Pe'ah 005
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BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
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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 (continued):
21: Our mishnah also praises the duty of being a peace-maker. It has been said that there are two social values which may be indicated as supreme values in the weltanschauung of the Torah: Justice and Peace. The Hebrew word for peace, 'Shalom' does not indicate a mere negative state: absence of conflict and war. It rather indicates a general sense of well-being and tranquil security. Furthermore, it does not merely indicate a passive state – a state in which one wishes to live one's life. It also indicates a duty to be active in order to bring about this state as much as possible. If one may paraphrase William Shakespeare, In the Jewish tradition peace is not a desideratum devoutly to be wished, but rather a desideratum actively to be pursued. This is best exemplified by the advice and encouragement of the psalmist [Psalm 34:15]:
Avoid wrong and do good, seek peace and pursue it.
And a much later sage in a well-known midrash [Leviticus Rabba 9:9] amplifies these words: "seek it in your own place and pursue it in another place".
And an even later sage, Rashi [in his commentary on Leviticus 26:6] notes that "if there is not peace, there is nothing". 22:
Bar-Kappara says: Great is peace for scripture utters a falsehood in order to preserve the peace between Abraham and Sarah. For she says [Genesis 18:12] "shall I have the pleasure [of bearing a child] when my lord [Abraham] is [now too] old?" But to Abraham God does not report so, but says [that Sarah said] "I am too old [to bear a child]".
23:
There is another well-known midrash concerning Aaron the peacemaker. This midrash is based on a biblical verse [Malachi 2:6] describing the virtues of the ideal priest:
The Torah of truth was in his mouth and no wrong was to be found on his lips; he walked with Me [God] in peace and equity and kept many from sinning.
The midrash on this verse [Yalkut Shim'oni 2:583] describes Aaron, the first priest, as deliberately giving a warm greeting to anyone who might have offended him so that on the morrow that person would be too ashamed to continue or extend the quarrel. Similarly, the midrash describes how, when two people were embroiled in a quarrel from which they could not extricate themselves he would go to one of them and tell him – an untruth, perhaps – how the other was so upset and so full of regrets and how he admitted that it was he who was responsible… Then he would do exactly the same with the other party involved, so that when they met there was an idyllic embrace.
24: To be continued. DISCUSSION:
I wrote: However, as the Reisha of our mishnah teaches, there are five mitzvot for which no limit has been set, and one can never consider that one has fulfilled the duty and need no longer concern oneself with it..
Yiftah Shapir writes: Your explanation did an interesting turn-about. The examples you gave on the previous passage – all refer to a minimal requirement – not a maximum. The minimal requirement for Matzah, the minimal requirement for Shofar, etc. Thus I understood Ein lahen Shi'ur to mean that there is no minimal requirement. Thus, for example, a person who brings to Jerusalem just one apple might feel that he has fulfilled his obligation for Bikkurim !!! Is that so?? I respond: What the phrase means is that the Written Torah gave no special limits to the extent to which these mitzvot were to be performed. I would have thought that some of the later explanations made implicitly clear that there certainly were mitzvot with no maximum limits – such as loving behaviour towards parents and acts of beneficial kindness towards others. Human nature, being what it is, caused the sages to be concerned with setting certain minimal and maximal requirements, even where the Written Torah was content to leave this to the individual. We shall see how they set a minimal limit, for instance, to Pe'ah; and we have already seen how they set a maximal limit even to something as important as the giving of charity. As far as Bikkurim [First-Fruits] is concerned: the very fact that this was a mitzvah that was almost invariably performed with a great many other people meant that social pressure and an innate sense of competition prompted most farmers to err on the side of generosity in the arrangement of their baskets of produce. Since the mitzvah itself was an outward expression of gratitude it is hardly likely that one would be miserly in expressing that gratitude to heaven. |