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Arakhin 34 for kids: Fields at Jubilee

ערכין ל״ד

🌾 This daf asks what happens to a Levite’s house and a priest’s field when the Jubilee Year comes. It looks closely at which property a priest keeps and which property he shares.

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Stories from Arakhin 34

Words to know

Rashi and Tosafot on Arakhin 34 in simple English

Rashi on Arakhin 34a, in English Tab translation (14)
  1. They and their open spaces — This refers to when the cities are walled.
  2. But they stand to be dismantled — As stated earlier, Levite cities may not be made into fortified towns or walled cities.
  3. You might have thought that until they are dismantled — As long as the walls still stand, a house sold before their demolition becomes the buyer’s permanently after one year. The teaching rules this out.
  4. Why does the verse say this? — What does the comparison to a dedicated field teach about a field that passes to the priests at the Jubilee?
  5. His dedicated field — A field dedicated by an Israelite that came into this priest’s share.
  6. Since it passes to the priests — If he does not redeem it, it passes to them; but it is already his, like an ancestral field, and is now in his possession.
  7. I acquire a share in the fields of others — If an Israelite’s ancestral field passed to the priests at the Jubilee, I would receive a share of it.
  8. Just as an Israelite’s ancestral field — If a priest redeemed it from the Temple treasury, it leaves his possession at the Jubilee and is divided among all his fellow priests, as explained earlier. So too with this field.
  9. Here he takes it — Here the priest seeks to take the whole field for himself.
  10. Each man’s hallowed things shall be his — As taught in the discussion in Bava Kamma, a priest who brings his own offering may perform the service whenever he wishes. He need not give it to the priests on duty: he offers it himself, takes the hide, and eats the meat.
  11. His hallowed things are not in his possession — He does not receive the portions by virtue of ownership; he performs the sacrificial service.
  12. Here it is in his possession — Here he would take the field by virtue of ownership, not from God’s table as payment for service.
  13. Rather, Rav Nachman said — The verse mentions a dedicated field because one might have thought that it too counts as the priest’s ancestral property. If he consecrated it and did not redeem it, it would not pass to the priests at the Jubilee; instead, he could redeem it at any time.
  14. This teaches us otherwise — The comparison to an Israelite’s ancestral field teaches that the dedicated field leaves the priest’s possession and is divided among the priests. His ancestral field can be redeemed at any time, but his dedicated field cannot.
Tosafot on Arakhin 34a, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. They and their open lands are destined to be dismantled — If the walls are removed, why does that matter? An earlier teaching says that a city counts as walled if it once had a wall, even if it has none now. Perhaps that teaching follows Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Yosei. Here, however, these cities ought not to have walls, so their former walls give them no walled-city status, as though they had never had walls.
  2. Are the cases comparable? There he acquires a share — The Gemara could also have objected that a priest receives a share of someone else’s field when his own priestly watch is serving, whereas here he seeks to acquire a field when another watch is serving. The field is not divided among priests of a different watch, as explained earlier. But the Gemara makes a stronger objection: even if his watch is serving when the field passes to the priests, the inference cannot give him the entire field.
  3. Rami bar Hama said: It was necessary … Rather, Rav Nahman said: One might have thought — Why does the baraita present the priest’s claim as an inference from a lesser to a greater case? His claim seems to rest instead on the verse “If a man consecrates,” according to Rami bar Hama, or “a perpetual possession,” according to Rav Nahman. Nevertheless, the baraita chooses to express the claim as an intuitive inference.
  4. This teaches us: His ancestral possession, yes; his dedicated field, no — Earlier, we learned from the comparison of a priest’s dedicated field to an Israelite’s ancestral field that the dedicated field is divided among the priests at Jubilee. Why, then, derive the rule here from “his ancestral possession”? The point is that only a priest’s ancestral field may always be redeemed and is not divided among the priests at Jubilee. His dedicated field is divided among them, as the comparison teaches, and cannot always be redeemed like his ancestral field. Rashi explains it this way too.

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 34.