Pe'ah 012

1:
Ideally, the agriculturalist should designate part of his field, orchard or fruit grove as Pe'ah before he completes the harvesting. This is the ideal because it will enable the poor to enter the field and do their own reaping. However it must have happened many a time and oft that a farmer did not leave part of his produce unharvested as he should have done – either by oversight or otherwise. Such produce is still subject to Pe'ah even though it has been harvested, and the farmer must distribute at least one sixtieth of the produce to the poor. (Actually, he must do this at any stage – even after he has, for example, turned the produce into flour or bread etc: the Gemara [Makkot 16b, Bava Kamma 94a, Sanhedrin 88a, Temurah 6a] requires that the amount required as Pe'ah be given to the poor.

2:
Pe'ah produce is exempt from tithes. This is quite logical since it would not be reasonable to allocate produce to the poor and needy and then to deprive them of ten percent of it as tithes to be given to the priests and Levites. (If a priest or Levite is poverty-stricken he may take Pe'ah himself.) This exemption from the duty to give tithes on Pe'ah is extended to the produce even if it was harvested as long as the final act of harvesting has not been performed. That final act is the smoothing of the pile of produce into a shape – rather like the haystack of modern farming. From the moment that the produce has been loaded into a pile for storage it ceases to enjoy the status of produce that is exempt from tithing. Obviously, the farmer must still give the poor their Pe'ah, but if the produce has been piled into storage he must also give the priests and Levites their tithe.

3:
Produce that is declared ownerless is also exempt from tithes. This concept is known as "Hefker"; this is a process whereby one relinquishes all rights of ownership over one's property (by saying out loud that this property is now abandoned and anyone who wishes is permitted to assume ownership of it). Even if a farmer has already given over to the poor the required area of his field as Pe'ah, he can still benefit them even more by declaring part of his harvested produce to be "Hefker". The poor, assuming ownership of this abandoned produce, would not be required to give tithes from it even though it is not strictly Pe'ah, and this right too extends until the produce has been loaded into a pile for storage; from that point on it is liable to tithes.

4:
Rabbi Akiva holds that a farmer is entitled to take of his wheat (even if it is still subject to Pe'ah) and to sow it back into the ground without being liable to tithing. (In the classical commentaries there are several differing explanations as to the view of Rabbi Akiva: I have given here that given by Rambam in his commentary on our mishnah.)

5:
It is, of course, the priests and the Levites who are entitled to received the tithes from the farmer's produce. Our mishnah states that if a priest or a Levite buys the granary (or the grain) before it has been piled into storage they are entitled to keep the tithe portion for themselves; they are, after all, entitled to it. However, if they buy the same granary or grain after it has been piled into storage they must give ten percent of their purchase to some other priests or Levites and they may not keep it for themselves. The Gemara [Pe'ah 9b] says that this is a kind of fine designed to discourage unscrupulous priests and Levites from depriving other priest and Levites of their tithes.

6:
"Hekdesh" refers to commodities that owners have donated to the Bet Mikdash. From the moment that the donor so decided in his or her mind the commodities become the property of the Bet Mikdash and anyone eating or using them them is guilty of sacrilegious embezzlement ["me'ilah"]. Our mishnah states that if someone dedicates his produce to the Bet Mikdash it is still liable to tithing until the moment when the official representative of the Bet Mikdash takes possession by loading it into storage.

This concludes our study of the first chapter of Tractate Pe'ah.

We learned in Pe'ah 008 that the minimum amount for Pe'ah is one sixtieth of the yield. Albert Ringer writes:

I have learned that the mishnah uses 1/60 as a kind of measure that is so small, it really does not make a difference. For instance, when someone by accident puts 1/60 part of milk in a meat-product, it won't get treif. 1/60 is so little, it can be neglected. Could the mishnah mean that the minimum a farmer should give as pe'ah is
an amount he won't really miss? In other words, 1/60 part of the whole harvest could basically mean, an amount that could hardly have been noticed by the farmer.

I respond:

This is a very nice idea. Of course, we cannot really know what was the rationale of the sages in this matter since, unfortunately, they did not tell us. I do have one small problem, however: if we were required to give away to complete strangers one and two-thirds percent of all our hard-earned income would we consider that to be "an amount that could hardly be noticed"?

More of your queries and comments next time.