Pe'ah 073

נושא: Pe'ah

Pe'ah 073

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

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When someone is pruning vines, just as he may prune his own so may he prune that which belongs to the poor. This is the view of Rabbi Yehudah. Rabbi Me'ir says that while he is entitled [to prune] his own he is not entitled [to prune] that which belongs to the poor.

The School of Shammai say that a Fourth-year Vineyard does not entail the [addition of one] fifth and does not entail removal. The School of Hillel say that it does. The School of Shammai say that it does entail peret and olelot and that the poor may redeem it themselves, whereas the School of Hillel say that it should all goes to the [owner's] vat.

1:
Mishnah 5 is very simple. Sometimes the farmer sees a need to prune his vines. Thinning out the vine by removing branches and clusters is intended to produce a bigger yield from that vine in the future. However, it is obvious that some of what is growing on the vine will eventually belong to the poor under the 'poor law'. Is the farmer permitted to thin out the vine when some of it technically does not belong to him, as it were?

2:
Two differing answers to this question are given in mishnah 5: that of Rabbi Yehudah bar-Ilai and that of Rabbi Me'ir. Rabbi Me'ir holds that the farmer may not thin out his vine because some of the vine and its produce belongs to the poor. The Gemara [Pe'ah 20b] explains that Rabbi Me'ir sees the situation as being similar to the situation when someone sells produce to a buyer. When this is the case the seller, obviously, has no right to remove what the buyer has paid for. Rabbi Me'ir obviously sees the poor as the buyers.

3:
Rabbi Yehudah sees the relationship differently. When two people act in partnership, thus jointly owning the property as it were, one of the partners may do to their joint property whatever might benefit the property and improve it. Halakhah follows the view of Rabbi Yehudah and the farmer is certainly permitted to prune his vines in order to improve their yield.

4:
Mishnah 6 introduces a new term: a Fourth-year vineyard. This is not the first time we have discussed the biblical verses that lie at the heart of this law. Here is what we wrote in Sotah 086:

The Torah [Leviticus 19:23-25] legislates concerning a newly planted vineyard. This is known in rabbinic parlance as Kerem Reva'i. The term means "fourth-year vineyard", and refers back to the biblical law:

When you arrive in the land and you plant all kinds of fruit trees, you shall 'circumcise' their fruit: for three years [from its planting, the fruit of the tree] shall be considered by you to be 'uncircumcised' and it shall not be eaten. All the fruit [of that tree that grows] during the fourth year shall be consecrated to God. In the fifth year you may eat of its fruit…

While the terminology is rather quaint and surprising, the import of the law is quite clear: after a tree has been planted in Eretz-Israel its fruit shall not be eaten during the first four years of its growth. The fruit of the first three years is completely forbidden, the fruit of the fourth year must be dedicated 'to God', and only from the fifth year onwards may the fruit of the tree be eaten 'normally'. The term 'dedicated to God' was understood by the sages as meaning that the fruit – or its equivalent worth in money – must be consumed in Jerusalem, the home of the Bet Mikdash, the palace of the Divine King. This is the reference in our present mishnah to the soldier who has a new vineyard but has not yet had the opportunity to 'desanctify it' in order to start using its fruit in the fifth year.

5:
Bet Shammai hold that the laws of bi'ur and pidyon do not apply to a fourth-year vineyard. Bet Hillel disagree, but let us first explain the view of Bet Shammai. First of all bi'ur. This too is a term that we explained when we studied Tractate Sotah [Sotah 070]:

… The agriculturalist must separate Terumot and Ma'aserot from each year's produce and give them to priests, Levites and the indigent as appropriate. However, people being what they are in all times and all places, we can well imagine that many neglected to make these donations during the first three or last three years of the seven year Shemittah cycle. In such a case the amount that should have been set aside must preferably be given to an appropriate recipient (in each case), or at the very least, it must be removed from the donor's house as a prelude to distributing it. This removal is termed bi'ur, and it must be completed before the evening of the first day of Pesaĥ in the fourth or seventh year of the cycle…

The Torah [Deuteronomy 26:12] stipulates:

When you have finished tithing all the tithes of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within your gates, and be filled.

It is this verse which is interpreted by the sages as being the basis of the requirement for Bi'ur Ma'aser, the physical removal of the as yet undonated produce – or its value at the very least.

The continuing verses [Deuteronomy 26:13-15] contain the declaration which the farmer must make at this time:

I have put away the holy things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, and to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all Your commandment which You have commanded me: I have not transgressed any of Your commandments, neither have I forgotten them. I have not eaten of it … neither have I put away of it … I have listened to the voice of my God; I have done according to all that You have commanded me. Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the land which You have given us, as You promised our ancestors – a land flowing with milk and honey.

6:
Thus Bet Shammai hold that the law of bi'ur does not apply to what grows in a new vineyard in the fourth year of its growth.

To be continued.

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