Pe'ah 006

נושא: Pe'ah

Pe'ah 006

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

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אֵלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם שִׁעוּר: הַפֵּאָה, וְהַבִּכּוּרִים, וְהָרֵאָיוֹן, וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה. אֵלּוּ דְבָרִים שֶׁאָדָם אוֹכֵל פֵּרוֹתֵיהֶן בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְהַקֶּרֶן קַיֶּמֶת לוֹ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא: כִּבּוּד אָב וָאֵם, וּגְמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, וַהֲבָאַת שָׁלוֹם בֵּין אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ; וְתַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה כְּנֶגֶד כֻּלָּם:

The following are things which have no limit: the Edge of the Field, the First-Fruits, the Appearance-Offering, acts of kindness and the Study of Torah. The following are things whose profits a person enjoys in this world while the capital remains for him in the world to come: Love of father and mother, acts of kindness, bringing about peace between one person and another – and the study of Torah is equal to them all.

25:
When we started the study of our present mishnah we deliberately passed over the first item on the list of "things which have no limit". Having reviewed all the other items in our present mishnah we must now revert to that first item – which is, of course, the main topic of our tractate: "the edge of the field".

26:
The Written Torah has a very wide range of mitzvot of a varied nature whose purpose is to provide support for the poor. It is, perhaps, interesting that only one of these – the requirement to be generous when giving charity to those begging for it [Deuteronomy 15:7-11] – is concerned with the direct giving of 'charity'; this is, with being open-handed towards the indigent. It is perhaps even more interesting that, according to the now widely-held hypothesis concerning the development of the Written Torah, this sole place where 'charity' in the narrowest sense of the term (the giving of money) is commanded is held to date from 7th century BCE when Judah had already progressed from a society whose main economic base was agricultural to an urban society whose economic base was much more variegated. (Let me hasten to add parenthetically that apparently the above-mentioned hypothesis concerning the origins of the Torah is now held within Conservative Judaism to be almost axiomatic.)

27:
The approach of earlier strata of the Torah is very different. Many laws 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]:

Land shall never be permanently sold, because Land belongs to Me; you are [mere] landless leaseholders with me.

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. One of these allocations is called "Pe'ah". (Other such allocations are also dealt with in this tractate, and we shall introduce them gradually.)

To be continued.

We recently discussed the tension, as perceived by the sages, between the ideal of continuous and uninterrupted study of Torah on the one hand with the basic needs of everyday life on the other. Michal Roth writes:

I don't know whether I was taught this at some point in the past, but my understanding of the way to settle the apparent inconsistency between the requirement to learn Torah day and night and the necessity to earn a living was that one should set fixed times for the study of Torah (otherwise one may never get around to it), and that at the time one spends on making a living one should try to implement what one has learnt. If you don't practise in life what you learn "in theory" – what are you learning for? Isn't the Torah and Halakhah a guide to the right way to live? And, if so, it would make sense to implement what you learn and put it into practise.

I respond:

This is very nicely put. The ideal of setting aside time from one's busy day to study Torah was one of the reasons that prompted our tradition to include Torah Study as part of the early morning prayers. (See the details that I gave in this regard in Pe'ah 001.) I also know that many subscribers to RMSG and HSG use these 10-minute shiurim as part of their daily Torah study: some before they start their day at the office, others at the end of the day. This is a time-honoured way which ordinary Jews have found which enables them to lead a 'normal' life and also to fulfill the exhortation to study Torah at all times.

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