Commento su 'Arakhin 9:1

המוכר את שדהו בשעת היובל – at the time when the Jubilee is in force. But in the year of the Jubilee itself, he is not permitted to sell it, but if he sold, the sale is void and he returns the money.

Introduction Our mishnah deals with the laws of selling one’s ancestral land to another person when the Jubilee was still observed. Concerning this law, Leviticus 25 states: 13In this year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his holding. 14 When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy any from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 In buying from your neighbor, you shall deduct only for the number of years since the Jubilee; and in selling to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years: 16 the more such years, the higher the price you pay; the fewer such years, the lower the price; for what he is selling you is a number of harvests. 17 Do not wrong one another, but fear your God; for I the Lord am your God.

אינו מותר לגאול – even if the purchaser is satisfied, we don’t listen to him, as it is written (Leviticus 25:15): “In buying from your neighbor, you shall deduct only for the number of years/שנים (plural) since the jubilee; [and in selling to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years],” it will be acquired by him for two years, but if he returns it before this, he violates a positive commandment. And the seller also violates a positive commandment if he redeems it prior to two years, as it is written (Leviticus 25:15): “and in selling it to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years.” But after two years if he wants to redeem it, he redeems it against the will of the purchaser and gives him according to what he sold it, as it is written (Leviticus 25:27): “he shall compute the years since its sale, [refunding the difference to the man to whom he sold it, and return to his holding],” that he calculates how many years from when he sold it until the Jubilee [year], and divides the monies according to the years. As for example, if he sold it ten years prior to the Jubilee [year] for a Maneh (100 zuz), it is found that he sold the produce each and every year for a tenth of a Maneh, for a mere sale is only until the Jubilee, it remained in the hand of the purchaser for five years and afterwards the seller comes to redeem it, the purchaser deducts for him half a Maneh (50 zuz).

If one sold his field [of possession] at the time when the Jubilee was in force, he may not redeem it for two years, as it says: “According to the number of the years of the crops he shall sell to you” (Leviticus 25:15). When one sells his ancestral land he can redeem it until the following Jubilee (Leviticus 25:10). In essence, what he is actually selling is the right to use the land until the owner redeems it, or until the Jubilee comes. Since the Torah uses the word “years” when referring to selling or buying ancestral land, the rabbis deduce that no sale can be for less than two years.

אינה עולה ממנין – two years. For it is written (Leviticus 25:15): “[and in selling to you, he will charge you only] for the remaining crop years/שני תבואות (literally two years),” two years that are appropriate for the crops that they will remain in the hand of the purchaser. But if if it was a year appropriate for grain, and breaking ground/נרה (without planting – see Tractate Arakhin 29b), that is he plowed it and made it a newly broken land but did not sow it, or if he left it untilled/neglected, that he left it wild-growing and even breaking ground but did not do anything with it, he is causes loses to himself, and it counts for him in the reckoning [of crop years].

If there was a year of blight or mildew, or a seventh year, it is not included in the count. If there was a year in which the purchaser could not plant, either because it was the seventh year or because of bad weather or blight, that year does not count towards the two.

שלש תבואות לשתי שנים – that grain that stands in it at the time of the purchase and two crop years in two years that it will exist in his hand. But Rabbi Eleazar does not dispute the first Tanna/teacher in this, but it represents the opinion of everyone.

If he only broke the ground [without planting] or left it fallow [for a year], that year is included in the count. However, if the purchaser decided of his own volition not to plant during a one of the first two years of his acquisition, that year counts towards the two year minimum.

Rabbi Elazar says: if he sold it to him before Rosh Hashanah year, and it was still full of fruit, he enjoys three crops in two years. Rabbi Elazar points out that sometimes a person can get a “three for two” deal. If he buys a piece of land right before Rosh Hashanah and it is full of produce, he can harvest that produce and then he still gets a full two years to work and harvest the land. He only pays for two years, so he is getting one harvest for free. It seems that when we reckon the years we don’t begin from the point of purchase but rather from Rosh Hashanah.