Kids Daf Quest

Daf Yomi for kids · Talmud Bavli · Masechet Arakhin

Arakhin 27 for kids: Who Gets the Field?

ערכין כ״ז

🌾 This daf asks when fields can be consecrated and how their owners can redeem them. It also follows the bids for a consecrated field: what happens when someone offers more, or takes back an offer?

Daf Yomi day:

📖 Open Arakhin 27a in Daf QuestOpen Arakhin 27b in Daf Quest

In the app: the Gemara with Rashi and Tosafot, the printed page, games made from this daf, play coins and treasure chests.

Stories from Arakhin 27

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Arakhin 27 in simple English

Rashi on Arakhin 27a, in English Tab translation (22)
  1. But here they found another expression in the verse and interpreted it — a field consecrated before the owner’s father died also becomes an ancestral field. If the verse taught only that a field inherited before its consecration is ancestral, it could have said, “which is not his ancestral field.” That would already teach Rabbi Meir’s ruling, excluding a field that was ancestral when consecrated.
  2. Why does it say “of his ancestral field”? — The extra word teaches the case of a field consecrated before the owner’s father died.
  3. Excluding this field — When it was consecrated, it was destined to become an ancestral field.
  4. Even an Israelite may do so — A baraita at the start of this chapter teaches that fields may be consecrated before the Jubilee. The mishna’s statement not to consecrate within two years of the Jubilee was explained there as good advice.
  5. This works according to Shmuel — He says an Israelite’s field consecrated during the Jubilee does not become consecrated, so the mishna needs to teach that a priest’s field does.
  6. But according to Rav — That explanation does not work; what scriptural basis would there be for such a distinction?
  7. Since the first mishna taught a rule about Israelites — The later mishna states the corresponding rule about Levites.
  8. One who consecrates his field when there is no Jubilee — This means a time when the Jubilee is not observed.
  9. You open the bidding first — The treasurer asks the owner how much he wants to pay to redeem the field. He asks the owner first because this benefits the Temple treasury.
  10. The owner adds one-fifth — That is why the mishna specifies a time when the Jubilee is not observed. When it is observed, there is no need to ask his price: an ancestral field has a fixed redemption rate of fifty shekels per beit kor. When the Jubilee is not observed, it is redeemed at its value, as taught at the end of this chapter.
  11. Because of its poor quality — The cost of working the field exceeded its yield.
  12. He did not say an issar, but rather — He said, “It is mine for an egg,” because consecrated property can be redeemed with money or goods worth money.
  13. He said to him — The treasurer said to him.
  14. It has come to you — The field is yours.
  15. But isn’t it taught that they force him? — The treasurers force the owner to open the bidding.
  16. The mitzva of redemption begins with the owner — This is taught in the first chapter of Bekhorot.
  17. He offers more and redeems it — He raises his bid and redeems the field for more than someone else would pay.
  18. The mitzva of redemption begins with the owner — Scripture says, “If he does not redeem it, it shall be sold at your valuation,” showing that redemption comes before sale.
  19. But we hold that goods worth money count as money — As taught in Bava Kamma from the words “he shall restore,” this includes goods worth money, even bran.
  20. This unattributed ruling — It says that he loses an issar, not an egg. It therefore follows the Rabbis, not Rabbi Yosei.
  21. They seize ten selaim from his property — The treasurer then has twenty selaim from the withdrawn bids; the thirty-sela bidder pays thirty, making fifty in all.
  22. Someone said, “It is mine for twenty-one” — He said this after the owner had offered twenty.
Tosafot on Arakhin 27a, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. One who consecrates his field when the Jubilee is not observed — The field is then redeemed at its market value, so the Temple treasury gains by having the owner bid first, since he must add a fifth. When the Jubilee is observed, an ancestral field is redeemed at the fixed rate of fifty shekels per area sown with a kor of barley. The mishna concerns an ancestral field while the Temple stands. Without the Temple, one may redeem consecrated property even initially for a perutah, because the treasury gains nothing from it: the redemption money must be discarded. Thus, when a man who consecrated his property came before Rav Yehuda, Rav Yehuda told him to redeem it with four zuz and throw them into the river. How, then, could the Jubilee not be observed while the Temple stood? This could occur after some Israelites were exiled, since the Jubilee requires all Israel’s inhabitants to be in the land.
  2. Rabbi Yosei says — How could this incident have occurred in Rabbi Yosei’s time? He lived after the Temple’s destruction, when there was no need to have the owner bid first. Perhaps he disputes the account on the basis of a received tradition about an incident from Temple times. Alternatively, even without the Temple, the owner has the first opportunity to redeem, as the verse says: “If it is not redeemed, it shall be sold.”
  3. Does “they say” mean “they compel”? — Why is compulsion needed here, unlike the other cases where one mitzva takes precedence over another, listed at the end of the first chapter of Bekhorot: redeeming a firstborn donkey before breaking its neck, designating a Hebrew maidservant for marriage before redeeming her, levirate marriage before release, and redemption by the owner before redemption by anyone else? Although Scripture establishes those priorities, compulsion is mentioned only here. Here it is different: people might mistakenly benefit from the consecrated field.
  4. Rabbi Yosei holds that one may redeem it with an egg — In the chapter HaZahav, there is a dispute: one opinion requires both the item’s value and its additional fifth to be worth at least a perutah; the other requires the item’s value to be worth a perutah even if the fifth is not. Apparently, the egg here was worth a perutah.
Rashi on Arakhin 27b, in English Tab translation (24)
  1. The owners give — They must pay, even against their will.
