Pe'ah 053

1:
Mishnah 4 is very simple indeed. Let us imagine that a very rich member of the community is travelling away from home. He has lost his purse with all his cash and any other means of making payment for services received. At that moment he knows what it means to be poor, not to be able to buy anything, not to be able to receive any kind of help which entails payment.

2:
All the sages agree that since he is in such a predicament he is certainly entitled to avail himself of the 'poor law' and take from the local farmers whatever is available at that time: he may glean in the fields, he may receive pe'ah and so forth. There is a maĥloket between Rabbi Eli'ezer and the rest of the sages in only one matter. Rabbi Eli'ezer holds that when he returns home he must make restitution of what he has received; the rest of the sages hold that he does not even have to do that since at the time when he received these goods he was truly poverty-stricken.

3:
Halakhah, of course, follows the opinion of the rest of the sages and not that of Rabbi Eli'ezer. However, Rambam, in his commentary on our mishnah, adds that while this rich man is not legally required to do so, he can make restitution if he so chooses – as an act of piety, a deed of supererogation. The Gemara [Peah 19a] asks a simple question: if he chooses to perform this act of piety to whom she he make payment? The response is that he must make his restitution to the poor people of the place where he was when he found himself in his predicament. The rationale of Rabbi Eli'ezer seems to be (again, according to the Gemara) that since he took something that rightly belongs to the poor of that place it is to them that he must make restitution, since if he does not they have the right to sue him in court. Of course, the rest of the sages will have none of this.

In pe'ah 051 we discussed the question of what happens when some ears of wheat which had been gleaned by a poor person get mixed up with a stack of wheat that had already been reaped by the farmer. The mishnah presented two views – that of Tanna Kamma and that of Rabbi Eli'ezer. While the view of Rabbi Eli'ezer is cogent it is the view of Tanna Kamma which is accepted halakhah. While this is to be expected it is nevertheless surprising.

Ed Frankel has sent me the following:

The solution of the tanna kamma works for me, but I do wonder why not apply the principles learned in Baba Metziah. If the lost ear is considered ye-ush then clearly in this case it would be ye-ush midaat, as there is no way it could be identified for recovery. Once that ear is hefker, ownerless by virtue of the ye-ush, the farmer could use it without any trouble. The difficulty that ensues is how to replace it for the unfortunate poor woman, and here the tanna kamma's solution works, but even beyond the need of the law, as once she has foregone her claim to any property, exchanging for it is not needed.

I respond:

Ed has posed here a very ingenious problem. Yi'ush means 'despair' and in this context it refers to the idea that someone depairs of ever recovering their lost property and thereby relinquish ownership over it and it becomes hefer, abandoned property. Certainly, if our poor woman really does despair of ever being able to recover her ear of wheat then what Ed writes would presumably follow. I rather think that in her desperation such a poor woman would never give up hope – however remote – of getting back her precious crop. One other point needs to be made, I think. Since we have gone to such trouble to provide for the truly indigent – letting them into our fields, giving them of our produce and so forth – would it really make any sense to deprive this poor person of 'her' lost property simply because the owner's legal adviser could make out such a good case? But then, of course, Ed realized this problem himself. Under such circumstances I suppose we should say that why it may be legal it is not justice. At any rate, as far as I can tell none of the 'rishonim' or the 'aĥaronim' relate to Ed's ingenious Ĥiddush.

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In Pe'ah 052 we mentioned the fact that Rambam and Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro explain the word tofé'aĥ as relating to poisonous grasses which grow among the healthy plants. (We translated the term as 'noria' or 'water-wheel'.) As I was writing my comments in that shiur I asked myself whether it was fair of me to expect Professor Feldman to relate to the issue. He must have read my mind, because this is what Jim Feldman has written to me:

The most likely "unhealthy grain" would be rye suffering from the fungus ergot. It is a serious problem in rye culture and has been responsible for some mass poisonings. A reasonably detailed expansion on this short comment is found at: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/courses/as625/2001term/frey/.