Avot192

9:

Tithes are a fence around wealth: As we have noted on very many occasions over the years of our study of various tractates, tithes are a very significant part of a large body of Torah legislation whose purpose apparently is to take some money from those who have it and transfer it to those who need it. The sages called this apparatus Matnot Kehunah [priestly donations] and Matnot Aniyyim [indigent donations], depending on the type of recipient.

10:
Many laws in the Torah seem to be based on the concept that land (or The Land) is not owned by the person who happens to be living off of it. Land belongs to God and to God alone, and it is God who 'leases out' the land to those who seem to 'own' it, as it were. This is most clearly expressed in the Torah [Leviticus 25:23]:

Now, if God is the real owner of the land and the farmer is only holding his land under lease as it were, God, as the lessor, has the right to dictate the terms under which the lease is granted. The terms include the concept that the Divine Lessor permits the human lessee to enjoy the fruits of 'his' land, provided that it is recognized that, by prior agreement, certain parts of the produce of the land are allocated by the Lessor to people other than the lessee. These people are the priests, the Levites and the poverty-stricken. The priests (any priest of the farmer's choice) are entitled to one tenth of the crop; the Levites (again, any Levite of the lessee's choice) is entitled to another tenth (from which he, in turn, must make over one-tenth of his tenth to the priest of his choice). Twice in every seven-year cycle yet another tenth is to be made over to the poor and every seventh year the land must lie fallow and what grows of its own accord belongs to the Divine Lessor who has allocated this produce to anyone who wishes to take some of it. In addition to all this, at every harvest time, the Lessor has allocated certain parts of the crop to the indigent and the poverty-stricken.

11:
Thus, in a very real sense "tithes are a fence around wealth", because they teach the wealthy that what is in their possession is not really theirs and that they are required by law to share what is in their custody with those less fortunate: I am not permitted to enjoy one hundred per cent of what I have and in some cases, such as pe'ah or shemittah, I must stand by and watch others enter my property and take from it whatever they please.

To be continued.

In Avot 190, concerning the cantor's repetition of the Amidah, I wrote: I don't want to be a spoil-sport, but I am often concerned with the way congregations join in with the singing in the repetition of the Amidah by the cantor. Sometimes the singing is so hearty that the cantor can barely be heard at all. In which case we have a grave danger of berakhah le-vatalah – that the cantor will be reciting the benedictions but no one will actually be hearing him or her.

Derek Fields writes:

My experience is that no matter how hearty and off-key the singing, the congregation generally stops before the Hatimah allowing the Shaliach Tzibbur to state the Hatimah alone. I thought that if one hears the Hatimah and is confident that the person who has said it is knowledgeable, then one can answer ”Amen” without fear of making a berakhah le-vatalah.

I respond:

What Derek says is correct concerning most benedictions. However, as regards the benedictions of the Amidah the situation seems to be different. Rabbi Yosef Karo in his Shulĥan Arukh (basing himself on the Tur, which in turn was based on a responsum of the Rabbi Asher ben-Yeĥi'el) states as follows [Oraĥ Ĥayyim 124:4]:

On this, Rabbi Israel Me'ir Kagan, in his Mishnah Berurah, comments:

I did not bring these quotations in order to fully endorse them, but only to indicate that from the purely halakhic point of view it is not easy to accept Derek's comment.

This discussion is now closed.