Pe'ah 071

נושא: Pe'ah

Pe'ah 071

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

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What is 'Peret'? [It is] that which falls during the vintage. If one were cutting grapes [and] tore off a cluster which then got caught in the leaves, fell to the ground and became 'Peret' – this belongs to the owner. Anyone who places a receptacle under a vine during the vintage is [in fact] robbing the poor. To this [kind of behaviour] the verse applies, "Do not remove the ancient border".

1:
Having dealt in this tractate so far with the major issues of pe'ah, leket and shikheĥah, our present mishnah now turns our attention to what goes on in the vineyard at harvest time. (The fact that this quite major change does not occur at the start of a new chapter should not surprise us: I have now pointed out more than once that in this tractate, after the section dealing with pe'ah, the allocation of the mishnayot to the various sub-topics does not seem logical. When we studied 4:10 [Peah 046] I wrote a comment that is just as appropriate here (mutatis mutandis):

What is surprising is the fact that this new topic is introduced in the middle of a chapter. For four and one half chapters we have been discussing the mitzvah of pe'ah and now suddenly, in the middle of chapter 4 and with no apparent logical connection, the topic changes from pe'ah to leket [gleaning]. I have no explanation for this sudden change… This change of topic in mid-chapter does not seem to bother the classical commentators, who refrain from any comment, just as the sudden change to the third topic in the middle of chapter 5 does not seem to bother them!

2:
Just as the Torah has allocated certain parts of the cereal crop to the poor, certain parts of the vegetable and fruit harvest to the poor, and certain parts of the olive harvest to the poor, so it also allocates certain parts of the grape harvest to the poor. How important each of these sources was to the agricultural economy of both the farmers and the indigent may be guessed at from the fact that each of these harvests has its own technical term in Hebrew. While the root ktzr is used for harvesting cereal crops the term msk is used to denote the olive harvest and the term btzr to denote the grape harvest.

3:
Let us first remind ourselves of the manner in which the Torah introduces the regulations which are pertinent to our present topic.

You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am your God. [Leviticus 19:10] When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not pick it over again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. [Deuteronomy 24:21].

Just as pe'ah, leket and shikheĥah have been allocated to the poor from other parts of the farmer's yield, so now we learn that also certain parts of the produce of his vineyard also belong to the poor.

4:
Our present mishnah is concerned with what is termed peret. This refers to the grapes which fall from the hands of the workers while they are gathering in the grapes from the vine. Just as the poor were entitled to leket in the field so they were entitled to peret in the vineyard.

5:
Those participating in the harvesting of the grapes (vintage) would have a basket near them – possible attached to their body by straps, or carefully nestling on the branches of the vine next to them. After they had cut a cluster of grapes from the vine they would carefully deposit the cluster in their basket. Anything which fell from their hand during this manoeuvre and reached the ground is termed peret and belongs to the poor.

6:
The second clause of our mishnah gives an example of what does not constitute peret. Imagine a harvester cutting off a cluster of grapes which accidentally falls from his hand because it was entangled in the branches of the vine. The cluster falls to the ground, bursts apart, and separates into its individual grapes. These grapes have reached the ground as the result of a genuine accident and not because of the 'carelessness' of the harvester; therefore they are still the property of the owner. Only individual grapes that fall to the ground belong to the poor.

7:
The last clause of our mishnah interdicts a practice which must have been widespread – otherwise why interdict it? Unscrupulous vintners must have placed baskets – what our mishnah terms a receptacle – under the vine upon which they were working so that the falling grapes would be caught in them and thus not become peret'. This would deprive the poor of their rights under law. It is tantamount to robbery, because by rights those grapes are no longer the property of the owner.

8:
As regards the 'proof-text' which our mishnah brings see what I wrote when we studied 5:6 [Peah 055, explanation #5]. (You will find this and all other previous shiurim of this tractate in our web archive: see link in the blurb below. To access this particular shiur use this link.)

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