Hi, I’m Ezra. I am 11 years old and a 6th Grade student at Oakland Hebrew Day School. I have a twin brother, Jonah, a sister, Maya, and a dog, goldie. My three favorite subjects in school are Art, P.E., and Math. I play Basketball, soccer and golf, those are my favorite sports. My Best friend, Ari, is also doing this project, but is working on something else. My teacher assigned this for me, but I feel like I actually want to do this. Anway, thank you so much for creating this project. It is so much fun.
About Ezra’s land
When you look at this photo, you think, oh it’s just land and a sky. But this picture has many meanings. First, the sky, for the triangle I added the three aspects of Shmita, שבת לקהילה, resting the land, debt release, and in the middle is שבת לך. שבת לך means “the Shabbat to yourself”, like taking a break from work or forgiving/releasing debt. Next is the color change of the sky. It starts as yellow and goes all the way up to black. Each color represents the level of Shmita, the yellow is more of resting the land because it is closest to the land. And black is up in the sky where heaven is, so black is like we are resting in heaven. more of resting yourself. So as the colors get darker, Shmita is more about yourself. Lastly, the land, there are so many things in the land that I drew. One of them is the crow, the crow represents a funeral, and a funeral is for death. So when I drew the crow it was supposed to mean that it was at the land’s funeral because the land hasn’t been worked so the crops died. The other symbol is the water, water is a cycle, it evaporates, goes up to the sky, then comes back down in rain or snow, and repeats. Shmita is also a cycle.