The seventh year — when the land of Eretz Yisrael keeps a Shabbos. All 89 Mishnayos across 10 Perakim, recorded and live.
The mesechta moves through the three faces of Shmita: Shevisas HaAretz — the land rests, and what it gives becomes ownerless; Kedushas HaPeiros — the produce of the seventh year is holy, not to be wasted or traded; and Shemittas Kesafim — at the year’s end, debts are released, and Hillel’s pruzbul answers what that release did to lenders and borrowers alike.
Carry four questions through every perek: When? — the timing and its reach. What work? — permitted and forbidden. To what? — which produce the kedushah grips. Where? — the borders within which it all applies.
A mesechta is a room full of voices. These are the Tannaim you will hear most, counted from the Mishnayos in which they speak:
Counts derived from the color-coded text of each Mishnah.
Sheviis is where the Mishnah gathers the seventh year into one home — but the idea does not stay there. Dozens of Mishnayos across Shas, from Peah to Bava Metzia to Sanhedrin, touch Shemittah and what it does to produce, debts, land and trust between people.
The collection: Mishnayos Related to Shemittah — on Sefaria →
One day, a series of its own. For now, a map of how far the seventh year reaches.
The Torah gives Shmita a brief mention in Mishpatim and its fuller account in Behar — and then the land itself carried it: from Ezra’s pledge through Alexander, the Maccabees, Herod, Agrippa and Bar Kochba, some seven hundred years of a kept Shmita are traceable in the Mishnah’s world. Why? Ki laHashem ha’aretz — the land, and all it brings forth, are His.
Every Mishnah here can be heard today on Zeman Nakat Radio — the mesechta introduction, a perek introduction before each perek, and all 89 Mishnayos with follow-along text. Full cards arrive Mishnah by Mishnah in the Mishnah Library.
THE LIVED MISHNAH