Shamat

...is Hebrew for "to release."

About four or five years ago, my husband gave me The Five Books of Moses - it's a new translation (well, new when he gave it to me) by Robert Alter - he tried to capture not only the literal meaning of the Hebrew but the lyrical sense of it as well. It's a rather impressive work and I hadn't opened it in a long time.

I ended up in Exodus, Chapter 23 and the footnote for "But in the seventh you shall let it go and let it lie fallow, and your people's indigent may eat of it, and what is left, the beast of the field will eat" (Ex. 23:11) taught me the word shamat.

I rather love the feel of that word and if there's one thing I must do, it is shamat.

Let it go.

Release.