The poor may not enter the field to gather their gifts without the field owner’s permission. The field owner’s mitzva is to grant them access to the field, but not to gather or distribute the gifts for them. Rather, once he allows them to enter, each poor person gathers from the gifts according to his ability.
Once a poor person picks up the gifts, they belong to him, and anyone who snatches them from him commits theft. If he has not actually taken them but merely claimed them verbally or spread his garment over them, he has not acquired them, and any other poor person may still take them.
Even if ninety-nine elderly poor people ask the field owner to harvest the pe’a for them and divide it equally, while one young person asks that the poor be allowed to gather it themselves, each according to his ability, we listen to the young person, because he is asking that the mitzva be fulfilled properly – that the poor enter and gather with their own hands.
To prevent them from accidentally injuring one another while collecting their gifts, the Sages enacted that the poor must pick the pe’a by hand, not with tools such as sickles or axes. Nevertheless, when the fruit grows on a tall tree, such as a date palm, where the struggle to collect it could become dangerous, the Sages enacted that the field owner should pick the pe’a for all of them and divide it equally (Mishna, Pe’a 4:1–2, 4; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:16–20).
The Sages established that field owners should open their fields to the poor three times each day, so that they could take from the pe’a and the other gifts. In the morning, the fields were opened for nursing mothers, who could then gather before their children woke up. At midday, they were opened for poor children who had risen late, as well as for children who had been occupied in the morning with Torah study. Toward evening, they were opened for the elderly, who had difficulty walking and seeing; by the time they had gathered the strength to go out to the fields, the time of minḥa had arrived. Setting fixed times served another purpose as well: it prevented field owners from coordinating the opening of the field with their poor relatives and thereby favoring them over the other poor (Yerushalmi, Pe’a 4:3; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:14, 17).
Originally, it seems the poor would gather leket, shikḥa, peret, and olelot throughout the day, as the harvest or picking was taking place, while only pe’a was made available at the three fixed times. However, when the field owner was concerned that the poor might steal or damage the trees, these gifts too were gathered only at those three times, under his supervision.
Regarding pe’a, the practice seems to have been as follows: in small fields and orchards, once the harvest or picking was completed, the owner would wait until the next of the three fixed times and then allow the poor to gather the gifts. Thus, at least one of the three groups of poor people would be able to gather from that field or orchard.
In large fields and orchards, where the harvesting or picking proceeded row by row, at each of the three fixed times the owner would designate the ends of the rows that had already been harvested or picked as pe’a for the poor. In this way, all three groups of poor people could benefit from the pe’a.[8]
The field owner must supervise the gathering to ensure that people who are not poor do not take from the gifts. If, however, a person who is not poor comes to gather and the owner cannot stop him without creating conflict, he should let him gather together with the poor for the sake of peace (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 4:13; Mahari Kurkus).
Although the gifts are intended for the Jewish poor, if non-Jewish poor people come together with them, they too may gather for the sake of peace (Gittin 59b; MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:9).
The Sages said that it is not proper for a Jew to employ non-Jewish workers to harvest or pick if they are unfamiliar with the laws of the gifts to the poor, lest they deprive the poor of what belongs to them (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:10).
[8]. According to Rosh (to Mishna, Pe’a 4:5), leket and shikḥa were distributed at the three fixed times. On the other hand, we learn that the poor would follow the reapers (Mishna Rishona), and this is also implied by the account of Ruth the Moabite, who gathered in the field throughout the day, as it says: “She went, came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers” (Rut 2:3), and later: “She gleaned in the field until evening” (ibid. 2:17). We should therefore explain as follows: when the field owner was concerned that the poor might cause damage or steal, he opened the field or vineyard for leket, shikḥa, peret, and olelot only during the three fixed times; when he was not concerned, they could gather after the reapers and pickers.
Regarding pe’a, Rosh writes that it was distributed once, when the reapers or pickers reached the end of the field. According to Rambam, however, pe’a was distributed at the three fixed times (MT, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:17). This seems difficult, since pe’a must be given at the end of the field. R. Shlomo Sirilio explains that a person’s fields are divided, so the end of each field would be reached at a different time, allowing all three groups of poor people to benefit (Yerushalmi, Pe’a 4:3). Hilkheta Gevirta 4:5 writes that the owner should not allow the poor to take all the pe’a at one time; rather, he should leave part of it for the later times, so that the other two groups of poor people can benefit as well. According to Leḥem Mishneh’s commentary to the Mishna there, the field owner would go out three times a day to see whether the needs of the poor were great, so that he could add more pe’a for them.
It seems, as I wrote above, that when the field was small, the pe’a was given once, at one of the three times established by the Sages. The poor would wander among the fields, and when they saw that pe’a was about to be left in a particular field, they would wait there until the time of distribution. In large fields, presumably, the practice was to leave pe’a at the end of each row. In this way, the field was opened for the poor to gather pe’a at the three fixed times in a manner that benefited all three groups of poor people, similar to the practice of Beit Namer, which the Sages praised, as noted above in note 4.
