פירוש על פאה 5:4

עני היה באותה שעה – and he is exempt from paying, and the Halakha is according to the Sages.

Introduction This mishnah deals with a person who is not truly poor, but while traveling has no money to buy food and takes one of the agricultural gifts that goes to the poor. The question is must he make restitution. One of the interesting things about this mishnah is that it contains a definition of what it means to be poor.

A property owner who was passing from place to place and need to take gleanings, the forgotten sheaf, peah or the poor man’s tithe, he may take them, and when he returns home, he must pay [for the amount gathere], the words of Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi Eliezer holds that the person who is temporarily poor can take the agricultural gifts that belong to the poor. However, since he has land, he is not truly poor. When he returns to his home, he has to make restitution to the poor for that which he took.

The sages say: he was a poor man at that time [and so he need not make restitution]. The other sages look at his current status and not his overall status. Since he was poor and had no money to buy food while he was out traveling, he need not make restitution when he returns. We could explain this mishnah as a debate about the definition of poverty. To Rabbi Eliezer, a poor person is one who doesn’t have any property. Since this person has property, he must make restitution for that which he took. In contrast the other rabbis hold that a person is poor if he doesn’t have any money to buy food. After all, all the property in the world won’t help him if he doesn’t have cash to buy food.