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Arakhin 25 for kids: Fields at Jubilee

ערכין כ״ה

🌾 What happens when someone gives an ancestral field to the Temple treasury and later redeems it? This daf asks how to measure the field, who can keep it for the owner, and what happens at Jubilee.

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Stories from Arakhin 25

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Arakhin 25 in simple English

Rashi on Arakhin 25a, in English Tab translation (28)
  1. In the middle of a Jubilee cycle — “After the Jubilee” can mean even twenty or thirty years later. If someone redeems a field partway through a year, he cannot pay for only part of that year. Until the full year has passed, he pays a full sela and pundeyon for it.
  2. One does not count months to reduce the payment to the Temple treasury — If someone redeems a field five and a half years before the Jubilee, the six months that have passed do not count as a sixth completed year. He pays six sela and six pundeyon.
  3. The remaining years — Count whatever time remains as years.
  4. To treat a month as a year — To count the months that have passed as a complete year, to the Temple treasury’s advantage.
  5. If he consecrated it halfway through the forty-eighth year — If the months already passed count as a completed year, fewer than two years remain, and the field cannot be redeemed at a reduced price.
  6. Mishna: When the Jubilee is observed — This applies while the Jubilee laws are in effect. Otherwise, he redeems the field at its market value, like other consecrated property.
  7. They are not measured with it — The crevices or boulders are redeemed at their market value; the rest of the field is priced at fifty sela per beit kor.
  8. The same applies to anyone else — Anyone redeems a beit kor for fifty shekels, whether it is worth a thousand shekels or only five.
  9. The owner adds a fifth — As it is written: “If the one who consecrated the field redeems it…”
  10. Gemara: A kor of seed — An area in which a kor of seed can be sown.
  11. Not a kor of produce — Not land that yields a kor of grain, which is much smaller than an area sown with a kor of seed. Its price is calculated by how much seed it takes—perhaps a third or a quarter of a kor—not at fifty shekels.
  12. Sowing by hand — Seed scattered by hand.
  13. Not sowing by oxen — People would place sacks of seed on oxen, make wide holes underneath, and lead them along the plow so the seed fell out. This sowed more densely, so a kor of seed covered less land than when scattered by hand.
  14. It was taught — One does not calculate using dense sowing, which would disadvantage the person redeeming the field.
  15. Nor sparse sowing — That would disadvantage the Temple treasury by making a beit kor of land larger. Instead, use an average sowing density.
  16. Dense — A large amount of seed is used. Sparse means little seed is used.
  17. Let them be consecrated separately — Why does it matter that the crevices are not measured with the field? They too could be redeemed at the rate of fifty shekels per beit kor.
  18. Why does Scripture say “field”? — It could have said, “If a man consecrates from his ancestral holding…”
  19. In this manner — As a full beit kor.
  20. A letekh — Half a kor.
  21. A tarkav — Three kav, which are half a se’a.
  22. Low spots — Crevices less than ten handbreadths deep. They are depressions where water collects and are considered part of the land, not separate areas. Rocks less than ten handbreadths high are likewise called the land’s ridges, like an animal’s raised backbone.
  23. Even for time in the Temple treasury’s possession — Just as the price is reduced for years before he consecrated the field, it is reduced for the years between consecration and redemption.
  24. Even if no one used it — Even if the treasurer neither sowed the field nor rented it out while the Temple treasury held it, one sela and one pundeyon are deducted for each year from the previous Jubilee until redemption.
  25. Mishna: It does not leave his possession at the Jubilee — It is not divided among the priests, as it would be if someone else had redeemed it. In that case, it would go to the priests at the Jubilee, as it is written: “When the field goes out in the Jubilee…”
  26. His son redeemed it — At the Jubilee, the field returns to his father, not to the priests, as the baraita in the Gemara derives.
  27. One of his relatives redeemed it — If the relative redeemed the field from the Temple treasurer and the person who consecrated it then redeemed it from the relative, the field is distributed among the priests at the Jubilee. It would have left the relative’s possession then, and the original owner acquired it through him.
