פירוש על פאה 2:8

הלוקח נותן פאה לכל – that the obligation of the corner from what he had harvested remains in that one-half that the purchaser bought, and it is as if he did not sell him other than what had remained in the field after he removed from it the appropriate corner to be removed from that field, and similarly, one who redeems from the hand of the treasurer removes from the one-half that he redeemed the appropriate corner for the entire field.

Introduction This mishnah is a direct continuation of yesterday’s mishnah, concerning a field that was harvested half by its owners and half by others.

If robbers harvested half and the owner the other half, he gives peah from what he has harvested. Since robbers harvested the first half, he is exempt from giving peah for that section of the field. He need only give peah from the second half which he himself harvested.

If he harvested half and sold the other half, then the purchaser must give peah for the whole. In this case he harvested half of the field, thereby becoming obligated to give peah for that half. Then he sold the entire field, including his obligation to give peah for the half of the field that he had already harvested. In other words had the original owner kept the field, he would have had to have given peah from the second half of the field, from the stalks that he had already harvested. When he sold these stalks to someone else the obligation to give peah still exists. Therefore, the purchaser must give peah for the whole field, both the half that the previous owner harvested and the half that he himself harvests.

If he harvested half and dedicated the other half, then he who redeems it from the Temple treasurer must give peah for the whole. This situation is analogous to that in the previous section. The owner harvests half the field and then instead of selling the remaining half, he dedicates it to the Temple. Normally, peah is not given from fields that belong to the Temple. However, in this case because he began to harvest the field himself and he left the peah to be given from the second half of the field, the one who redeems the field from the Temple’s treasurer must still give peah from the second half of the field for the whole field. [To recall, redeeming means he gives the value of the field to the Temple and the field becomes non-sacred and belongs to him. Even the original owner can be the one who can redeem it, and probably would often be the one to do this. Donating the field became a way then of indirectly donating money.]