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A Seven-Year Cycle

Owning Your Own Land in Israel

ike many Jews across the Diaspora, Rabbi David It is rare to purchase private agricultural land in Israel, as
Ziering, a New York native, often dreamt of moving the government owns most (just 3% of agricultural land
to Israel. In 1998, he fulfilled that dream by making is available for private sale). But Ziering found a parcel
LAliyah. Now he had a new goal: Fulfill the mitzvot of private land in the heart of Givat Ada, an agricultural
of Eretz Yisrael and teach Jewish wisdom. community in central Israel named for Baron Edmond James
de Rothschild’s wife Adelaide (Ada).
After 10 years, in 2008, Ziering founded and managed a
non-profit called Aish Ha’Torah Tel Aviv & Ha’Sharon – a Adama613 divided this land into 50 smaller parcels and just
Jewish outreach program based in Tel Aviv and the Sharon a few whole and partial pieces of land are still available.
area of Israel where he teaches the relevance of Judaism
to young Israelis. Shemitta
With the onset of Rosh Hashanah 5782, the Shemitta year
Purchasing Land in Israel will begin. When most people think of Shemitta, what

Ziering still didn’t feel like he’d unlocked all the opportu- immediately comes to mind is the one year – the seventh
nities the Land has to offer on a spiritual level. “A sixth of year – where the land rests. No work is done in the fields, no
our Torah has to do with the Land of Israel and I needed sowing, no plowing, no harvesting. Only what is necessary
an opportunity to make it real for myself and others,” says to keep the field alive is allowed, but nothing to make it
Ziering. So, in 2019, he founded Adama613 to enable him- prosper.
self and others to own private agricultural land and fulfill But Shemitta is really a seven-year cycle. Thirty land-depen-
all the mitzvot dependent on the Land of Israel. dent mitzvot are completed during this seven-year cycle,

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