  28. A priest redeemed it — If a priest redeemed the field from the Temple treasurer, he cannot say: “Had an Israelite redeemed it, it would have gone to me and my fellow priests at the Jubilee. Now that I have redeemed it and it is in my possession, no priest has a better claim than I do, so it should be mine.”
Tosafot on Arakhin 25a, in English Tab translation (2)
  1. He consecrated it in the middle of the forty-eighth year — “Consecrated” is not meant precisely: the calculation depends on when he redeems the field, not when he consecrates it.
  2. And let them be consecrated separately — I explained this in Bava Batra 103a and Kiddushin 61a.
Rashi on Arakhin 25b, in English Tab translation (22)
  1. To another man — The field then goes to the priests when it leaves his possession at the Jubilee.
  2. And not to his son — If his son redeemed the field, it returns to the father rather than going to the priests.
  3. The brother is already included — He counts as another person, so the field goes to the priests.
  4. For designation — If a father buys a Hebrew maidservant, he can designate her as a wife for his son. The son need not give her additional money for betrothal; the money his father paid for her purchase serves that purpose, as explained in the first chapter of Kiddushin.
  5. And for a Hebrew slave — If the master dies during the slave’s six years of service, the slave continues to serve his son, but not a brother who inherits when the master has no son, as stated in the first chapter of Kiddushin. Likewise, for an ancestral field, the son stands in his father’s place: if he redeems it, it returns to his father at the Jubilee rather than going to the priests.
  6. Why not derive it from the two reasons here? — Why is it necessary to answer with the question, ‘Can levirate marriage ever apply when there is a son?’
  7. Because — The rule that a Hebrew slave serves the son but not the brother is itself derived from that question. As explained in Kiddushin: Why include the son and exclude the brother? The son stands in his father’s place for designating a maidservant. But one might instead include the brother, who stands in his brother’s place for levirate marriage. The answer is that levirate marriage applies only when there is no son. Without that answer, the case of the Hebrew slave would not support the son, leaving one reason on each side.
  8. What is the law if she preserves it? — If a daughter redeems her father’s ancestral field from the Temple treasurer, does it return to her father at the Jubilee rather than going to the priests?
  9. Anyone who counts as another person when there is a son — If the presence of a son makes this person count as another person, that person’s redemption does not preserve the field for its owner.
  10. A woman — If a woman consecrates a field she owns while her husband has the right to its produce, who can redeem it so that it will not go to the priests at the Jubilee, if she herself cannot redeem it?
  11. Because he inherits from her — Her husband inherits from her even if she has a son; the husband, not the son, inherits, as taught from the verse ‘and he shall inherit her’ in Bava Batra.
  12. Or perhaps her son preserves it — When there is no husband and her son inherits from her, he receives property that becomes due to her after her death just as he receives property she possessed before her death. A husband who inherits from his wife does not receive property that becomes due to her after death as he receives property she already possessed, as stated in the chapter ‘There Are Those Who Inherit’ in Bava Batra.
  13. He consecrated it less than two years before the Jubilee — Another person then redeemed it, paying the full fifty shekels rather than a reduced amount. Does it go to the priests at the Jubilee like any other ancestral field?
  14. What is your reasoning? — Why consider saying that it does not go to the priests?
  15. A field that goes to the priests — A field consecrated by its owner and not redeemed by him, which is due to be given to the priests at the Jubilee.
  16. And one of the priests redeemed it — He redeemed it from the Temple treasurer.
  17. I acquire a share in fields redeemed by others — If an Israelite had redeemed it, it would leave his possession, and I would receive a share along with my fellow priests.
  18. The verse says, ‘It shall be the priest’s ancestral possession’ — A priest keeps the ancestral possession he inherited from his father, but this field does not become his own.
  19. The priests enter it — The priests of the division serving at the Jubilee enter the field, and it becomes permanently theirs.
