Pe'ah 064

נושא: Pe'ah

Pe'ah 064

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A sheaf which contains two se'ahs and was forgotten is not [considered to be] shikheĥah; [concerning] two sheaves which together contain two se'ahs: Rabban Gamli'el says [they belong] to the owner and the [rest of the] sages say [they belong] to the poor. Rabban Gamli'el said [to the sages]: "The more sheaves there are – do the owner's rights become stronger or weaker?" They said to him: "Stronger." He said to them: "If one sheaf which contains two se'ahs is not [considered to be] shikheĥah if forgotten is it not logical that two sheaves which contain two se'ahs should be [considered not to be] shikheĥah either?" They said to him: "No. If one says this about one sheaf which is like a stack must one [also] say this of two sheaves are [only] like bundles?"

1:
Our present mishnah is concerned with the fact that the capacity (volume) of a sheaf can determine whether it is shikheĥah or not. The Torah [Deuteronomy 24:19], as we have seen, stipulates:

When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it…

The collection of halakhic midrashim called Sifré, apparently with the intention to use hermeneutic interpretation to circumscribe the extent of the applicability of the law of the forgotten sheaf, laconically notes [Sifré, Ki Tetzé 73]:

'A sheaf' – and not a stack.

The logic of this interpretation seems to be that since the Torah prohibits the farmer from returning 'to get it' this suggests that what has been forgotten is sufficiently small that the farmer could personally handle it: therefore the implied meaning of the Torah is that the law only applies to sheaves and to nothing larger.

2:
Our mishnah states that any sheaf which has a bulk of two se'ahs is not really a sheaf but a stack. In Pe'ah 034 I wrote:

The basic unit of cubic measurement was "an egg's bulk" [Betzah]. It is customary to compute this as the equivalent of about 80 cubic centimetres. Twenty-four of these made up one kav, which would bring us to about 1.92 litres. Six kabim made up a se'ah (11.52 litres) Thirty of these made up one kor.

Thus our mishnah states that if the capacity of a sheaf reaches 23 litres it is to be considered a stack and therefore the law of shikheĥah does not apply to it.

3:
So far all the sages are in agreement. What they disagree on is what would be the law when two (or more) sheaves have been forgotten in the field and together they add up to 23 litres. Rabban Gamli'el says that they belong to the owner (i.e. are not shikheĥah) because the total capacity adds up to 'a stack', while all the other sages hold that such sheaves belong to the poor because each one individually is small enough for the law to be applied to it.

4:
Rabban Gamli'el tries to argue that it is only logical that if one (large) sheaf is not shikheĥah surely two or more sheaves should not be so considered either. The sages deny the logic: one sheaf might be large enough to disqualify it as shikheĥah while several small sheaves are each small enough to be considered shikheĥah whatever their combined capacity might be. So if the farmer was unfortunate enough to forget two or more small sheaves he must forfeit them to the poor.

5:
Halakhah in this matter, of course, follows the view of the sages.

In Pe'ah 60 I wrote about the differing views of modern halakhists concerning the size of eggs in earlier times: For various reasons, that need not detain us here, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayah Karelitz … was of the opinion that 'their eggs were then bigger than ours today' and computed a maximalist table of amounts. Another view, of Rabbi Hayyim Na'eh, for equally cogent reasons, was minimalist… I see no reason why Conservative Jews must assume that nature has changed radically over the past 2000 years and that eggs nowadays are smaller on the average than they were in rabbinic times, and we can surely accept the minimalist computations of Rabbi Hayyim Na'eh.).

David Baird writes:

Concerning the size of eggs now and then, even now we have standardized different sizes of eggs. And so, which size of six eggs was measured for one log? I remind you that the sizes of eggs in an Israeli supermarket are the largest "number 1", the most common "number 2", and the smallest "number 3". I have yet to measure the volume of the contents of a "number 1" egg at home, which is the size my family buys.

I respond:

I am sure that when you do measure the volume of these eggs you will not find a difference of approximately 100%. Karelitz computed that 'their eggs' must have had a volume of 150 cc's whereas Na'eh computed that just like the average modern egg the volume is around 80 cc's. That's a very large difference for an 'average egg'.

Shabbat Shalom to everybody.