Avot312

15:
Before we continue I think there is one point that we should investigate. Our mishnah says that the punishment for not giving the priests, the Levites, the poverty-stricken and the capital city the dues (tithes) that the Torah mandates is drought. In a sense this is 'measure for measure' [middah keneged middah]. The purpose of the donatives was to ensure that those who dedicated themselves entirely to the maintainance of the Bet Mikdash and its ritual on behalf of the whole people should be suitably sustained. (The Torah specifically denies the priests and Levites any particular territory in the Eretz-Israel: they were to live in towns and villages within the territorial allocations of all the other tribes.)

16:
We are, of course, dealing with a people and a time in which the main 'industry' of the country was farming. If the farmers do not tithe their produce the priests and Levites are the immediate losers. When some (the farmers) have sufficient sustenance and some (the priests, the Levites and the poor) do not have sufficient sustenance the appropriate punishment, according to our mishnah, is drought: the first to suffer when the rainfall is insufficient is the agriculturalist. And throughout history Eretz-Israel has been notorious for periods of drought – some more serious than others. Of course, some priests were rich and could sustain themselves – and others. The Tosefta [Ketubot 5:1] tells us that in one period of severe drought Rabbi Tarfon, who was a priest and well off, technically married three hundred (!) women so that, being members of his family, they could share his donatives.

17:
But, we must ask ourselves, why does our mishnah propose a more severe punishment for non-observance of the law of Ĥallah than for withholding tithes? When farmers do not separate the tithes the result is drought in which many people suffer hunger and deprivation. But, says our mishnah,

In other words, the drought not only causes deprivation and hardship but people begin to die in large numbers. Why is non-observance of the mitzvah of "Ĥallah" considered a more severe infringement than withholding tithes?

18:
One commentator who has grappled with this conundrum is Rabbi YomTov Lipmann Heller [1579-1654]. He offers an explanation that should cause much thought among moderns. He notes that there is no way that a farmer can avoid separating tithes if he observes Torah law: however large or small the yield of his land certain percentages of the crop must be separated off and given as donatives. However, as regards Ĥallah the Torah offers an easy way out. As we learned in the previous shiur, if one prepares less than a certain amount of dough one does not have to separate Ĥallah at all! Given this option, if the baker does not separate Ĥallah for the priest from a larger amount of dough it is an "in your face" refusal to observe a simple mitzvah – whatever the underlying reason may be. Thus non-observance of the simple mitzvah of Ĥallah is worse than not separating tithes!

To be continued.

You might be interested in an article I wrote some years ago concerning Ĥanukah. You can access it via this link. If you understand Hebrew you might enjoy reading a Dvar Torah I gave on the subject of Ĥanukah: you will find it via this link.