PROZBUL The Torah (Deut. 15:2) prescribes that all debts be canceled in the seventh year. In the late Second Temple period, however, Hillel noted that the wealthy were refusing to give loans to the poor as the seventh year approached, knowing that they might be unable to reclaim their money. This was in direct contravention of the Torah (see Deut. 15:9). Seeing that the poor were suffering, Hillel devised the prozbul, a legal agreement by which the lender transfers his loan to the Beit Din, thus circumscribing the release of debts (Mishna, Gittin 34b). A prozbul is usually written on the last day of a sabbatical year.