Prozbul - Significance

Significance

Though the practice of the prozbul is largely archaic, its institution has far reaching effects to this day, setting somewhat of a precedent in terms of legal fiction. The decision was groundbreaking and controversial. “Later amoraim expressed their astonishment at the fact that Hillel dared to abrogate the Mosaic institution of the release of all debts every seventh year”. There is a major debate in the Talmud whether rabbis have the authority to uproot from the Torah and the issue of prozbul is one of the first examples of this debate being tested.

Certain rabbis claim that the Jubilee year is commanded by the Torah only when most Jews are in the land of Israel. Thus, as they are dispersed around the world, shmita, like certain other laws, would not be required by the Torah. According to these rabbis, the great Sanhedrin enacted their own law that while in the land of Israel Jews must continue to observe shmita so its observance will not be forgotten (prior to the entire Jewish people's eventual return to the land of Israel).

Thus, if one would agree that shmita does not apply when Israelites are dispersed, Hillel, great as he was, would not have changed a law of the Torah in order to fit the needs of his time. He and his beth din would have enacted a rabbinic exception to a rabbinic law. As the Rambam notes in Shmita V'Yovel perek 9, when most Jews again live in the land of Israel and the observance of the sabbatical and jubilee years are Toraitic commandments, the prozbul will no longer be able to be used. According to this theory, Prozbul, like `eruv, is a rabbinic exception to a rabbinic enactment. Prozbul cannot be used to get around the Torah commanded shmita and yovel, just as `eruv cannot be used to get around the fact that Torah prohibited carrying in the public domain.