Menachos 10:8 - 10:9

קוצרים בית השלחים שבעמקים – that their grain is bad and we don’t bring the Omer from there. And it is taught in a Baraitha (Tractate Menahot 71a), one verse states (Leviticus 23:10): “and you repeat its harvest and you shall bring the… sheaf,” that implies that you are able to reap prior to bring the Omer, and another verse (ibid.,) states: “the first sheaf of your harvest,” which implies that it will be the first of all the reaping, how is this possible? From a place that you are able to bring the Omer you do not reap prior to the Omer, [and] from a place that you cannot bring, as for example, the dry arid land in need of irrigation and the valleys where they don’t bring Omer from them because they are poor [quality], one reaps prior to [bringing] the Omer.

אבל לא גודשין – to make a heap. For whatever It is possible to change, we change.

אנשי יריחו – they had dry, arid lands requiring irrigation.

קוצר שחת – it is permissible to reap corn in its earliest stage [used instead of grass] prior to [the reaping of] the Omer and feed it to his cattle.

אימתי בזמן שהתחיל – to reap it for the needs of his cattle until it did not bring up the final third of the completion of its ripening, he reaps even after it brought up the third.

ר' שמעון אומר אף יקצור ויאכיל – he will begin to reap and feed it to his cattle when it brings forth a third [of its full growth], and all of the corn in its earliest stage [used instead of grass] is not reaping. But the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yehuda who comes to explain the words of the first Tanna/teacher.

קוצרים – prior to the Omer.

מפני בנטיעות – that they will lose them. Because that grain is not appropriate for the Omer, as we stated in the chapter “All of the Sacrifices/כל הקרבנות” (Tractate Menahot, Chapter 8, Mishnah 2), we do not bring either from an arid irrigated field nor from a field containing at least three tees within a distance of a Seah, and above we stated (quoting from Tractate Menahot 71a), that from a place that you don’t bring [the Omer] you reap. Another explanation: “Because of the seedlings/מפני הנטיעות,” because of mixed seeds, because sometimes a person sows grain and there are no seedlings there, and after a time seedlings rise up there on their own between them, and one must reap he seeds because of mixed seeds/Kilyaim.

מפני בית האבל – that they lack the free space rto sit and to recite the blessing of comfort that we say in the House of Mourning.

ומפני בית המדרש – for there is no place for the students to sit. And the reason of all of these, is because reaping is a Commandment, and the Scriptural verse states (Leviticus 23:10): “the first sheaf of your harvest,” that the Omer will be the fist of your optional harvest and not the first of the command of reaping.

כריכות – bound large sheaves.

צבתים – bundles without tying. Another interpretation: bundles of bound large sheaves, heaps are small bundles

מן הקמח – that he would reap for its sake.

לא מצא – that everything was already reaped.

מן הלח – as it is written (Leviticus 23:14): “You shall eat no [bread or parched grain] or fresh ears,” that it is soft and brittle (see Tractate Menahot 66b).

לקצור בלילה – that we derived at the beginning of the chapter (see Tractate Menahot, Chapter 10, Mishnah 3), as it is written (Deuteronomy 16:9): “when the sickle is first put to the standing grain,” from the time that you count you reap, for the counting must be at night, as it is written (Leviticus 23:15): “you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete.” (see also Tractate Megillah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 6).