What are the borders of the Land of Israel? TB Pesakhim 52

During the sabbatical year one may enjoy the produce that grows on its own in the field until that produce’s growing season is over. Any left-over produce must be destroyed (ביעור פירות שביעית). Although Rambam holds that this produce of the sabbatical year must be burned just like hametz before Passover, our practice today is to make the produce ownerless (הפקר). Today’s daf TB Pesakhim 52 analyzes what is the correct procedure when one transports the produce of the sabbatical year where it growing season has not ended to a place where the same produce’s season has ended or vice versa. When does one have to destroy that particular sabbatical year produce?

Even though Israel is such a small country, it has such diverse geographical areas. Today one is able to drive in one day from the Dead Sea, the lowest spot in the world, to Mount Hermon and ski. Consequently, the growing season changes from place to place even within the Land of Israel. The rabbis divide the Land of Israel into three separate areas Judea, Transjordan, and the Galilee. The area between Judea and the Galilee was considered outside the Land of Israel because it was mainly populated by Gentiles or Samaritans.

“Since the Gemara discussed the point when Sabbatical Year produce must be removed in different places, it cites a mishna from tractate Shevi’it that deals with a similar topic. We learned there in a mishna: Eretz Yisrael is divided into three separate lands with regard to removal, Judea, Transjordan, and the Galilee. And there are three lands in each and every one of them: The valley, the mountains, and the plains, in which the halakhot of removal differ. And why did the Sages say that there are three lands with regard to removal if those lands themselves are further divided? It is so that people will eat in each and every one until a certain crop ceases from the field in the last of the regions that comprise it. Therefore, even if a certain fruit is no longer available in a particular region within the land, it may still be eaten there as long as it is available in one of the other regions.” (Sefaria.org translation)

What constitutes the Land of Israel is a question that still divides Israelis. Rabbi Theodore Friedman writes for the Masorati Judaism in Israel (Conservative movement) the answer to the question, “According to halakha is it forbidden to cede even a footstep of any part of the Whole Land of Israel?”

“Our basic sources, Biblical and Rabbinic, do not mention the concept ‘the Whole Land of Israel’ as a sacred place defined by rigidly fixed borders. The reason is obvious. Throughout all periods of our history the borders of the land expanded or narrowed for political reasons. The theoretical idealized borders were vague…

“After the destruction of the Second Temple, we find the rabbis shrinking their territory to be defined as the Holy Land. Their voices arguing for the exclusion even of Acre and Beit Shean. The major factor in the reasoning may well have been economic: those deemed to live outside the Holy Land of Israel were exempt from observing the (seventh) shmitah year as well as tithing and similar internal Jewish taxes. Whatever the totality of the reasons, this approach certainly demonstrates a great deal of flexibility with reference to borders. There is also the example of two neighboring ‘heartland’ port cities, Caesarea and Dor, roughly midway between Haifa and Jaffa. The rabbis variously considered each as within or outside the Land of Israel, depending on the Jewish or non-Jewish nature of its population. The status of the city of Ashkelon was complex. In some respects it was deemed to be in the Land and in some respects it was considered outside the Land. Similarly certain Jewish cities on the far side of the Jordan were considered as part of the Land in some respects and outside in other Halachic respects. Close to the year 100 (C. E.) Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh published a list of locations considered part of the Land of Israel. About a century later, Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi issued a similar list which differed in a number of details to reflect changes in Jewish population patterns.

“By definition the Land of Israel is holy (holiness being defined in part by special obligations) yet the boundaries of the Holy Land were never fixed and rigid, but the opposite: flexible in accordance with the pragmatic reality of the time. To claim that the concept ‘the Whole Land of Israel’ forbids us from conceding any part of the geographical land that happens to be under Jewish sovereignty, has no support in Halacha. The disagreement relative to the ‘Whole Land of Israel’ concept is strictly a political dispute with no halachic relevance whatever.” (English response or summary of Rabbi Friedman’s teshuvah published in the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel Law Committee Responsa 5747, page xvii)