Rabbi Menashe East

This song provides a personal story overlay to the experience of shmittah. 6 years are chaotic; ups and downs. Fear and celebration. That is the agricultural experience and that is the relational-familial arch as well. The sound quickens with each stanza to highlight the intensity of life and the press that the normal time imposes on work, family. Then in year seven the break arrives. The bridges in the song – the hebrew verses – one from Leviticus and the other from Psalms- emphasize the break, the return to peace. One who plants with tears will reap with joy.