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Arakhin 30 for kids: Fields and Fresh Starts

ערכין ל׳

🌾 This daf asks how a sold field can be redeemed and what happens when the Jubilee Year arrives. It also discusses who pays a penalty and why the rules for redeeming a field from the Temple treasury are different.

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Stories from Arakhin 30

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Rashi and Tosafot on Arakhin 30 in simple English

Rashi on Arakhin 30a, in English Tab translation (27)
  1. And Rav Anan — He was unsure in which cases the money is returned. He had not learned the baraita requiring a deed of emancipation, and Shmuel’s statement that the field is not sold did not settle the question: perhaps the buyer’s money remains with the seller as a gift. That is the possible difference between Rav and Shmuel explained above.
  2. And the money is returned — According to Rav, a man knows he cannot betroth his sister, so he gave her the money for safekeeping. According to Shmuel, he gave it to her as a gift.
  3. That you penalize the buyer — In the case of one who sells his slave outside Eretz Yisrael, you say the sale stands, the slave goes free, and the buyer loses his money.
  4. Let us penalize the seller — Let the money be returned, and let the seller free the slave.
  5. It is not the mouse that steals — A mouse would not steal if it had no hole in which to put what it took; the hole enables the theft. Likewise, the seller would not have sold the slave if he had found no buyer.
  6. Where would the hole get it? — Where would the hole get the stolen item?
  7. Where the prohibited situation exists — That is, with the buyer, who now has the slave.
  8. Pay him its value — This means the value of the plowing. The mishna teaches that the seller need not pay it.
  9. So that he should not say — The seller, coming to redeem the field after two years, should not say: “Leave it for me full of produce, as I left it for you when I sold it.”
  10. According to the number of years of crops — This implies all the crops produced during those two years. Had the verse said only “the number of years” or “the number of crops,” it would have implied two crops.
  11. Mishna: He calculates only — When the seller comes to redeem the field, he calculates using the price paid by the first buyer: he divides that price among the years from the sale until the Jubilee Year. The buyer deducts the amount for each year he has enjoyed the field, and the seller returns the remainder.
  12. To the man to whom he sold it — “He returns the remainder to the man…” is written about one who redeems a field he sold.
  13. To the man who possesses it — The Gemara asks why we interpret this leniently for the seller rather than stringently.
  14. He may not sell a distant field — He may not sell another field he owns in order to redeem this one, which is near him. The Gemara explains the source of this rule.
  15. Nor may he borrow — He may not borrow money to redeem it.
  16. All these are permitted — One who consecrated his field may sell another field or borrow money to redeem it. He may also redeem it in parts: if he cannot afford the whole field, he may redeem half now and the rest when he can.
  17. Gemara: And it increased in value — The field increased in value on its own.
  18. The remainder in his possession — The money the seller still has from the sale price after deducting the buyer’s share for the years he has enjoyed the field.
  19. It deteriorated — The field was damaged and lost value.
  20. That is in the land — The excess of the field’s current value over the amount remaining after the deduction for the years the buyer has enjoyed it. The word “remainder” can be interpreted either way.
  21. What is the difference between them? — Between Rabbi and Rabbi Dostai? Both interpret the law leniently for the seller.
  22. For example, its value rose, fell, and rose again — The owner sold it for two hundred dinars; the first buyer sold it to the second for one hundred; then its value rose to two hundred. According to Rabbi, who says “to the man who possesses it,” the seller pays only the one hundred the second buyer paid. According to Rabbi Dostai, he pays two hundred: that is both the remainder of what he received from the first buyer and the field’s current value.
  23. Redemption, redemption — “And he finds enough for its redemption” is written here, and “he shall have redemption” is written concerning a Hebrew slave.
  24. Only from that hundred — When the slave redeems himself, he divides the hundred he was paid by the number of years from his sale until the Jubilee Year. If two or three years have passed, his master deducts the amount for those years, as it says: “He shall be with him like a hired worker.”
  25. According to his years — This means according to the years he has remained with his master; that is, based on what he is worth at that time.
  26. I know only, etc. — This verse concerns someone sold to a non-Jew, as it says, “If a resident alien among you prospers…” (Leviticus 25:47).
  27. Hired worker, hired worker — Here it says, “He shall be with him like a hired worker” (Leviticus 25:50). Of someone sold to a Jew, it says, “For he has served you for twice a hired worker’s wages” (Deuteronomy 15:18).
Tosafot on Arakhin 30a, in English Tab translation (3)
  1. Perhaps the field is not sold and the money is a gift, as when a man betroths his sister — But since we have established that the money is in fact returned, the cases must differ. A man knows that betrothal cannot take effect with his sister, so he gives her the money as a gift. People are not generally familiar with the rule about selling a field during the Jubilee Year, so a seller does not intend the money as a gift.
  2. He may not sell a distant field to redeem a nearby one — The same rule applies in reverse; the mishna simply gives the usual example.
