The mitzva of pe’a requires the owner of a field or orchard to leave at least one-sixtieth of the crop for the poor. By Torah law, however, pe’a has no fixed minimum. Even if one left a single stalk at the end of his field, he fulfilled his obligation, as the Torah states: “You shall not reap all the way to the edge of your field” (Vayikra 19:9). Since he left even one stalk, he did not fully reap his field. The Sages, however, enacted that one must leave the poor at least one-sixtieth, nearly two percent of the crop. They further stated that in three situations it is proper to leave more than one-sixtieth as pe’a: when there are many poor people; when the field has been especially blessed; and when the field is small, so that one-sixtieth would provide almost no benefit to the poor (Mishna, Pe’a 1:1–2; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:15).
Pe’a must be given at the end of the harvest or picking, as the verse states: “You shall not reap all the way to the edge of your field when you reap” (Vayikra 19:9). Several reasons are given for this requirement. First, it prevents stealing from the poor. If the landowner could designate pe’a whenever he wished, he could arrange to do so when only a poor relative or friend was nearby, allowing that person to take the pe’a before any other poor people arrived. He would thereby be stealing from the other poor. Second, it prevents the poor from wasting time. Knowing that pe’a will be left only at the end of the harvest, they can estimate when the landowner will finish and use the meantime for their own affairs or to gather in other fields. Third, it prevents fraud. If pe’a could be designated from any part of the field, dishonest landowners might claim that they had already set it aside, or they might choose only the poorest-quality produce. Therefore, the mitzva requires pe’a to be left from what remains at the end, whether of good or poor quality.
Fourth, it avoids a concern of marit ayin. If pe’a were set aside in the middle of the field, people who later saw the end of the field fully harvested might suspect that the owner had failed to leave pe’a at all (Yerushalmi, Pe’a 4:3; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:12).[4]
One may not leave pe’a from one species for another, nor from one field for another, even if both fields contain the same species. The mitzva is for the owner to share the blessing of each field with the poor by leaving that field’s own pe’a. Even adjacent fields are treated as separate when a stream, path, or other divider runs between them, so that they are not plowed and harvested together. In such a case, the owner must leave pe’a from each field separately (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 3:1–3). In an orchard, however, a path or stream does not divide the planting, because the trees still appear as a single unit. Only when a fence separates the two sections must the owner leave pe’a from each section independently (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 3:19).
[4]. In a large field, the landowner may leave one-sixtieth of each row as pe’a at the end of the row. This is explained in Mishna, Pe’a 4:5, and Yerushalmi, Pe’a 4:3, where the Sages praised Beit Namer for leaving pe’a at the end of every row. Pe’at ha-Shulḥan, Pe’a 5:22, rules likewise. The benefit of this practice is that the poor do not need to determine when the entire harvest or picking will be finished. Instead, they can come at any of the three times when the field is opened to the poor and collect their gifts, as explained below in section 8.
It seems that one may also fulfill the mitzva of pe’a for trees by leaving one-sixtieth of each tree’s fruit at its top. The law of tree pe’a is derived from the verse: “When you beat your olive tree, you shall not remove its glory after you; it shall be for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow” (Devarim 24:20). The academy of R. Yishmael taught: “Do not take its splendor from it” (Ḥullin 131b). This understanding is supported by Ramban and Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbala, who explain that the verse refers to the fruit at the top of the tree: tefa’er is related to “the splendor of the hilltops,” meaning the fruit at the tree’s crown. This practice may have an additional advantage: fruit at the top of the tree is difficult for workers to reach, so the owner may naturally leave more than one-sixtieth there. At the same time, children can climb trees more easily than adult workers, making these fruits especially accessible to poor orphans.
