The Torah commands us to help the poor in four ways. The first and most central is through the gifts that the poor would gather by their own efforts from the fields. The second is tzedaka: direct assistance that helps meet their basic needs. Its highest form is helping them find work. The third is ma’aser ani, the poor tithe. After landowners gathered their produce, they would separate terumot and ma’asrot. In most years, this included ma’aser sheni; in the third and sixth years of the seven-year shemita cycle, however, ma’aser ani was separated in its place and given to the poor. In this way, the poor received a regular source of support that helped sustain them in relative comfort for two years of the seven-year cycle (see below, 7:9). The fourth is including the poor in one’s celebrations, especially the festival meals at which people ate the fruit of ma’aser sheni and the meat of the ma’aser behema offering (see below, 7:10; Peninei Halakha: Mo’adim 1:11).
In this chapter, we will address the primary way the poor sustained themselves in earlier times. According to a careful estimate, these gifts amounted to approximately three to four percent of the crop, and slightly more in the case of grapes.[2] Today, however, because food has become far less expensive and the general standard of living has risen dramatically, gathering these gifts from the fields no longer provides meaningful benefit to the poor, as will be explained below in section 9.
Nevertheless, the principles behind these mitzvot still teach us how to help the poor properly. First, aid to the poor should, as much as possible, allow them to share responsibility for their own situation. Therefore, they were expected to come to the fields and gather the gifts by their own efforts. Second, it is proper for a property owner to share the fruit of his assets with the poor. Therefore, the mitzva is not to give the poor money from the sale of the crop, but to let them gather from the crop itself. Third, help for the poor should be structured so that the cost to the wealthy is small and the benefit to the poor is great.
There is immense wisdom in these mitzvot. For example, if a field owner pays a worker one hundred shekels to harvest 100 kilograms of regular produce, gathering the same weight of leket, shikḥa, peret, or olelot would cost at least five times as much. Thus, the poor, who in any case had no better work available, gained significantly by gathering the leftover produce in the fields, while the field owner lost very little. Indeed, he even gained somewhat: removing fruit forgotten on the trees prevents pests from being drawn to the trees and spreading disease. This is especially true of grapevines, which are more prone to disease; leaving olelot on them can likewise lead to disease. Similarly, individual grapes that fell from the clusters were usually of lower quality, so the vineyard owner’s loss was small, while the poor could rejoice in the wine they prepared from them.
Regarding pe’a, it is true that harvesting or picking the pe’a costs the owner just as much as harvesting the rest of the field’s grain or fruit. Indeed, by Torah law, one fulfills the mitzva even by leaving a single stalk. Even so, there is wisdom in requiring pe’a to be left at the end of the field: by then, landowners are tired from their work, and generosity comes more easily to them, making it easier for them to leave pe’a for the poor. This is even more apparent when owners of fruit trees choose to leave as pe’a the fruit at the top of the tree. Such fruit is difficult for workers to reach, but poor children can climb up and pick it with relative ease.
The Torah returns to the mitzva of gifts to the poor in the middle of the section on the festivals, when Israel would make the pilgrimage to the Temple, as it states: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edge of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God” (Vayikra 23:22). The Sages explain that by placing this mitzva here, the Torah implies that “whoever gives leket, shikḥa, and pe’a to the poor properly is regarded as though he built the Temple and offered his sacrifices within it” (Rashi, Vayikra 23:22).
From this we learn that when a person brings the ideals of kindness and tzedaka expressed in the gifts to the poor into his place of work – preserving the efficiency of the business while also helping the poor – he thereby extends the sanctity of the Temple into that workplace. May we merit to draw inspiration and guidance from these mitzvot, so that we extend the sanctity of the Temple into every business and enterprise. In this way, the help we extend to every person in need will be like an offering that rises as a pleasing aroma to God.[3]
[3]. The Sages state (Yevamot 47a) that before conversion, prospective converts are taught only some of the mitzvot – a few severe ones and a few lenient ones. We do not teach them many halakhot at once, because even when the intention is for the sake of Heaven, doing so may frighten them and cause them to refrain from converting. Nevertheless, the Sages made sure that the mitzvot of gifts to the poor were among those taught to them, for three reasons. First, many converts were poor and stood to benefit greatly from these gifts. Second, if one of them was wealthy and bought a field, there was concern that he might think the poor who came to gather their gifts were stealing from him, and might even kill them, as was not uncommon in those times. Third, these mitzvot are especially important because they express the value of gemilut ḥasadim, acts of kindness. Indeed, Ruth the Moabite, the foremost convert, came to the field to gather the gifts left for the poor; through this she became connected to Boaz and married him. From them emerged the monarchy of Israel, the dynasty of the House of David, as described in the Book of Ruth.