  20. An abandoned field — It remains unclaimed until someone redeems it; when the Jubilee arrives, it leaves that person’s possession and goes to the priests.
  21. From one who consecrates a house — The Torah calls both a consecrated house and an ancestral field ‘holy.’ Just as a house never leaves the Temple treasury without payment—the priest must assess its value—and never goes to the priests, so an ancestral field does not leave the treasury without payment. Thus, if another person redeems the field, the payment goes to the Temple treasury, and at the Jubilee the field goes to the priests without further payment. If no one redeems it, the priests pay fifty shekels and take it. That an ancestral field goes to the priests is a specific decree of the Torah.
  22. The lambs of the festival of Weeks — The verse says of them, ‘They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.’ These lambs and an ancestral field are among the twenty-four priestly gifts, but a consecrated house never goes to the priests, even if another person redeems it from the Temple treasury.
Tosafot on Arakhin 25b, in English Tab translation (5)
  1. For designation and a Hebrew slave — Why does the baraita not also count inheritance as a reason to favor the son? It cannot be because the son’s priority in inheritance is learned from his priority regarding an ancestral field: even if son and brother were equal regarding the field and the Hebrew slave, Scripture explicitly gives the son priority for designation, and inheritance could be learned from that. Rather, the baraita lists only matters in which the brother has no standing at all. A brother can inherit when there is no son, daughter, or father.
  2. Is there levirate marriage except where there is no son? — This means that the son takes precedence over the brother even in this matter. It does not mean merely that they are equal here, leaving the son ahead because of designation and the Hebrew slave. In Bava Batra, the Gemara uses this reasoning to place a daughter before the father and brother in inheritance: son and daughter are alike in exempting a widow from levirate marriage. Thus this reasoning must show that a child takes precedence over a brother.
  3. His ancestral possession means his own, and this is not his — Why is this phrase needed? Could we not reject the argument that a priest may keep a field in his hands, just as the Gemara later rejects a similar argument about a dedicated field: receiving someone else’s property is not the same as keeping property already in one’s hands? Without this phrase, however, we would have learned from the shared word “priest” that he may keep the field, just as we might have thought that a priest who stole from a convert could keep the restitution. Since a priest may offer his own guilt offering even outside his assigned priestly watch, one might think he could keep the principal as well. “His ancestral possession” teaches that this field is not his own: it leaves his hands and is divided among the priests. The shared word “priest” then teaches the same rule for restitution after stealing from a convert.
  4. Just as there it is for payment, so here it is for payment — Why do the priests have a greater claim to this field than anyone else? Perhaps, like a consecrated house, it can be acquired for payment by anyone, priest or Israelite. The plain meaning of the verses indicates otherwise: whether the owner leaves the field with the Temple treasurer until Jubilee or someone else redeems it, the field then goes to the priests. For Rabbi Yehuda, the comparison teaches that when no one else has redeemed it, the priests receive it for payment rather than free.
  5. And Rabbi Shimon—what is his reason? — At first the Gemara asks for Rabbi Yehuda’s reason, suggesting Rabbi Shimon’s view is more natural; now it asks for Rabbi Shimon’s reason, suggesting the reverse. A similar exchange occurs in Bava Kamma, where two opinions read the same wording differently. Here too, the plain meaning of the verse is that the field goes to the priests. Rabbi Yehuda needs the comparison to teach that they pay for it; Rabbi Shimon needs it to teach that they receive it free.

Sources

Kid summary and story cards written by Tab from the William Davidson Edition English (Sefaria, CC BY-NC 4.0).

Tab translation (machine-assisted) of Rashi and Tosafot, from the Vilna Edition Hebrew (public domain) on Sefaria. May contain mistakes.

In the app, the Gemara text comes from Sefaria (William Davidson Edition, CC BY-NC 4.0; Hebrew/Aramaic Vilna Edition). Rashi and Tosafot Hebrew: Vilna Edition (public domain) via Sefaria.

Also spelled: Arachin, Erchin 25.