Pe'ah 022

1:
Once a cereal crop has been reaped it must go through the procedures of threshing, winnowing etc. The term used by our mishnah for these procedures is literally 'making it' [the field or the crop] one (or two) 'threshing floors'. If the farmer has a large field but his threshing floor can only deal with so much crop at a time, it might be convenient for him to harvest his crop in more than one 'session'. The first part of our mishnah clarifies that the number of times the farmer must give Pe'ah is dependent on the number of fields of the same crop reaped not on the number of times he harvests the field. From one field of wheat he must give Pe'ah once, from a field that has been sown with both wheat and barley he must give Pe'ah once from each species; and all this is unconnected with the number of threshing sessions into which he finds it convenient to divide his yield.

2:
On the other hand, if a field contains only one species – let us say wheat – but the farmer has sown different strains of wheat in the same field, the number of times he must give Pe'ah is dependent on the number of threshing sessions: if it is important to the farmer to keep each strain separate he must treat each threshing session as a separate harvest; if it does not matter to him that the strains get mixed up on the threshing floor he need give Pe'ah only once for all the crop.

In a message Albert Ringer had written that Citrus trees however bear fruit all year. Reuven Boxman disagrees:

For the most part, the above statement is not correct. Most citrus trees bear for a longer period of time (maybe two months, but for some, e.g. lemons, it can be longer) than "soft" fruits (maybe 2 weeks), but not all year. With citrus, it's not that the fruit ripens differentially over a long period of time on a given tree, but merely that they do not deteriorate quickly like soft fruit, and thus in a home garden you can pick the fruit when you want, over a 1-3 month period, depending on the tree. Commercially, a given tree is picked at one time.

This discussion is now closed.

Two people are way behind with following this study and ask essentially the same question. Richard Friedman and Me'ir Noach both ask about Terumah. Here is the question as phrased by Me'ir Noach:

In Pe'ah 006 you wrote 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). Was this tenth to the priest different from Terumah? I have read that terumah was "The first portion of the crop separated and given to a cohen, usually between 1/40 and 1/60 of the total crop. It is separated prior to maaser…" Did the cohen get terumah plus at least one tenth, and did they sometimes get the Levites' tenth as well since they were also Levites?

I respond:

We must carefully distinguish between Terumah and Ma'aser. What I was describing is Ma'aser, which is one tenth of the crop. Terumah is another and different donative. It was given only to a priest (any priest) and essentially the amount given was dependent on the farmer's generosity – though, as in the case of Pe'ah, the sages expected the farmer to give between one and two thirds percent and two and one half percent of his crop as Terumah. Terumah was to be given first. From what was left after Terumah had been removed from the crop the farmer had to remove ten percent as Ma'aser [tithe] for a Levite of his choice. The Levite, in turn, was required to give ten percent of his tithe to the priest of his choice. (Thus, if we look at the priesthood as a whole and not at the individuals, we see that the priests actually received a full tithe – and more! – from the farmers: from about eleven and one half percent to about twelve and one quarter percent of the total crop.) After this the farmer would deduct a further ten percent which would either be given to support the economy of Jerusalem or would be given to the poor, depending on which year it was in the seven-year sabbatical cycle. This means, according to my calculations, that after all deductions the farmer would be left with about 87% of his crop.

More of your comments and queries next time.