The coming year is going to be shmitah, every seven years, the seventh year is called shmitah. Shmitah has a lot of halachot (laws) such as rest the land. Even though these laws apply only to Eretz Israel, there is a possibility for people outside of Eretz Israel to relate to it. In first instance, Shmitah is like the Shabbat of the years, it is not
possible not to do any melacha (work) for an entire year, so that is why there are some laws that do apply, mainly in regards to the land.
Shmitah is a year where the concept of not doing a melacha is latent making it comparable to Shabbat. Because of this special quality, there is a big debate between the mekubalim (kabbalists) about if the meditations should change because of shmitah or not. There are many mekubalim in the Bet-El yeshiva, where they follow the ways of the Rashash, that do
not do the meditations of the beginning of the prayer until the word “b-ahava”.
To understand why the split in the prayer is in the word “b-ahava”and why the split on working or not working the land, we have to establish some concepts first; the beginning of the prayer is called “the building of the back side” and the second part of the prayer is called “the building of the front part”. The link between these two parts is the word
“b-ahava”, this link has a tremendous impact in the whole process of the tikun. So, the Rashash explains, that during shmitah year, the work of the back side is getting done by itself, we do not have to make any of the meditations, we only...
