[Directly] from the threshing-floor we do not give the indigent less than one half of one
kav of wheat and one
kav of barley (Rabbi Me'ir says: one half of one
kav); one
kav and one half of spelt and one
kav of dried figs (or one
maneh [if as] a fig ring (Rabbi Akiva says: half of one
maneh); one half of a
log of wine (Rabbi Akiva says: one quarter); one quarter of oil (Rabbi Akiva says: one eighth). Other fruits: Abba Sha'ul says, enough to sell and buy
[with the proceeds] food for two meals.
This measure applies to priests, Levites and Israelites [alike]. If he was 'rescuing' he should retain half and give half. If he only had a little [to give] he should set before them [what he has] and they divide it between them.
8:
We have already noted that, unlike all the other 'poor dues' which were intended to be harvested by the poor themselves, the Indigent's Tithe (which is the subject of our mishnah) was distributed to them by the farmer himself. During the 3rd and 6th year of each
Shemittah cycle the poor would present themselves at the doors of the local farmers and request their share of his crop under the terms of the "indigent's tithe". The farmer could not refuse this request as long as he had not yet completely distributed the full amount of the tithe. On the other hand, it is natural that farmers with kindly hearts would wish to distribute the foodstuffs that they had available for the poor to as many people as possible. This could result in each poor person receiving so little that what they did receive would not answer even minimal needs. This is why mishnah 5 stipulates minimal amounts that must be offered to each applicant – until the amount of the tithe has been completed.
9:
According to Tanna Kamma each applicant was to be given the following: 0.96 litres of wheat, 1.92 litres of barley, 2.88 litres of spelt, 1.92 litres of dried figs (loose), 0.48 litres of wine and 0.24 litres of oil. In tannaïtic times it seems that most goods were sold by capacity rather than by weight, as is customary nowadays. Presumably there were scoops and ladles and spoons of the required measurements that dished out the required amounts into receptacles brought by the applicants themselves.
10:
These amounts are not overly generous. Presumably the poor would get an amount that would serve their minimal needs by collecting their tithe from several farmers and not just from one. By way of illustration let us note that the amount of oil that each farmer would give to an applicant was about one quarter of a bottle of oil as is usually retailed today.
11:
The amounts stipulated by Tanna Kamma are not accepted by all the sages. It is possible that the amounts indicated by the dissident views reflect local customs; alternatively, they might reflect changes in the number of poor to be accommodated: when poverty was rampant each applicant would inevitably get less. The dissident views all halve the amounts due: Rabbi Me'ir would allocate to a poor person only half the amount of barley that the same person would receive according to Tanna Kamma; Rabbi Akiva similarly halves the amounts of wine and oil made available. This is indeed strange since both sages had personally known acute poverty at some time in their lives. It seems to me that these sages were trying to be absolutely fair to both farmer and poor person. Having suffered poverty themselves they knew that the poor learn to make do with much less food than the well-off. The Torah [Deuteronomy 26:12] legislates as follows:
When you have set aside in full the tenth part of your yield – in the third year, the year of the tithe – and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat their fill in your settlements…
On this the sages comment [
Sifré, Ki Tavo, 7] that the farmer must give them an amount that would permit them to 'eat their fill' – which would be less than other people would need to eat their fill. (In any case, halakhah follows
Tanna Kamma and Abba Sha'ul, and not rabbis Me'ir and Akiva.)
12:
Two more (unconnected) points should be noticed. Firstly we should note that figs were sold in two forms: either they were sold loose, as individual figs, or the dried fruit was pressed together to form a ring, called a develah in Hebrew. The second point to be noted is the more general rule attributed to Abba Sha'ul. He says that when the indigent's tithe is given from produce other than the produce specifically mentioned in our mishnah it must afford the applicant the means of assuring two meals – one for himself and one for his wife. It is surely not too far-fetched to assume that this amount (two meals) is related to the other criterion of 'eating their fill'.
13:
Mishnah 6 makes three points. Firstly, all parts of society were to be treated equally as regards the indigent's tithe. But this is not as egalitarian as it would seem at first sight, since the priests and levites were also entitled to their 'levitical dues' – Terumah and Ma'aser Rishon (see previous shiur).
14:
Mishnah 6 also refers to 'rescuing'. This perhaps would be better rendered as 'saving'. It means that the farmer was entitled to set aside part of what he had allocated as Indigent's Tithe in order to give it to needy members of his own circle of acquaintance – family and friends. Our mishnah limits his discretion in this matter to 50 percent.
15:
The last point made by mishnah 6 is that when the amount of the tithe available to the farmer is so small (either because his holdings are small or because his crop failed) that he could not meet even the minimal amounts indicated by mishnah 5 he should just set before the applicants whatever he has available and let them share it among themselves.
