The mitzva to leave gifts for the poor applies only when poor people are expected to come and gather them. When it is known that they will not come – such as when the field is very far from where they live – there is no mitzva to leave the gifts. The Torah states, “You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger” (Vayikra 19:10), meaning that they must be left for the poor, “not for ravens and bats” (Ḥullin 134b). Since, in such a case, there is no mitzva to leave the gifts, the entire crop belongs to the field owner outright, and he must separate terumot and ma’asrot from all of it (Ritva, Gittin 47a).
Similarly, when it is known that most of those who will come to gather the gifts are poor non-Jews, there is no mitzva to leave them. These gifts are meant for the Jewish poor. If poor non-Jews happen to come together with poor Jews, they may gather with them for the sake of peace. But where most of the gatherers are non-Jews, the mitzva does not apply (Tur YD 332; Baḥ).
Today, when fields are far from the towns and cities where the poor live, there is almost no realistic situation in which it would be worthwhile for them to come and gather these gifts. Reaching them would require walking long distances, and the poor would be able to carry only a small amount of produce on their backs. If they obtained a vehicle to transport the produce, the cost of the vehicle and travel would generally exceed the value of the produce. Even if they managed to gather large quantities, they would have great difficulty selling them, since they are not connected to marketing systems. And even if they did connect to those systems, they would receive little for the produce. In industrial agriculture, the produce itself has little value; most of what the consumer pays goes toward transportation and marketing.
In principle, there may be rare cases in which it would be worthwhile for a poor person to gather these gifts. For example, this might apply to grapes suitable for high-quality wine, if poor people live near the fields, have no other work, and are capable of gathering the grapes, bringing them home, and producing fine wine from them. In practice, however, such cases almost never arise, because a poor person capable of doing all this could generally find steady work that pays more.
Therefore, as long as the field owner knows of no poor people who wish to gather the gifts from his field, the general rule today applies: there is no mitzva for him to leave these gifts for the poor. Since the entire crop belongs to him, terumot and ma’asrot must be separated from all of it, including the portion that in earlier times would have been left as gifts to the poor.[9]
Although today we do not merit fulfilling the mitzvot of gifts to the poor directly in the fields, Torah scholars must study deeply the realities of economics and employment in all their sectors. They must examine the condition of the poor, the causes of their hardship, and, at the same time, the Torah’s laws of gifts to the poor. From these laws, they can draw inspiration and guidance for the proper Torah approach to helping the poor in the best possible way. The goal is to find a way for all those who produce goods and services that people need – such as food, clothing, furniture, housing, health care, and the like – to share the fruits of their labor with the poor. This sharing should be structured so that the poor participate in the effort needed to receive it, while causing little loss to the donors and great benefit to the recipients, as explained above in section 2.
