[Avodah] planting during shmitta permitted

[Arie Folger]

Dear Ovedim,

Yesterday, as most of you were perhaps on the commute home, I was hardly 
keeping my eyes open, and posted how I believe that Rav Avraham (?) Yossef's 
ruling that frost damaged plants can be replaced by a nochri is really based 
on his reliance of BY's opinion that shemittah bizman hazeh derabbanan.

The above is, of course, close to nonsense, as R. Josh Backon kindly pointed 
out in a private email:
> ALL poskim rule that shmitta today is a d'rabbanan [it's mefurash in the 
gemara!!]

[we may argue about all, but clearly, most - by far - think so, indeed]

Sadly, despite knowing this and having given a shiur on the topic and even 
written about it, I still wrote a mistake. What I wanted to explain is how 
really Sefardim have no big problem with the hetter mekhirah to begin with, 
as they believe that a nochri's land in EY isn't subject to shemittah.

Thus, the question is only whether the hetter mekhirah is sufficiently well 
executed to be equivalent to land that was before and remains after shemittah 
in the nochri's ownership. Hence, he would be more willing to rely on the HM 
than some others.

All the above is, however, only tangetially related to the article quoted 
regarding the permissibility of using a non Jewish worker for planting, but 
not a Jew. In my sleepy post, I correctly stated that this is a kind of 
Shabbos goy hetter. Many hold this nowadays to be permissible on shemittah - 
that was in the original hetter for the shemittah sale, in tav-resh-mem-tet, 
IIRC, even while they are strict about Jews doing what would be a deOraita on 
his own land.
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com