Every once in a while we like to bring you chizook from the trenches, making note of those events which fortify the faithful observance of Torah and mitzvos.  This is a shmittah year, which makes the use of certain agricultural products grown in Israel halachically problematic.  Without going into details the reliance on heter machira, the easy way out, is becoming increasingly unacceptable.  So much so that a case was brought before the Israeli Supreme Court to enforce the contractual rights of restaurants to rely on the official published policy of the kashrus association governing their establishments as opposed to the mashgichim who were making the inspections.  Otzer Bes Din has become the preferred method of dealing with shmittah produce.

Two shmittah stories have recently appeared in the press which some hard-to-impress people are calling miraculous.  The first tells of a banana grower near Tiberias, the second a potato farmer in the Negev. Check out the links and see for yourself.