Pe'ah 031

1:
I mentioned at the start of this chapter that it serves to tie up loose ends, to clarify small details concerning the giving of Pe'ah. Our present mishnah is the last one that deals with issues arising from the crops themselves. (The following mishnayot will be more concerned with issues involving the land and the farmer's ownership.)

2:
Onion-growers would leave some of their onions in the ground so that they might re-sprout. Apparently, the technical term for such onions among the farmers of mishnaic times in Eretz-Israel was 'onion mothers'. (Perhaps it was not a technical term, but a colloquial expression.) Tanna Kamma says that such onions must be considered to be part of the total crop for the purposes of calculating the amount of Pe'ah due to the poor. Rabbi Yosé holds otherwise. The Gemara [Pe'ah 17c] explains that Rabbi Yosé probably thinks that the amount of such onions that is actually harvested is so small that it is negligible. Rambam and Rabbi Ovadyah of Bertinoro, in their commentaries on our mishnah, rule that the halakhah, of course, follows Tanna Kamma and not Rabbi Yosé.

3:
The seifa [last clause] of our mishnah returns us to the issue of beds of crops laid down among other crops. We recall that previously the issue had been concerned with vegetables that were planted in beds among trees. In our present mishnah the issue concerns onion-beds laid down among other vegetables. Rabbi Yosé holds that each one of these beds of onions is liable to separate Pe'ah and that the farmer may not consider them as part of his total crop of vegetables. This may be because Rabbi Yosé affirms the view of Bet Shammai discussed in the first mishnah of this chapter (see Peah 028, paragraph 5). The Gemara [Pe'ah 17c] explains that he thinks that most farmers do not utilize their land in this way and therefore the onion-beds are unusual and must be considered separately. The rest of the sages, apparently following the view of Bet Hillel, hold the opposite view, and rule that the farmer may consider all the onion-beds together for the purposes of Pe'ah. Again, halakhah does not follow the view of Rabbi Yosé.

In Peah 026 I wrote in explanation about a situation where the farmer reaps part of his field and then in a fit of pious generosity decides to give the remainder of the field's yield as a donation to the Bet Mikdash. Obviously, the administrative authorities of the Bet Mikdash are not required to give Pe'ah from produce that technically belongs to God; but if someone buys this produce from the Temple authorities he must give Pe'ah to the value of the total yield of the field – information which was presumably carefully noted in advance by the Temple bureaucrats.

Nehama Barbiru writes:

I hope all Jews were Godfearing, but was this fact (to give as Hekdesh) used to "get out of" Pe'ah? Is there any evidence along this line?

I respond:

I have no evidence to offer one way or another. On the one hand I see no reason to assume that our ancestors were any less wily and avaricious that we, their descendents, are. Human nature does not change so quickly: after all, less than two thousand years have elapsed! On the other hand, I do not see how a wily farmer would gain from such a move: instead of giving his produce to the poor he would give it to God, as it were. Either way, it would not be his. Furthermore, he would still have to give Pe'ah from that part of his produce that he did not give to the Bet Mikdash. Is there another possibility here that I have missed?

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Concerning the beds of cereal crops laid down in an olive orchard, Ze'ev Orzech writes:

I take it that having cereal crops between olive trees does not fall under the prohibition of mixed species?

I respond:

As long as these are separate beds, separated from the other plants by a space, the concerns of Kilayyim (mixed species) would not apply. (In two places [Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9] the Torah prohibits the planting of diverse seeds in the same agricultural land. The sages, as usual, by means of hermeneutic 'explanation' severely reduced the application of this ruling.)

More of your comments and queries next time.