פירוש על ערכין 9:8

ישראל שירש – dwelling houses in a walled city from his mother’s father who is a Levite.

Introduction Houses owned by Levites in the cities that were allotted to them have rules that differ from those that apply to houses owned by Israelites. This is states in Leviticus 25:32-33: 32 As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities they hold the Levites shall forever have the right of redemption. 33 Such property as may be redeemed from the Levites houses sold in a city they hold shall be released through the jubilee; for the houses in the cities of the Levites are their holding among the Israelites. The second half of the mishnah deals with the status of the lands that surround the Levites cities. This issue is dealt with in Numbers 35: 1-5: 1 The Lord spoke to Moses in the steppes of Moab at the Jordan near Jericho, saying: 2 Instruct the Israelite people to assign, out of the holdings apportioned to them, towns for the Levites to dwell in; you shall also assign to the Levites pasture land around their towns. 3 The towns shall be theirs to dwell in, and the pasture shall be for the cattle they own and all their other beasts. 4 The town pasture that you are to assign to the Levites shall extend a thousand cubits outside the town wall all around. 5 You shall measure off two thousand cubits outside the town on the east side, two thousand on the south side, two thousand on the west side, and two thousand on the north side, with the town in the center. That shall be the pasture for their towns.

אינו גואל כסדר הזה – in the Gemara (Tractate Arakhin 33b) they said that it teaches that he does not redeem other than according to this procedure. But this is what he said: he does not redeem like Levites, as it is written concerning them (Leviticus 25:32): “the Levites shall forever have the right of redemption,” but rather like this procedure that is stated regarding an Israelite that it will be permanently sold at the end of a year.

If an Israelite inherited from his mother's father who was a Levite, he cannot redeem it according to the order prescribed here. Also if a Levite inherited from his mother's father who was an Israelite, he cannot redeem it according to the order prescribed here, As it says, “As for the houses of the cities of the Levites” (Leviticus 25:32) [this order does not apply] unless he is a Levite and in the cities of the Levites, the words of Rabbi. We can see from Leviticus 25:32-33 that Levites always retain the right to redeem their houses, and if they don’t redeem them, they are released in the Jubilee year. According to Rabbi, the rules in these verses apply only to Levites that have sold ancestral Levitical lands. So if an Israelite inherits Levitical land from his Levite maternal grandfather, he is treated like an Israelite. Similarly, if a Levite inherits land from his Israelite maternal grandfather, the land is not considered to be the land of the Levites.

וכן לוי שירש את אבי אמו ישראל – even he (i.e., this Levite) does not redeem [the property] like a Levite, but rather like this procedure that is stated regarding an Israelite. For he can never redeem like a Levite until he will be a Levite and in a Levitical city. For two Biblical verses are written: It is written (Leviticus 25:33): “for the houses in the cities of the Levities are their holding [among the Israelites],” and it is written (Leviticus 25:33): “Such property as may be redeemed from the Levites,” which implies that for some of the Levities I have given permission to redeem, but not to all of them, excluding the son of Levite who comes from a mother who is illegitimately married to him (i.e., a bastard) or from a female descendant of the Gibeonites (see Joshua 9:27 as well as Tractate Yevamot, Chapter 8 at the conclusion Mishnah 3), and all the more so an Israelite who inherited his mother’s father, a Levite, for he (i.e., the grandson) is a complete Israelite and does not ever redeem [like a Levite].

The sages say: these things apply to the cities of the Levites. According to the sages, these rules apply to all Levitical land, even if it is owned by an Israelite. They agree, however, that Israelite land inherited by a Levite is treated like Israelite land. The rules depend on the land, not on the person.

אין הדברים אמורים (these rules have been stated only) – these things/rules are stated regarding redemption at any time other than concerning Levitical cities. But until he will be a [full] Levite, we don’t require this. And the Halakha is according to the Sages.

