Yadayim 4:3 - 4:4

עמון ומואב מה הן בשביעית – This is not Ammon and Moab that purified in Sihon which is in the inheritance of Reuben and Gad [in Transjordan], for this is the Land of Israel, even if you wish to state that those who came up from Babylonia [following seventy years of Exile in Babylonia following the Destruction of the First Temple] did not conquer it, perforce [the laws of] the Seventh Year are practiced in it, for it is taught in the Mishnah in the Tractate Sheviit, Chapter הפיגם/The Herb rue (i.e., Chapter 9) [Mishnah 2]: “There are three lands/regions [are delineated] with respect to [the laws] of removal: Judea, Transjordan and the Galilee.” And Transjordan is the land of Sihon. But we are speaking about the remainder of the land of Ammon and Moab where they didn’t purify in Sihon nor ever conquered it. Know, that when they include [a person] who made Aliyah [to the Land of Israel] from Babylonia and from Egypt.

ולא שניתי מסדר השנים (I have not changed the order of the years) – of the world. After the year of [bringing] the Poor Man’s Tithe (i.e., year six of the cycle), we bring the Second Tithe [which is consumed in Jerusalem]. Therefore, it is appropriate in the Seventh Year [to bring] Second Tithe

המעשר והתרומה – perforce, the Tithe that is mentioned here is Second Tithe, similar to Terumah/heave-offering which is holy, and not the Poor Man’s Tithe which is profane/non-consecrated, and one cannot make Second Tithe inoperative because of the poor.

כמשיב על דברי ר' טרפון – to assist him.

אבל לא לענין דבריו – meaning to say, but not from his reasoning.

מצרים מעשה חדש – that the elders that existed after Ezra establish to separate tithes in Egypt.

ובבבל מעשה ישן – it is the ordinance of the Prophets who existed prior to the Destruction of the Temple, but the matter was forgotten, for perhaps there wasn’t a need for the poor at that particular hour/time.

עשה נביאים – and by the word of Prophecy, they made a special emergency dispensation (not to be taken as a precedent), and we don’t learn from it.

הלכה למשה מסיני – Not exactly. For this is not from Torah, but rather, it is as if it is a usage dating from Moses as delivered from Sinai (i.e., a traditional interpretation of a written law). However, in the Tosefta [Tractate Yadayim, Chapter 2, Halakha 16 – in the Zuckermandel edition], it implies it is stating an actual usage dating from Moses as delivered from Sinai.

שנאמר ואסיר גבולות עמים (“I have erased the borders of peoples; I have plundered their treasures, And exiled their vast populations”) – that he (i.e., the Assyrians) would banish the people of this city and settle them in a different city, and he would banish the people of a different city and settle them in this city.

ושבתי את שבות עמי ישראל ועדיין לא שבו – just as they (i.e., the children of Israel) did not return, so also, they (i.e., the people of Ammon) did not return.

והתירו לבוא בקהל – for since that [members] from the seventy nations [of the known world] it is not forbidden for them to join/enter into the [Israelite] community other than the Ammonite and Moabite for all time, and an Egyptian and an Edomite for the first and second generations [it is forbidden for them to enter the Israelite community] (see Deuteronomy 23:8-9), here where these nations are not known for they (i.e., Ammonites and Moabites) have already been mixed up and combined among the rest of the other nations, we state: “he who separates [himself] - separates from a majority,” and all who convert are permitted to enter the [Israelite] community.