  3. The difference between them is where the price rose, fell, and rose again — The Gemara could also have given a case with just one buyer, where the price rose and then fell. According to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, who does not interpret “the remainder” as referring to either the man to whom the field was sold or the man who now holds it, the owner must redeem it at the sale price—the higher price. According to Rabbi Dostai, son of Rabbi Yehuda, redemption follows the field’s current value—the lower price. But since the mishna discusses two sellers, the Gemara gives its example with two sellers as well.
Rashi on Arakhin 30b, in English Tab translation (23)
  1. I am ready — I praise my own skill as an interpreter, like ben Azzai, who praised himself in the markets of Tiberias. As taught in Bekhorot: ben Azzai said, “All the Sages of Israel are like garlic peel before me.”
  2. They can be interpreted — these verses about a Hebrew slave.
  3. Kibbar — coarse bread, called shagondier.
  4. From Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Chanina — for the slave surely reached this state because he acted wickedly and traded in Sabbatical Year produce.
  5. The hint of a Sabbatical Year violation — trading in Sabbatical Year produce. It is called a “hint” because this is not the main prohibition of the Sabbatical Year.
  6. And next to it is “If you sell something” — the verses are read together: If you do not keep the Jubilee Year’s commandments, you will end up selling movable property and household goods.
  7. He did not feel remorse — he was not shaken enough to turn away from the sin.
  8. It did not occur to him — implying that it did not even cross his mind that he was committing a sin.
  9. It becomes like something permitted to him — that is how it appears to him. After the first offense, he still knew he was sinning but did not hold back. After the second, it no longer even occurs to him that the act is a sin.
  10. A person prefers to sell his daughter rather than borrow at interest — interest is mentioned in this passage: “Do not take interest or increase from him.” By then, he has surely already sold his daughter, since he prefers that course.
  11. The amount needed to redeem his daughter keeps decreasing — ordinarily, she is sold only until she reaches adolescence. If he redeems her earlier, the master deducts from the sale price the value of each year she has served, as taught concerning “he shall redeem her”: she goes free through a reduced redemption payment.
  12. And he becomes a servant — he serves an idol by chopping wood and drawing water for its worship.
  13. He said to him — Abaye said to that Sage: Even so, Scripture returns to the subject of the slave and directs that people have compassion on him.
  14. I would cast a stone — meaning, I would leave him without any possibility of redemption.
  15. Let us be stringent — if he was sold for one hundred and increased in value, calculate his redemption at two hundred; or if he was sold for two hundred and declined in value, calculate it at two hundred, as the verse says, “from the money paid for his purchase.”
  16. Can some years be more numerous than others? — Does the verse’s phrase “if many years remain” mean that one year can contain more time than another?
  17. Rather — the verse means: If his value has increased during his years of service, calculate his redemption from his original purchase price. If his value has decreased during those years, calculate his redemption according to his reduced value.
  18. Or say — perhaps the verse means that if he served two years and four remain until the Jubilee, he pays the portion of his original purchase price corresponding to those four years.
  19. According to his years — according to the years he still owes in service; the verse would not be speaking about a decline or increase in his value.
  20. And it strikes his fellow, who dies — he is liable to exile only if the other person was present when he raised the axe. If that person then entered the axe’s path, he is exempt from exile.
  21. What his means now allow — for when he sold the land, he certainly lacked the means, as the verse says, “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his ancestral land.”
  22. And if the person who consecrated it redeems it — this teaches that he may borrow money to redeem it, and, if he wishes, redeem it in portions.
  23. His position was weakened — as stated above.
Tosafot on Arakhin 30b, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. As it is taught, ‘Because he fares well with you’ — This is the reading in all the books, but it should not be read this way. These are the slave’s words explaining why he wants to stay: ‘Because he loves you and your household, because he fares well with you.’ They are not a command. Instead, the text should read as it does in Sifrei: ‘As a resident, as a hired worker, he shall be with you,’ which is a command.
  2. How severe is even a lesser violation of the Sabbatical Year — This means trading in its produce, rather than the primary prohibitions of plowing and sowing. But how do we know that trading alone brings the losses described here? Perhaps only plowing or sowing does. The answer is that the punishment matches the act: because he sold Sabbatical-Year produce, he comes to sell what he owns.
  3. ‘Or to the root’—one sold to idolatry itself — The phrase is interpreted this way because idols are destined to be uprooted.
  4. But say that if he worked two years and four remain, and so on — Rashi explains that the discussion says nothing about whether the slave’s value fell or rose. That seems unlikely: if so, the point follows from the plain meaning of the verse, without its extra wording, whereas Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak appears to derive it from that wording. Rather, the question is whether, when four years remain, he pays for four years ‘from his purchase price’ whether his value fell or rose, and when two years remain, he pays for two years ‘according to his years’ whether his value fell or rose. The extra wording teaches that we always follow the nearer phrase.

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 30.