Pe'ah 023

1:
This mishnah comes to illustrate the law as expounded in the previous mishnah. It brings "an example" which serves to confirm that the law is as previously stated. The example comes from the days of Rabban Gamli'el the Elder. This Rabban Gamli'el was the son of the great Hillel and the grandfather of his namesake who was president in 'the vineyard at Yavneh'. Rabban Gamli'el was president of the Sanhedrin during from about 20 CE to around 50 CE. (Some texts, which have become corrupted give this Rabban Gamli'el as being the grandson of Hillel, but this is not the case.)

2:
A certain Rabbi Shim'on from Mitzpah sowed his field with two species of grain; let's say that they were wheat and barley. When harvest time came he did not know whether he was to allow the poor to take Pe'ah from both the wheat and the barley or whether he could decide from which of the two he wanted to give Pe'ah. Obviously, there could have been economic considerations at play here. Since he did not know what he was required to do he approached the President of the Sanhedrin, Rabban Gamli'el, to ask him what the ruling was. However, Rabban Gamli'el didn't know either!

3:
At this point we may quote from the Tosefta, Tractate Ĥagigah 2:9.

4:
Since Rabban Gamli'el had no recollection of the law in this case both he and Rabbi Shim'on resorted to the Supreme Court sitting in the Gazit Chamber. Among the seventy-one sages there was one, Naĥum [the] Scrivener who claimed to have an oral tradition in the matter that had been handed down through the ages. He had heard this law from one Rabbi Meyasha who had heard it from his father, who in turn had heard it from one of the Zugot. During a period of about 200 years, culminating around the year 20 CE, the religious leadership of the Pharisees was vested always in two sages, called pairs. (Hillel, the father of Rabban Gamli'el, and his colleague Shammai were the last pair.) It was held that the pairs had received their oral tradition in an unbroken chain that went back to biblical times. At the far end of this chain was Moses, who, according to this oral tradition, had received the law as stated in mishnah 5 from God on Mount Sinai. (The Oral Tradition was held to have originated in explanations given to Moses by God as He dictated the Written Torah. This is why in English I usually call Torah she-b'al-peh "the Unwritten Torah".)

5:
We can now summarize: if a farmer sows his field with two species of cereal crop – both wheat and barley for instance – if he separates the two grains into two separate threshing sessions he must permit the poor to take Pe'ah from each kind of grain; if both kinds of grain were to be threshed together he need only give Pe'ah once from the whole field. (He may have good reasons for letting the poor take their Pe'ah only from the barley, for example.)

6:
Various strains of the same grain were often sown in one field; each strain might be intended for different commercial purposes. In his commentary of mishnah 5 Rambam gives as examples "large, small, green, red etc". Some strains are more durable than others, some contain less gluten than others, some are better for bread flour while others are better for semolina and so forth.

After receiving Pe'ah 021 Elizabeth Petuchowski wrote:

Thanks for the wonderful illustrations!

I respond:

I was pleased to receive this message because until now I had refrained from illustrating the shiurim from considerations of bandwidth and download time.