PESACH: Selling chametz to a non-Jew is common practice - but why not the same for Shmita land?

The sale of chametz is a halachic procedure, the purpose of which is to deal with the prohibition of chametz being in the possession of a Jew during Passover. Thus, chametz is no longer the property of the Jew, and it is no longer forbidden to keep chametz on Pesach.

The source of the method of sale is already mentioned in the Tosefta: A Jew and a non-Jew who were not in the ship and chametz were in the hands of Israel, they sold it to a non-Jew and gave it as a gift, and he returned and took it from him after Pesach, provided that they gave it to him as a complete gift. A Jew may say to a non-Jew, "Until you take it for a hundred, take it for two hundred, lest I need to come and take it from you after Pesach."

In contrast, heter mechira refers to the sale of land in Eretz Yisrael to a non-Jew in order to permit agricultural work during the shmita year. And now most of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox rabbis are completely opposed to this permit.

If so, why is the sale of chametz perceived as a legitimate and even acceptable halakhic solution, while the heter of sale for shmita arouses such strong opposition?

The Chazon Ish emphasizes that in a heter mechira, there is no real intention in a person's heart to sell the land, and the sale is perceived as only a fiction. In contrast, in the case of the sale of chametz, the goal is to prevent a violation of the prohibition of "bal yera'eh" (that he should not see chametz in his possession), and therefore there is a true will to sell, even though the chances of the actual sale being realized are low.

Rabbi Elyashiv zt"l also noted the fundamental difference between the two types of sales. According to him, in the case of the sale of chametz and the permit for a transaction, the seller has no real objection to the execution of the transaction as it is defined. If the non-Jew pays the specified amount for the chametz, he will receive it without any claims. Similarly, in the case of a transaction permit, the bank and its customers have no objection that the definition of the transactions between them will be as written in the transaction deed.

In contrast, in the case of a permit for the sale of land during the shmita year, the picture is completely different. If a non-Jew comes with significant financial backing and asks to implement the deal and purchase all the land in the Land of Israel, "no one will take him, the sellers, seriously." In other words, the real intention of the sellers is not to really sell the land.

Moreover, it should be remembered that there are other halakhic problems with the permissibility of selling land on shmita in addition to the issue of piling up, such as the prohibition of "you shall not beg them," the question of whether the sale to a non-Jew does indeed expropriate the sanctity of shmita, and the types of labor that are permitted.