  2. Twenty-six — The field is not given to the other bidder: the owners offered twenty sela, which comes to twenty-five with the added fifth. Giving it to him for twenty-one would cost the Temple treasury money. The owners must therefore pay their twenty-five, plus the sela by which he raised the bid. They do not add a fifth to that extra sela.
  3. If another said twenty-five, the owners give thirty — They must pay. This raises a question: Why compel them? With the lower bids, none matched the owners’ original twenty-five, including the fifth, so the field had to return to the owners; they then paid the other bid as principal, plus a fifth of their own bid. But this bidder’s principal is itself twenty-five. Why not give him the field? The Gemara asks this question.
  4. The Gemara: This was taught only — The bidder of fifty is charged only ten sela when the bidder of forty still stands by his offer. If the bidder of forty also withdraws, they share the twenty-sela gap between fifty and thirty: the bidder of fifty pays his own extra ten, plus half the ten added by the bidder of forty. Thus he pays fifteen and the bidder of forty pays five, since both had agreed to a price of at least forty.
  5. There is no bidder of fifty — No one bid more than forty; the mishna presents separate cases.
  6. Let the bidder of twenty pay with him — He too had agreed to the additional ten.
  7. From the bidder of ten — Saying “from the bidder of ten” implies there is another bidder.
  8. If they all withdrew at once, they share the loss — This follows Rav Hisda. The mishna concerns bidders who withdrew one after another: when the bidder of fifty withdrew, he could tell the treasurer that the bidder of forty remained.
  9. They share the loss — The earlier bidders benefit, while the later bidders bear more of it. If all withdraw and the treasurer sells the field for its value of five sela, the shortfall is forty-five. The bidder of fifty pays his extra ten alone. He and the bidder of forty each pay half of the next ten; those two and the bidder of thirty each pay a third of the next ten; four bidders share the next ten; and all five share the remaining five.
  10. Some pose it as a contradiction — They do not teach Rav Hisda’s statement separately, but derive it while resolving a contradiction between the mishna and a baraita.
  11. The owner says one sela — An owner who redeems his own second tithe adds a fifth, as Leviticus 27:31 says; another person redeeming it does not. The case continues: the owner offers one sela, while another offers one sela and an issar, adding to the principal. Yet the owner’s payment would be greater, since a fifth of a sela is a dinar, and a dinar is twenty-four issars.
  12. There — With second tithe, the added fifth benefits the owner: both the principal and the fifth remain his, and he will consume their value in Jerusalem. Redemption is required so he does not consume the tithe outside Jerusalem without redeeming it, and the principal is the essential payment. A lower redemption price does not concern us, since only he benefits from any increase.
  13. Let the owners say, ‘Someone has taken our place’ — He is willing to pay as much as we are. Until now, you turned to us to prevent a loss to the Temple treasury; why compel us now?
  14. Because the owners said — At first they offered twenty sela and an additional dinar. With the fifth, their payment comes to twenty-five sela and a dinar. Giving the field to the other bidder would therefore cost the Temple treasury money, so the owners must take it.
  15. Then let it teach — At the start of the mishna, that the owners offered twenty sela and a dinar.
  16. It was not exact — The mishna gave the amount in sela but omitted the dinar.
  17. But it teaches — A dinar later on, showing that it does give exact amounts in dinars.
  18. Rather, Rava said the owners said — At first they offered an additional peruta; the mishna does not give exact amounts in perutot.
  19. When the consecrated property was not appraised by three — Three people did not assess the land at the amount offered by the other bidder.
  20. But if three appraised it — If three valued the land at that bidder’s amount, the owners must add a fifth to the increase, even against their will; ten appraisers are not needed. Although appraising consecrated land normally requires ten, the point here is that three suffice to establish this increase.
  21. Six rulings in which Beit Shammai are lenient and Beit Hillel are strict — The passage lists six such rulings.
  22. And what is the dinar doing here? — You said the owners do not add a fifth to the other bidder’s increase.
  23. At first — When the bidding began.
  24. To bring the amount due — Including the other bidder’s increase, to thirty-one sela and a dinar.
Tosafot on Arakhin 27b, in English Tab translation (2)
  1. Does this imply that the fifth takes precedence? But another teaching says, ‘The owner offers a sela’ — Rabbi Elchanan asks: What is the difficulty? When the owner and another person both offer twenty, the owner takes precedence only if the other person does not offer more. Nor is there a difficulty from the ruling that the owner takes precedence by paying twenty-six when someone else offers twenty-one: the owner then pays more than the principal of twenty. Here too, the owner should take precedence by paying twenty-six—twenty-one in principal and five as the fifth. Perhaps the question is instead why, in our mishna, we compel the owner to match the other person’s offer and add a fifth to his own bid, while in the other teaching, when the owner offers a sela and another offers a sela and an issar, the other person takes precedence. We do not compel the owner to pay a sela and an issar plus the fifth; otherwise, it would say that the owner pays five dinars and an issar. The answer is that here the fifth is a gain for the Temple treasury, so it takes precedence and we compel the owner; there, the fifth would be a gain for the owner.
  2. It was taught: Beit Shammai say, ‘They add’ — This is the correct reading, and so it appears in Rabbeinu Tam’s text; it should not read, ‘It was likewise taught.’ If it does, the meaning is that the teaching likewise shows that someone holds that an addition is made in the case of an appraisal—whether Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel—and the Gemara seeks to identify the view that accords with Rav Chisda. Still, the reading without ‘likewise’ seems preferable.

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 27.