Joshua Heschel Margolies of Vishnyeva. Kuntres Kol HaTor Nishmah Be’Artzeinu.

The Shemita year of 1888 was the first time since the era of the Mishnah that a substantial number of farmers worked the land in Eretz Israel. These were settlers who came to the Holy Land under the inspiration of the Chovevei Tzion movement and other nascent expressions of Zionism. Facing deep economic pressure, it became apparent that observing the Shemita and allowing the land to lie fallow for the year as prescribed by the Torah was impossible; hence certain rabbis, including leading decisors such as Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, permitted farming after a temporary sale of the land to non-Jews. Other rabbis vehemently opposed this leniency as illegitimate. In this work, R. Yoshua Heschel b. Eliyahu Margolies (1844-1938) refutes the heter mechira, the leniency employed by most of the farmer settlers of Eretz Israel. This work was included by the Netziv, who supported the settlement in Eretz Israel but not the heter mechira, in his responsa Meishiv Devar (Vol. 2, after no. 96). This copy contains <<extensive manuscript annotations>> on several pages by Rabbi Eliezer Sirkes (1880-1952). Sirkes was the first president of the Agudath Israel in of Zgierz before he emigrated to Eretz Israel in 1935.