, is that many translations of the Seder Olam render the phrase as "in the year after a Sabbatical year" or its equivalent. This was the sense adopted by Zuckermann when citing the Seder Olam as supportive of his calendar of Sabbatical years. The same Hebrew phrase is used in the Babylonian Talmud when citing this passage from the Seder Olam, and some modern translations of the Talmud into English translate the phrase in the sense given by Guggenheimer, while others translate it in the sense of "the year after". The Seder Olam uses the same phrase regarding a Sabbatical year for the destruction of both Temples, so that its testimony in this regard is important for dating the shemitot in both pre-exilic and post-exilic times. Therefore, it would seem necessary to closely examine the phrase in the original Hebrew when making chronological decisions. Unfortunately, this was not done, either by Zuckermann,Zuckermann, Treatise, 48. Wacholder,Ben Zion Wacholder, Essays in Jewish Chronology and Chronography (New York: Ktav, 1976) 19–22. or Finegan,Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (rev. ed.; Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1998) 122. when citing the Seder Olam's testimony as decisive for their particular calendars of Sabbatical years. Most interpreters have simply relied on an existing translation, and that translation may have been unduly influenced by an attempt to make the translation consistent with the chronology of the geonim that placed the end of the Second Temple in a post-Sabbatical year.
At least one study has addressed this problem, arguing from both a linguistic standpoint and from a study of related texts in the Seder Olam that the phrase ve-motsae sheviit should be translated as something close to "and in the latter part of a Sabbatical year", consistent with Guggenheimer's translation and Wacholder's calendar.Rodger C. Young, " Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals Associated With the Two Destructions of Jerusalem: Part I", Jewish Bible Quarterly 34 (2006) 173–179; [16] Part II, JBQ 34 252–259.[17] This recent study argues that a comparative study of the word motsae (literally, "goings-out") does not support any sense of "after" ("after a Sabbatical year"). Further, the reference of the Seder Olam to a Sabbatical year associated with Jeconiah is in keeping with a Sabbatical year when the First Temple was burned a few years later, but the Seder Olam would be in conflict with itself if the phrase in chapter 30 was interpreted as saying that the burning was in a post-Sabbatical year.
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