The Shmita Year
(may we let the land lie)
Years ago, I texted my daughter “Love Ya”. I was immediately scolded also, via text that “Love Ya was not the same as I Love You”. It took me by surprise and also made me proud as a parent to know that she learned to be careful with her speech. Since that day I text out I Love You when I text that phrase. While that was a lesson in love, it was also a lesson in intention. It taught me that I needed to be more intentional with my actions and speech. 5782 (The coming year according to the Hebrew calendar is upon us based on the cycle, this happens to be a shmita year).
I‘m glad you asked. A shmita is the year of release. Which is when all of the resources reset, all of the debt is forgiven, the land cannot be harvested for profit and any fruit that grows wild is considered ownerless and can be picked by anyone or any animal for food! Interestingly enough, you can read about it in The Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth here: Deuteronomy 15:1–10. Obviously, this is all in a Biblical sense which could be easily enacted, especially since the majority of people on the planet identify with a faith tradition that use these words as foundational doctrine.
After the past two years, trust me all of the signs and wonders point to us taking a break for a year and reevaluating what it means to be human; and what it means to be part of the human experience which interconnects us all. Question, if we were not all interconnected, how then did Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) go from one continent to another and ultimately affect the entire world? About seven months of our existence, in America, was proof that poor Black people actually move a significant chunk of the needle on economy and bore the brunt of the sickness, so the government gave the people moratorium on rent, which didn’t absolve any payments but it did stave off eviction for some citizens. Meanwhile, trillions of dollars were exported to corporations who knew that they were directly responsible for people dying due to lack of resources.
Y’all also saw the worst in regular people as well. People all over the country both liberals and conservatives showing disdain for Black America, while we kept our voices down and quietly rejuvenated the economy. Whether bird watching or wearing sneakers to a restaurant or standing in our own neighborhoods or even worse for owning your ethnic identity as a descendant of slavery in America, we spent a year fighting for a right to exist and being excluded while y’all actions kept saying that everyone else matters! Since we are speaking Biblically, I’ll ask this did y’all notice that there was a plague, famine, war, flooding, fire in the past two years? Don’t it seem like a good time to reset to you?
While I know it will be nearly impossible to reset everyone’s life, I think it is imperative that we let the introduction of new Social Justice initiatives lie and put real effort behind restorative justice for the descendants of slavery. Picture being Garifuna, Taino or West African and taken from your homeland. Being made to work with the promise that you will one day be free and being lied to. Those broken promises turned into prayers and those individuals became ancestors. Their ties to their native lands were severed and they, in their resilience and fighting spirit, created an identity that is not shared with anyone on the planet. The American Descendants Of Slavery brought a different type of culture to the world. People would revel in the fact that through oppression and racism they found time to dance, laugh and create community. America is a nation of immigrants because they made it look easy to survive oppression and racism, as many would come to learn, it ain’t! In this same time, they are also placed under every group of people with a cause, when it comes to resources, even though America wrote a promissory note to their ancestors prior to America’s open opprotunities or borders stating that the descendants of slavery would be first in line to be made WHOLE.
And that was a WHOLE lotta years ago! 166 to be exact. Y’all ancestors made this promise, they clearly thought that y’all would have done more the opportunity. However, greed was the mainstay and y’all sold the country for pennies on the dollar to fill personal pockets and keep the American Descendants Of Slavery from advancing at all costs. The evidence is in the writing of The Civil Rights Act and the current enforcement thereof. The fortunate part is that we are going into a year of release, where y’all can release the negative sentiment that y’all have been harboring toward the Descendants of Slavery while co-oping our language and culture in order to further increase the wealth gap. Let’s take a year and pass laws that protect American Descendants of Slavery from police, from the healthcare system, from the educational systems, from the judicial system and from the governmental systems that are in place. Be vocal about America establishing reparations for the majority of their suffering and allowing their ethnic identity to be afforded to them as recompense for the rest!
When the attitude and conscience is changed to uplift these American citizens and make them finally feel welcome in a place where their ancestors were born, the shift in the psyche of all mankind will be upon us! May this coming year make us more intentional in the words that we speak and in our actions, so that we can convey the goodness that we read about via the word of G-D. I pray that your apples are crisp and your honey is sweet this coming shmita year.
Happy 5782 L’shana Tova.
Nachshon
