Pe'ah 039

1:
At first sight our mishnah seems to be very enigmatic. However, once we establish the identity of the subject of the verbs (i.e. who is 'he' of our mishnah) the matter becomes more clear. The person who is the subject of our mishnah is one of the poor who are reaping the pe'ah from a farmer's field (or collecting pe'ah fruit from his trees, or picking vegetable from his garden beds and so forth).

2:
There was already a worrying sign in the previous mishnayot of this chapter that the actual realization of their pe'ah rights by the indigent was not always idyllic. We recall that the companion term for the equitable distribution of pe'ah from certain sources was 'plunder'. This term is an obvious colloquialism: the poor saw themselves as having the right to 'plunder' the farmer's produce – and the race was to the swiftest to put it minimally. (Worse is to come in later mishnayot of this chapter.)

3:
Our present mishnah gives an example of the less dangerous lengths to which 'plunderers' would go to collect as much pe'ah as they could. In Pe'ah 034 I wrote (very briefly):

'Chattels' in this context is 'removable property' as opposed to 'real estate'. The mishnah in Tractate Kiddushin 1:5 states:

When we studied Tractate Kiddushin (almost eight years ago!) I gave the following explanation:

4:
We can now begin to understand what is being described in our present mishnah. One of the indigent 'plundering' the field has reaped some of the produce; this is now his property – he has 'pulled' it, 'taken' it into his possession. In his greed, instead of bundling up his modest 'plunder' and leaving the rest for others he casts the share of the pe'ah that he has reaped onto other parts of the pe'ah as yet unreaped in order to indicate his assumption of ownership. An alternative would be that he casts himself on the as yet unreaped produce, or throws his cloak over it. Strictly speaking in this manner he acquires any of the pe'ah that comes into his possession.

5:
The Gemara [Pe'ah 18a] quotes Rabbi Me'ir:

The courts have the right to deprive someone of their property in order to enforce obedience to the law (or to the court). In the case of our miscreant 'plunderer', he is fined for his greedy behaviour by losing not only that which he hoped to add to his haul, but also by being deprived by law of his original haul as well.

6:
Of course, one can imagine such people making all kinds of excuses that might obviate this fine: "I didn't do it purposely, I just fell" and so forth. To cover such circumstances the Gemara adds:

7:
Our mishnah also adds that this kind of fine applies not only to such incidents in connection with pe'ah but it also applies to similar behaviour in connection with other 'indigents' rights' [matnot aniyyim].