Abstracts vi [ ] political changes under Roman rule and in face of an ongoing difficulty in observing sabbatical year prohibitions . The article looks at two central issues in this context from the perspective of the halakhic system in two talmudic passages . In the opening passage of Tractate Shevi’it sages debate over the conceptualization of the drastic halakhic changes of their time and the change they present to the authority of halakhah, both with regard to previous generations’ authority and with regard to the intolerable gulf between the canonic halakhah and that being practiced, and surprising models are proposed . In the second passage, which concludes the agricultural section of the tractate, we find a series of stories that reflect sensitivity to the complex dialectical relationship between the rabbinic establishment and non - rabbinic Jews around them, which frequently includes turning a blind halakhic eye to what the latter do . Taken together, the two passages frame the ...
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