Hello חברה and thank you for joining as we continue learning together.

I just want to take the opportunity here to do a brief summary of מסכת שביעית.

Now that we've concluded and made a סיום on מסכת שביעית, I always find it helpful to run through all the different topics that we covered, not in vast detail but more to indicate how much we learnt and something brief to jog your memory of what we covered.

So first of all, the מסכתא started off talking about תוספת שמיטה.

The idea that שמיטה doesn't start first on the first day of ראש השנה, but it actually starts at some point earlier and we saw that it either starts around פסח time or שבועות time and certainly from ראש חודש אלול time and then all the things that you have to stop doing like plowing and preparing your field for the next year.

And then we talked about defining what is considered an orchard and then whether or not one is allowed to plow an orchard and up until what period of time.

And then we talked about other work that may be permitted in a field leading up to the שמיטה and we then sped on to the maintenance of trees and fruit because one thing that you're not allowed to do is improve your land but you are allowed to make sure that your trees and your fruits do not get harmed during שמיטה.

And then we talked about whether you're allowed to plant ahead of שמיטה or not and then we skipped ahead to fertilizing a field and we learned a lot about the best ways to fertilize and how you can go about fertilizing your field or making sure that the fertilizer and the dung that is collected in your home can be put out into the field without it looking like you are fertilizing a field, but you also do need to clear out your house.

Then we talked about clearing and fencing a field because there are so many lots of rocks and stones in your field and if you want to clear that out especially if you need it for building purposes or maybe making a fence around your field, we spoke about that.

And then we talked about the איסור of wasting fruit.

One is not allowed to use שמיטה, the פירות of שמיטה in an improper way.

If they're meant to be eaten you have to eat them and if they're meant for animal food then you have to give them to animal food and you're not allowed to use them inappropriately.

And then we skipped ahead to determining when שמיטה applies to various different fruits and how do you determine whether שמיטה is applying to these fruits or not.

And then we talked about the איסור of selling farming implements.

Unfortunately there are people who are suspected of working their fields on the שמיטה year or dealing in פירות שמיטה, so we had a series of משניות where we talked about how to deal with that in reality, how do you live amongst people who may not be on the same level of observance with you?

So we talked about selling farming implements and again interacting with your neighbors and other situations as well.

And then we talked about dividing ארץ ישראל into various different regions for שמיטה and that's for both שמיטה and as we'll see later also for ביאור of removing the שמיטה produce from your house.

And then we talked a little bit about to which produce the שמיטה apply because certain things that grow in the wild are, there שמיטה does not apply to, it only applies to things that would grow in your fields and orchards and gardens.

And then we talked about the איסור, the prohibition of selling פירות שביעית in large quantities, you're allowed to sell it in small quantities, but certainly acting as a broker of it and making money off of the פירות of שמיטה is something that is אסור and we talked about different ways that that might be accomplished.

And then we talked about the proper use of פירות שמיטה as well, which is the opposite of the wasting of the fruit but even when you're using it properly how to use it.

And then we talked about ביאור which is the removing of פירות, meaning once those fruits and vegetables are no longer available in the fields to the animals one has to take out any of them that he's been storing in his house and putting them out for everybody to use.

And so first of all you have to determine when those fruits are no longer available in the field.

So that we talked about also, there are different regions in ארץ ישראל and how you think about it.

Then we talked about what happens if you have mixtures, a mixture of different vegetables what do you do about ביאור then?

And then once you do ביאור how do you go about it?

You're allowed to keep some of it for yourself, you're allowed to give some of it out to your friends and family three meals worth, but then we said you have to put it out and we said the רמב\"ם actually says you would have to destroy any of the leftover.

And then we turned our attention to ספיחין and ספיחין are the aftergrowths, those are the things that grow on their own.

They're not wild plants but they grow without you planting them.

So certain vegetables, as you're harvesting your grain, the seeds fall into the ground and then they grow again or other vegetables and the fact that the חכמים said that ספיחין are not permitted because we're concerned that people may go and actually plant them and we can't determine whether or not somebody violated שמיטה or not, so the חכמים made a particularly strong איסור here of not utilizing ספיחין and not even eating them, meaning to say that it's even stronger than the פירות שמיטה and finally we spent the last פרק was all about שמיטת כספים, the idea of moving away from the land itself but the idea that שמיטה wipes away debts and we talked about the idea that first of all שמיטת...

And then finally we talked about whether or not you is are you allowed to if someone wants to pay you back are you allowed to accept it but more importantly if you that the Chachamim were encouraging you to even pay back your debts even after Shmitas Ksaphim as well.

And so that's just a brief summary of what we learned over the Masechta, and I hope and I wish that continuing hatzlacha in all your learning.