One may not turn a field into pasture land, nor pasture land into a field, nor pasture land into a city, nor a city into pasture land. In the passage from Numbers that I quoted above, there seems to be a significant discrepancy between verse four, which says “one thousand cubits” and verse five, which says, “two thousand cubits.” In Sotah 5:3, Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yose Hagalili says that one thousand cubits refers to pasture land, land which is not used for planting or for houses, and the two thousand cubits beyond that refers to fields for planting crops. Our mishnah teaches that when it comes to the cities of the Levites, one may not turn pasture land into a field or vice versa, and similarly one may not turn the pasture land into a city by enlarging the city. The status of these lands is given by the Torah and it does not change.

מגרש – a place empty of anything, and there is no house in it nor do they sow [seeds] other than being a beauty/embellishment of the town [which requires open space all around] (see Rashi to Bava Batra 24b).

Rabbi Elazar said: When is this so? When it comes to the cities of the Levites, but when it comes to cities of Israelites one may turn a field into pasture land, pasture land into a field, pasture land into a city, but not a city into pasture land, in order that they should not destroy the cities of Israel. Rabbi Eliezer says that these rules work differently when it comes to Israelite cities. One may turn a field into pasture and pasture into a field (this is according to one reading of the mishnah other readings state that one may not turn pasture into field). One can also turn pasture land into a city. The one thing that cannot be done is to destroy parts of the city in order to turn them into pasture land. The mishnah prohibits this in order not to destroy the cities of Israel.

אין עושין שדה מגרש – as it is written (Leviticus 25:34): “But the unenclosed land about their cities cannot be sold [for that is their holding for all time],” What do [the words] "לא ימכר"/cannot be sold mean? If you were to say that it cannot be sold at all, but [it is written] (Leviticus 25:32): “the Levites shall forever have the right of redemption,” it follows that it can [in fact] be sold, but what [is the meaning of] (Leviticus 25:34): “[But the enclosed land about their cities] cannot be sold/לא ימכר ?” It shall not be changed.

Priests and Levites may sell [a house] at any time and redeem it at any time, as it is said: “The Levites shall forever have the right of redemption” (Leviticus 25:32). Priests and Levites can sell and redeem their ancestral land, even within the first two years of their sale. They do not have the same restriction of two years that applies to Israelites (see mishnah one). They can also redeem their houses even after a year has passed (see also mishnah 7:5). Congratulations! We have finished Tractate Arakhin! It is a tradition at this point to thank God for helping us finish learning the tractate and to commit ourselves to going back and relearning it, so that we may not forget it and so that its lessons will stay with us for all of our lives. The laws of Arakhin have basically not been in effect for thousands of years; some of them weren’t even applied when the Temple still stood. Nevertheless, there are some very interesting issues about the worth of human beings that can be found in the beginning of the tractate. As we learned, a person can be evaluated in two ways: 1) by an absolute value that is not determined at all by what s/he does, by how much money they make, by their abilities etc. This value is completely determined by the Torah. While we cannot quite say that everyone has the same value according to this system, because the Torah assigns different values based on age and gender, at least within an age group and gender group there is equality. 2) By how much a person could be sold on the slave market. This will depend on a person’s abilities, their looks, their health, etc. Every person will have a different worth, mostly based on their own accomplishments. I think that these two ways of evaluating people remain with us today. We have an ideal: that all human beings are created equal, but we realize that in reality, some people are worth more to the society than others, some people earn more money their others, and some people are more intelligent than others. While we strive for the ideal, we realize that the reality also has to be recognized. I hope you have enjoyed Arakhin. Tomorrow we begin Tractate Temurah.

כדי שלא יחריבו – the settlement of the land.

מוכרים לעולם (see Tractate Arakhin, Chapter 9, Mishnah 1) – and not like an Israelite who is not able to sell less than two years prior to the Jubilee [year] as it is written concerning them (Leviticus 25:15): “and in selling to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years,” but they (i.e., the Priests and Levites) can sell even near the Jubilee [year].

וגואלים לעולם – but if they (i.e., Kohanim and Levites) sold dwelling houses in a walled city, they are permanently sold at the end of the year like dwelling houses in a walled cities of an Israelite, but if they sold fields, they don’t need to stand in the hands of the purchaser for two years, but rather, they redeem [them] immediately, if they wish.