ABSTRACT
Deuteronomy 15 ( A5 ) prescribes the cancellation of loans in the sabbatical year. This text describes a legal instrument, the prozbul, invented by the sage Hillel, designed to evade such a cancellation (see also Mishnah Gittin 4:3). Hillel’s goal, according to this Mishnah, was to encourage continued lending to the poor, especially as the sabbatical year approached. The prozbul transferred all of a loaner’s notes to the court but should the court refuse to collect then he retains the right to do so. It works because the sabbatical year does not cancel debts owed to a court. The prozbul was controversial in rabbinic circles and it is unclear if it was ever used, but it is an important precedent for rabbinic thinking about how to reconcile utopian biblical strictures with hard economic realities.
