Pe'ah 084

נושא: Pe'ah

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

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Someone who has fifty dinars and trades with them may not take. Anyone who does not need to take and does take will [indeed] be in need of [the charity of] people before he departs this world. Anyone who needs to take and does not do so will sustain others from what he has before he dies of old age. Concerning him scripture says: "Blessed the man who trusts in God: God will be his surety". Similarly, a judge who judges honestly. Anyone who is not lame, mute, blind or deaf and pretends to be one such will [indeed] be one such before he dies of old age. For it says, "Righteousness, righteousness must you pursue". Any judge who takes a bribe to pervert justice will not die of old age before he loses his sight, for it says, "Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind insight".

1:
We have now come to the last mishnah of this chapter, which is also the last mishnah of this tractate. Two issues are contained within our mishnah. The first is connected with the previous mishnah. In mishnah 8 we saw that if someone's total immediately realizable assets reach two hundred dinars they may not avail themselves of any of the donatives of the 'poor law': they may not take pe'ah, may not glean, may not claim a 'forgotten sheaf', may not accept the indigent's tithe and may not take money from the local community chest nor food from the local 'soup kitchen'. (We noted that the intent of the sages is probably to indicate an annual income of 200 dinars, which is very approximately somewhat less than 20% of the typical income of a well-off artisan.)

2:
The first clause of our present mishnah now clarifies this matter. There may well be people whose total annual income does not reach 200 dinars, but who do possess at most times 50 dinars as ready cash. Our mishnah states that if at any given moment you have 50 dinars available for immediate use you are not poor. The sages mean to indicate that such a person has enough ready cash to sustain themselves in minimal dignity – food, clothing, shelter etc.

3:
The rest of mishnah 9 deals with what is always a very difficult problem. There will always be people who are not entitled to our charity under the terms of the law but who nevertheless claim that they are legally entitled to take our money (or produce) or who present themselves as such. There is no way for the person thus approached to know whether the case is genuine or not. Outward appearances can be very deceptive and sometimes a very real need is disguised by pride and so forth. Therefore, ideally every request for charity should be deemed genuine.

4:
This situation is, of course, open to abuse. If there is no way to assure the donor of the bona fides of the applicant the only recourse remaining to the system is to rely on the honesty of those claiming to be in need. Firstly we appeal to his (or her) fear of divine retribution: anyone who does not need to take charity under the terms of the law but does do so should be warned that their dishonesty (which is tantamount to theft) could bring them into genuine need before they die. (Since I do not think that people were any less sophisticated two thousand years ago than they are today, I presume that we must look upon the efficacy of this 'threat' with a generous amount of skepticism.) Conversely, anyone who is truly entitled to assistance under the terms of the law but refrains from exercising their rights, preferring to make do with even less than they should, such a person should feel assured that their forbearance will be rewarded during their lifetime by a reversal of fortune: from being needy they will become the givers of charity. (Again, a modicum of skepticism must be forgiven here.) The sages even wax enthusiastic by ensuring such a person that the prophet [Jeremiah 17:7] assures them of this blessing:

Blessed the man who trusts in God [rather than taking charity]: [ultimately] God will be his [financial] surety.

5:
When we studied tractate Sanhedrin we noted that the judicial system left the judges and lay arbitrators open to threats and fears of retaliation. This is why Jethro [Exodus 18:21] advises his son-in-law that justices must be

capable men who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain.

And God himself [Deuteronomy 1:17] instructs Moses that judges and arbitrators must "fear no man". Such judges also the prophet assures:

Blessed the man who trusts in God [when sitting in judgement]: God will be his [personal] security.

6:
In the midst of all these exhortations we find that people in need are praised if they refrain from exercising their rights. In the Gemara [Peah 21b] this attitude is decried.

Rabbi Aĥa in the name of Rabbi Ĥinana [says]: Thus [rather, should we understand] the mishnah: Anyone who needs to take and does not do so is shedding [his own] blood and should not be pitied. If he does not have pity on himself [by accepting charity when in need] he will be even more cruel towards others!

Generally speaking, these donatives are the right of the needy, not charity. When we started our study of this tractate I wrote [Peah 006] as follows:

The Written Torah has a very wide range of mitzvot of a varied nature whose purpose is to provide support for the poor. It is, perhaps, interesting that only one of these – the requirement to be generous when giving charity to those begging for it [Deuteronomy 15:7-11] – is concerned with the direct giving of 'charity'; this is, with being open-handed towards the indigent… The approach of earlier strata of the Torah is very different. Many laws seem to be based on the concept that land (or The Land) is not owned by the person who happens to be living off of it. Land belongs to God and to God alone, and it is God who 'leases out' the land to those who seem to 'own' it, as it were. This is most clearly expressed in the Torah [Leviticus 25:23]: Land shall never be permanently sold, because Land belongs to Me; you are [mere] landless leaseholders with me. Now, if God is the real owner of the land and the farmer is only holding his land under lease as it were, God, as the lessor, has the right to dictate the terms under which the lease is granted. The terms include the concept that the Divine Lessor permits the human lessee to enjoy the fruits of 'his' land, provided that it is recognized that, by prior agreement, certain parts of the produce of the land are allocated by the Lessor to people other than the lessee. These people are the priests, the Levites and the poverty-stricken.

Pe'ah, Leket, Shikheĥah, indigent's tithe, and all the other topics that we have discussed in this tractate, are not charity: they are divine justice.

7:
This brings to an end our study of Tractate Pe'ah. Next week I shall send out a message concerning voting for the next tractate to be studied. If, before then, anyone has special requests please send them to me by e-mail.

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