The field owner must open his field to all the poor, so that they can all gather their gifts. He may not favor one poor person over another. If he denies certain poor people permission to enter his field, he violates the prohibition against theft, for he has stolen their share of the gifts (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:8; 4:12).[7]
Only the poor themselves may gather these gifts. A person who is not poor may not gather the gifts on behalf of a poor friend who cannot come to the field. If the field owner, or any other person who is not poor, gathered the gifts for a particular poor person, that poor person has not acquired them. The one who gathered them unlawfully must place them before the first poor person he meets (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:19).
If the field owner hired a poor worker to harvest his field, the worker’s son or wife may gather after him and take from the pe’a, provided that they are treated like all the other poor people (Bava Metzia 12a–b; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 4:11). Moreover, after finishing his work, the poor worker himself may take from whatever gifts remain in the field, so long as he had not earlier prevented the other poor people from taking them (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 6:15).
The mitzva is to leave the gifts for the poor at the time of harvest or picking. If, however, thieves harvested the grain or picked the fruit, then left it in the field and fled, the field owner is exempt from the obligation to leave gifts to the poor (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:4).
If one harvested the entire field and did not leave pe’a, he violated a Torah prohibition. Nevertheless, he is not yet liable to lashes, since the violation can still be corrected: he can give the poor a portion of what he harvested or picked. If, however, he already sold all the produce, or if it was lost or burned, the violation can no longer be corrected, and he becomes liable to lashes (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:1–5).
Even a poor field owner must leave the gifts for other poor people. For purposes of his own field, he is considered wealthy (see Bava Metzia 12a; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:8).
Even if the poor were delayed and did not come to take their gifts at the time of harvest or picking, the field owner may not gather the gifts for himself until the time has passed when the last of the poor normally come to gather in the fields. At that point, the poor are considered to have given up hope of receiving the gifts. The field owner may then gather them, plow them under, or destroy them (Bava Metzia 21b).
Gifts to the poor are exempt from terumot and ma’asrot (MT, Laws of Terumot 2:9; see below, 8:4, note 7). They have no sanctity, and the poor person may do with them whatever he wishes, even feed them to animals (Arukh ha-Shulḥan 14:28).
