Commentaire sur Péa 5:6
הַמּוֹכֵר אֶת שָׂדֵהוּ, הַמּוֹכֵר מֻתָּר וְהַלּוֹקֵחַ אָסוּר. לֹא יִשְׂכֹּר אָדָם אֶת הַפּוֹעֲלִים עַל מְנָת שֶׁיְּלַקֵּט בְּנוֹ אַחֲרָיו. מִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ מַנִּיחַ אֶת הָעֲנִיִּים לִלְקֹט, אוֹ שֶׁהוּא מַנִּיחַ אֶת אֶחָד וְאֶחָד לֹא, אוֹ שֶׁהוּא מְסַיֵּעַ אֶת אֶחָד מֵהֶן, הֲרֵי זֶה גּוֹזֵל אֶת הָעֲנִיִּים. עַל זֶה נֶאֱמַר (משלי כב) אַל תַּסֵּג גְּבוּל עוֹלִים:
Si quelqu'un vend son champ, le vendeur est autorisé [à Leket , Shikcha et Peah ] et l'acheteur est interdit. Un homme ne peut embaucher un ouvrier à la condition que son fils [le travailleur] puisse glaner après lui. Celui qui ne permet pas aux pauvres de glaner, ou qui autorise l'un et pas l'autre, ou qui aide l'un d'entre eux - il vole les pauvres. À ce sujet, il est dit: «N'empiète pas sur la frontière de ceux qui montent [pour glaner»] (Proverbes 22:28).
Bartenura on Mishnah Peah
המוכר שדהו – He sold him a field and its standing corn, but if he sold only the standing corn and left the field to himself, both are forbidden for the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf and the corner of the field, for near this, I call it “your field” and near that I call “your harvest.”
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English Explanation of Mishnah Peah
Introduction
This is the final mishnah which deals with the topic of gleanings.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Peah
המוכר מותר – [to have] the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf and the corner of the field if he is poor.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Peah
One who sells, the seller is permitted [to take the agricultural gifts] and the purchaser is forbidden. Someone who sells a field may subsequently take the agricultural gifts (provided he is poor) from that field because once he has sold it, he is no longer the owner. The opposite also holds true--the one who bought the field may not take the agricultural gifts even if he is poor because he is now the owner.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Peah
על מנת שילקט בנו אחריו – and through this, the worker deducts it from the rent, it is found that he repays his liability from the poor.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Peah
One may not hire a worker on the condition that the son [of the worker] should gather the gleanings after him. The remainder of our mishnah teaches that it is forbidden to create a system whereby one poor person will have an advantage over others in collecting the gleanings. A field owner is not allowed to hire a worker who stipulates that his son would collect the gleanings after him. Such a scenario could entirely corrupt the system. First, the worker’s son gains an unfair advantage. Second, one can easily imagine the field owner telling the worker that he is going to pay him less because he is giving him preferential ability to collect the gleanings. The owner might try to in essence sell the gleanings. In other words, forbidding this contract protects the rights of other poor people as well as this worker himself.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Peah
אל תסג גבול עולים – that is to say, don’t read it as “always” but rather as those who ascend, there are those who interpret these as those who went up from Egypt that they would not change the warnings in the Torah that were given to those who left Egypt, and there are those who interpret those to ascend as those people whose property decreased, and calling them those who ascend is a language of honor, such as they call a blind person, who is capable of sight.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Peah
One who does not allow the poor to gather, or one who allows one but not another, or one who helps one of them [to gather] behold he is a robber of the poor. Concerning him it is said: “Do not remove the landmark of those that come up (” (Proverbs 22:28). The mishnah concludes with some general exhortations against these types of arrangements. One should not do anything to give preferential treatment to some poor people over others. The final midrash on Proverbs 22:28 is based on a variant reading of the text of Proverbs. The Masoretic (traditional Jewish) text reads, “Do not remove the ancient (olam) landmark stone.” Our text reads the word “olam” as if it was written “olim.” “Olim” usually means “those who go up” and therefore it may be being used euphemistically here for the poor who could be called “those who are going down,” meaning they have lost their money.
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