Pe'ah may not be reaped with scythes and may not be uprooted with hatchets, so that they will not attack each other.
There are three periods in the day: morning, noon and afternoon. Rabban Gamli'el says that they only said this so that there would not be less; Rabbi Akiva says that they only said this so that there would not be more. They would take it from Bet Namer by the rope and give it from each row.
8:
The guards that we mentioned in the previous shiur came, of course, from the farmer's retainers. We get a glimpse of this kind of arrangement in the biblical story of Ruth, where Boaz the farmer is personally supervising the gleaning (though doubtless he would have been there for the reaping of pe'ah as well). He espies Ruth:
Then said Boaz to Ruth, "Don’t you hear, my daughter? Don’t go to glean in another field, neither pass from hence, but stay here fast by my maidens. Watch carefully where they reap in the field and go after them: haven’t I charged the young men that they shall not prevent you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink of that which the young men have drawn. [Ruth 2:8-9]
From this it would seem that Boaz was a kindly farmer who also saw that the indigent reapers had refreshments available.
9:
Rabban Gamli'el sees the three periods of the day when the owner of the field is required to be present so that the poor can reap their pe'ah as being the minimum: he thinks that the purpose of this regulation is only to ensure that there will be at least three opportunities per day for the poor to reap their pe'ah, but if the farmer wishes to increase this number he may most certainly do so. Conversely, Rabbi Akiva holds that these three periods are the maximum permitted by law and that if the farmer so chooses there could be less.
10:
It seems that his view is, once again, designed to benefit the poor: the less times in the day that the fields are open for the collection of pe'ah the less times they will have to make the time to get to the fields: this, of course, is a two-edged sword; some will find this more convenient and some will find this less convenient. The problem with the view of Rabban Gamli'el is that it is open to abuse. If the farmer is able to add times at his own pleasure what is there to stop him introducing a time known only to one of his favourites so that he can come to his field and reap his harvest all by himself? Halakhah, therefore, follows neither sage: the farmer must make his field available three times a day – morning, noon and afternoon – no more and no less.
11:
It seems that Bet Namer refers to a farm in transjordan. We know that three tribes settled these territories: part of the tribe of Menasheh and the tribes of Gad and Re'uven. In the Torah [Numbers 32:34-36] we read:
The Gadites built Divon, Atarot and Aro'er, Atrot-shofan, Yazer and Yogbehah, Bet-Nimrah and Beth Haran: fortified cities, and folds for sheep.
The classical commentators say that Bet-Nimrah is to be identified with the Bet Namer of our mishnah.
12:
In order that the poor should not need to wait until almost all the field had been reaped before they could collect their pe'ah, the good folk of Bet Namer would cordon of parts of their field so that they would be reaping it in sections. As they completed each section the poor would be able to take their pe'ah from that section of the field – or row – while the farmer continued to harvest another part of his field. In the Gemara [Pe'ah 18b] the sages commend the inhabitants of Bet Namer for this consideration. However, these people also introduced another innovation which pleased the sages far less: they would permit the poor only one percent of the produce of each section as pe'ah (whereas the sages would have preferred them to leave two and one half percent as we saw in chapter 1 [Peah 008]).
13:
These considerations lead Rabbi Shim'on ben-Yoĥai to be quoted [Pe'ah 18b] as saying that there are five reasons why the farmer should only give pe'ah at the end of reaping his field:-
- So that a farmer would not be able to call in a needy friend during the reaping to collect his pe'ah when no one else was around;
- So that the poor would not have to wait around outside the fields, not knowing at which point the farmer would give them access to his field: if they know that he will give pe'ah only when he has finished his harvest they will meanwhile be able to reap elsewhere;
- So that crafty farmer would not be able to avoid giving pe'ah altogether: at any stage they would be able to claim that they had 'already given';
- So that the honest farmer would not be left open to malicious gossip: "Look how much he has already reaped and he has not yet left pe'ah for the poor!"
- And, most cogently, because the Torah [Leviticus 19:9] says:
When you reap the harvest of your land you shall not complete the reaping to edges of your field…
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