Peah 1:6 - 2:1

לעולם הוא נותן משום פאה – Whomever did not leave the corner of the field with attached produce, is liable to set aside [for the commandment of Peah] from what is detached from the soil. And that corner of the field’s produce that one sets aside from what is detached from the soil is given to the poor and is exempt from tithing.

עד שימרח – He should make a heap and pile of grain. But if one came to separate out the corner [of the field] after giving the pile an even shape, he must first separate out the heave-offering/sacred donation to the Kohen and the tithes and afterwards take the corner, for nothing is exempt from tithes other than the corner that was taken prior to giving the pile an even shape.

ונותן משום הפקר ופטור מן המעשרות – He who makes his grain ownerless and another [person] comes and takes possession of it, the person who benefits from it is not liable for tithes, as it is written (Deuteronomy 14:29): “Then the Levite, who has no hereditary portion as you have…” excluding the situation where it is ownerless, where “your hand” and “his hand” are equivalent. But an individual who declares his grain ownerless after giving the pile an even shape, this [grain being] ownerless does not exempt him from tithing.

ומאכיל לבהמה – And even if he himself is permitted to eat an incidental meal (i.e., snack) prior to giving the pile an even shape, but the cattle eat even a regular meal.

נוטל מן הגורן וזורע וכו' – since from the Torah, one who sows the field is exempt from tithing even after giving the pile an even shape, as it is written (Deuteronomy 14:22-23): “You shall set aside every year a tenth part [of all the yield of your sowing that is brought from the field]. You shall consume [the tithes of your new grain and wine and oil…].” But we do not call one who sows “you shall consume,” but according to the Rabbis, he is liable. Rabbi Akiba thinks that prior to giving the pile an even shape, one is exempt from tithes, even according to the Rabbis. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Akiba.

שלקחו את הגורן – who purchased grain from the threshing floor/granary, and the Sages fined him so that they would be liable to separate out the heave-offerings and tithes and give them to other Kohanim and Levites in order that they would not jump to purchase grain or wine in the wine-presses or granaries. But if they purchased it prior to giving the pile an even shape, this grain was not yet appointed [as ready] to be given as tithes, and the tithes are theirs.

המקדיש ופודה – A person who sanctifies his granary [to the Temple] and redeems it from the hand of the treasurer, and it is a stack of grain or standing corn that was not yet appointed [as ready] to be given as tithes when it was in the hands of the sacred Temple property, the one who redeems it must take out from it the tithes. But if the granary had been shaped into an even pile by the hand of the treasurer, since at the time that it was worthy of being appointed [as ready] to be given as tithes, that is, at the time of when it had been shaped into an even pile, it was in the hand of the Temple, the redeemer is not liable to remove from it the tithes as that which is dedicated to the Temple is exempt from tithing.

אלו מפסיקין – between one field and another and they would be considered like two fields, regarding [the case] that if he left the corner fallow in one of them over its neighbor, he did not fulfill [the Mitzvah] of Peah, as it is written (Leviticus 19:9): “….you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field…,” for he did not leave the corner fallow from one field to its neighbor.

הנחל – river

שלולית – canal that imparts booty (alluvium) to its banks (see Talmud Bava Kamma 61a), that other canals drink from it.

ודרך היחיד – four cubits

ודרך הרבים – sixteen cubits, and because of the concluding section [of the Mishnah] it used it, for it was necessary for the Mishnah to teach the ending section that all of these do not form a division at a tree. And it comes to tell us that even the communal path which is sixteen cubits wide does not form a division at a tree.

שביל הרבים ושביל היחיד – many small paths that took a foot and left a foot, and we learn that even the communal path if it is fixed for the days of sunshine (i.e., summer months) and the days of rain (i.e., winter months), that means to say, that people walk on it, even at the time when the fields are sown during the rainy seasons that separate between sown fields, and if not, they do not separate.

הבור – a field that is not sown [as it is written] (Genesis 47:19): “that the land may not become a waste,” which we translate [in Aramaic]: “and the land lay waste.”

והניר – ploughing, like (Jeremiah 4:3): “Break up the untilled ground, [and do not sow among thorns].”

וזרע אחר – like the example of two fields that are sown with wheat and between them is a piece of land sown with another kind. And the measurement of the width of the fallow land or the newly broken land and another seed is of three furrows with the handle of the plow.

והקוצר לשחת מפסיק – for he (i.e., Rabbi Meir) holds that a person who harvests young grain [for use as fodder] – is not for harvesting, and we don’t consider it as the beginning of harvesting. Corn that is used as fodder at its earliest stage which is grain that did not bring forth a third, and we harvest it to feed it to animals. But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Meir.