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22 Kislev 5760 - December 1, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Center for Halachic Agriculture's Efforts to Curtail Orlah Begin to Bear Fruit

by Moshe Schapiro

Three years ago a representative of the Center of Halachic Agriculture walked into the offices of one of Israel's major citrus product manufacturers and presented company officials with a proposal they couldn't turn down. The center, run by Rav Yosef Efrati under the guidance of HaRav Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, is dedicated to raising the level of observance and knowledge of all the laws connected to the land of Israel.

The representative, armed with charts and statistics reflecting the market research conducted by the center, showed the company that it could increase its sales significantly by making its products suitable for the religious consumer. All the company had to do was ensure that the fruit it received from its suppliers was free of orlah.

"It doesn't sound so simple," grumbled one company executive.

"But it is," assured the representative. "Just give me a list of your suppliers, and I'll guarantee that they'll soon be supplying you with orlah-free fruit."

A Win-Win Situation

After meeting with company executives, the Center's representative approached the farmers supplying the company with citrus fruits and explained the company's dilemma.

"My client would like all of its products to be 100% orlah- free," he said, "but it's just not being provided with suitable fruit."

Many of the farmers wanted to cooperate but did not see how they could remain financially viable were they to abide by the laws of orlah, which prohibit the use of fruit during a tree's first three years.

With a sweep of the arm, they would gesture toward their newest fields of citrus saplings, recently shipped from greenhouses and transplanted. Painstakingly placed in black soil, each equidistant from the next, the hundreds of slender trees spread in rows across the acreage, motionless, tranquil yet vibrant with the promise of fruit.

The farmers sighed helplessly. Were they expected to let their saplings stand untouched for three profitless years?

Again, the Center representative offered a solution.

Months earlier, Rav Efrati, the center's director, had called upon Dr. Sachs, the center's chief research scientist, to find a way of making orlah observance more economically feasible for citrus growers.

Dr. Sachs focused upon the problem of transplantation. Unfortunately, replanting tree saplings from the greenhouse to the field restarted their halachic clock -- with 2 years and 364 days left of orlah! If the substantial time of early growth in the greenhouse could somehow be salvaged and included in the three-year count, the farmers' wait would be markedly reduced.

A mishna in seder Zeraim provided a doorway. According to the mishna (Orlah 1:3), a tree whose roots remain covered with enough original soil to keep it alive may be transplanted without resetting the orlah count. Dr. Sachs soon perfected a technique of soil retention, and the Center contacted a number of greenhouses that supply citrus growers with saplings and taught them the method.

More than 70 greenhouses throughout Israel now employ Dr. Sachs' technique, and hundreds of farmers are replanting these saplings in their own fields and marketing their fruit as orlah-free.

Today, all of the products of that particular citrus manufacturer are, indeed, orlah-free.

Dr. Yehoshua Klein, a colleague at the center, called the implementation of Dr. Sachs' technique a "win-win situation, where everybody gains.

"Growers get more production from their trees, and consumers get orlah-free produce," he said, adding with a smile that even growers on non-religious kibbutzim and moshavim get extremely excited about marketing their fruit to the vast numbers of religious consumers.

The Beginning of a New Stage

While Dr. Sachs concedes that it will take another few years before all citrus fruits in Israel are free of orlah, the center is well on its way to realizing that goal.

"This is the beginning of a new stage in the fight against orlah," he says.

Dr. Sachs explains that of the 600,000 saplings planted in Israel in 1997, some 500,000 were planted under the Center's auspices. Approximately 1.5 million trees, therefore, have since been planted that will produce fruit untainted by orlah. As a result, the rate of problematic occurrences will be dramatically lowered.

"This number is only going to rise," Sachs says.

Winning the "Fight" Against Orlah

The Center for Halachic Agriculture has been "fighting" against orlah since its inception in 1957.

"Brainstorming," however, may better describe what Rav Efrati and his center have been doing to prevent consumers from unknowingly eating orlah fruit.

"We've found," says Chaim Shore, spokesman for the center, "that the most effective way of raising the level of kashrus in Eretz Yisroel is by rolling up our sleeves and getting involved at the ground level."

Shore explains that while there are many religious Jews who look for a good hechsher that will not allow orlah before buying fruit, they only amount to approximately 10 percent of the population.

"We have to reach the other ninety percent," says Shore, "and we've found that in this and other projects the best way to do it is not by arguing about what is and isn't right with the system, but by finding solutions within the system."


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