Pe'ah 001
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BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
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This shiur is dedicated by Moshe Mendelowitz with prayers for a Refuah Shelemah for his uncle, Harav Dov Ze'ev Ben Penina Perilee – Rabbi William Horn of Summit New Jersey. The prayers are from Moshe, Rosanne, Rachel and Dylan Mendelowitz, and all of us.
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אֵלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם שִׁעוּר: הַפֵּאָה, וְהַבִּכּוּרִים, וְהָרֵאָיוֹן, וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה. אֵלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאָדָם אוֹכֵל פֵּרוֹתֵיהֶן בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְהַקֶּרֶן קַיֶּמֶת לוֹ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא: כִּבּוּד אָב וָאֵם, וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, וַהֲבָאַת שָׁלוֹם בֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ; וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנֶגֶד כֻּלָּם:
The following are things which have no limit: the Edge of the Field, the First-Fruits, the Appearance-Offering, acts of kindness and the Study of Torah. The following are things whose profits a person enjoys in this world while the capital remains for him in the world to come: Love of father and mother, acts of kindness, bringing about peace between one person and another – and the study of Torah is equal to them all.
EXPLANATIONS:
1:
The first mishnah of the first chapter of Tractate Pe'ah is well-known since it forms part of the daily Torah-study which the sages built-in to the early morning service and which is in all traditional prayer-books. (For example, in Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat it is to be found on page 64 and in Siddur Va'ani Tefillati on page 20.) However, in the siddur the version is slightly different because the second part of the mishnah is replaced with an almost identical passage from the Gemara [Shabbat 127a]. This passage adds the following to this list of "things whose profits a person enjoys in this world while the capital remains for him in the world to come":
Timely attendance in the House of Study morning and evening, hospitality, visiting the sick, dowering a bride, burying the dead and concentration at prayer.
2:
The Reisha [first part] of our mishnah is concerned with "things which have no limit". This refers to mitzvot [commands of the Torah] which have no fixed limit as to their extent in time or scope. Most of the mitzvot of the Torah are very carefully limited. Their limits were set either by the Written Torah itself or by the sages expatiating on the written text through hermeneutics [Midrash ha-Torah]. (This means they derive a statement that for them is implicit in the text and make it explicit.) 3:
4: 5:
The Torah [Deuteronomy 26:1-11] requires the agriculturalist to present annually the first-fruits of his land to the Bet Mikdash… It would perhaps be useful first of all to present the original requirement of the Torah:
When you come to the land which God gives you as your inheritance and you take possession of it and reside in it, you shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you shall harvest from the land that God gives you; and you shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place where God shall cause his name to dwell. You shall come to the priest who shall be in those days, and tell him, "I state this day to God that I have come to the land which God promised our ancestors He would give us." The priest shall take the basket out of your hand, and set it down before God's altar. You shall speak up and say before God: "My ancestor was a wandering Aramean who went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. But the Egyptians maltreated us, afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. So we cried to the God of our ancestors, and God heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression; and God brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders; and He has brought us into this place, and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Now, as you see, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which You, God, have given me." You shall set it down before God and make obeisance before God. And you shall rejoice in all the good which your God has given to you and to your household – you, and the Levite, and the foreigner who is in your midst.
Tractate Bikkurim [First-Fruits] of the Mishnah describes how each year, while it was still in the ground and on the trees, the farmers would mark produce which looked handsome and wholesome and designate it as their first-fruits donation. People from all around the area would gather together to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem together with their produce so that each locality was represented by a large contingent. As they approached Jerusalem they would decorate their first-fruits in huge baskets, and they would enter the holy city with musical accompaniment and a joyous procession. Each procession would be greeted by representatives from the city and from the Bet Mikdash, who would conduct them with great ceremony to the Temple precincts.
It is but natural that most contingents arrived around the time of the festival of Shavu'ot, because that was the beginning of the main harvest season. It is for this reason that in modern Israel the festival of Shavu'ot has been associated with Bikkurim [first-fruits] – especially, but not exclusively, among the non-religious. In practice, each locality would proceed to Jerusalem according to its own natural time-table: places (such as Jericho) where the fruits ripened already in the warm winter might even be found presenting their first-fruits around Ĥanukah time! The main pressure of such visits was, of course, between Shavu'ot and Sukkot – the two terminal points of the summer months. Upon arriving at the precincts of the Bet Mikdash each contingent would pass straight through the Temple courtyards. They would re-assemble in the so-called Court of the Women and then, one-by-one the farmers would be invited to ascend the flight of fifteen steps that led from the Court of the Women into the priestly court where the main altar was. A priest would conduct the farmer to the altar where he would place his decorated basket of first-fruits in any space available at the foot of the altar…
6:
Neither the Torah not the sages set any limit to the amount of first-fruits which each basket is to hold, nor indeed to the number of baskets that each farmer could bring. To be continued. |