Commento su Demai 6:2

החוכר מן העובד כוכבים – the Sages fined a person who is a sharecropper renting a field from an idolater for a fixed amount, that he should tithe what he gives him, in order that there should be no Israelite who is a sharecropper renting a field from an idolater for a fixed amount, that it should remain fallow ground in his hand and because of this, he should need to sell it to an Israel for a small amount of money. But when he is a tenant farmer for the field for a percentage of the crop, he was not fined because the idolater desires more that he should be a sharecropper for a fixed amount than serving as a tenant farmer for a percentage of the yield.

Introduction In the second section of yesterday’s mishnah we learned that one who rents a field from another Jew and in return pays the field owner a set amount of crops must give terumah but not tithes. Today we learn about a Jew who rents a field under a similar type of arrangement, but this time, from a Gentile.

שדה של אבותיו – that the idolater stole it (i.e., the field) from his ancestors, and hey fined him in that he would need to tithe in order to impel/press him that he should purchase it from the idolater because it is beloved to him in that it belonged to his ancestors, he will not allow to receive it from the idolater for more than its appropriate worth, and when the tithing becomes burdensome upon him, he will purchase it. And we hold according to Rabbi Yehuda, who does not dispute the first Tanna/teacher on this.

One who has hired a field from a Gentile [for a fixed amount from the produce], he first gives tithes [from the rental] and then gives it to him (the field. In this case he must separate terumah and tithes because he knows that the Gentile will not separate the tithes himself. According to one explanation of this mishnah, the implication is that even though the land is owned by a Gentile, the produce still must be tithed since it is grown in the land of Israel. Since he knows that the Gentile won’t tithe, he must tithe it himself. In contrast, when the field belonged to a Jew, there was a chance that the Jew would tithe the produce himself and therefore the rabbis were lenient upon the renter.

Rabbi Judah says: even if one rented from a Gentile a field which had formerly belonged to his fathers [for a share in the produce], he first gives tithes and then gives it to him. Rabbi Judah emphasizes that even if the field once belonged to a Jew but had been sold to a Gentile, he still must first separate tithes and then pay his debt from the produce. Most commentators explain that according to Rabbi Judah, the rabbis forced him to separate tithes so that he would try to buy the field outright from the Gentile, and thereby restore land in Israel to Jewish hands.