Avot314

24:
Plague comes to the world because of … seventh-year produce. The Torah [Exodus 23:10-11] legislates quite clearly concerning the working of the land in Eretz-Israel every seventh year:

Thus, in the seventh year of every cycle of seven years the agriculturalist must refrain from working his land: he may not sow nor reap nor perform certain other tasks of maintainance. His fields must be completely open to all-comers, so that anybody may enter his fields at any time during that year and collect anything that has grown of its own accord.

25:
We can readily appreciate that the more sophisticated farming became the less appreciative the farmers were of this piece of Torah legislation. In fact, from a certain time onwards it may well have been "a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance." The Torah [Leviticus 26:33-35] threatens dire consequences for non-observance of this rule:

Thus, the Babylonian exile is seen here as the result of non-observance of Shemittah, the Sabbath of the Land.

26:
By mishnaic times the sages really did not know what to do about the sabbatical year. Clearly, it was not universally observed, but apart from exhortion and a plea to observe Torah law there did not seem to be much that they could do. Indeed, Rabbi Judah the President of the Sanhedrin (and the compiler of the Mishnah) seems to have wanted to abolish the law by declaring that it was not applicable since the first exile. This move was vehemently opposed by some of his colleagues. The result was that it was declared that observance of the Shemittah year was now required only by rabbinic legislation and not by Torah law. Furthermore, Rabbi declared certain areas and townships to be outside the areas in which this ruling was to apply.

To be continued.

In our present mishnah the sages imply that the whole people of Israel is to be severely punished because of the unseemly behaviour of a small group.

Mark Lautman writes:

In Avot 312 you gave the example that if a baker does not separate Challah (or does not use some trick or other) there will be general starvation. In other words, the whole people are to starve in the event that a group of bakers do not separate Challah. Is this correct? If it is, it would seem that the sages justify collective punishment because of an infingement by a small part of the public. Are there other examples of this in the Mishnah?

I respond:

The sages could hardly do otherwise than accept the principle of collective punishment, since the principle is enunciated quite clearly in the Torah itself. In the Ten Commandments, for example [Exodus 20:5], we are told that God punishes the children for the sins of the parents. There are many more examples in scripture of the innocent suffering for the sins of the guilty. It is true that later prophets – Jeremiah and Ezekiel – propounded a teaching of personal responsibility, but this was never seen as overriding the biblical concept of collective responsibility.