Talmud - Arachin 25a ערכין כ״ה א׳

It is referring to any year in the middle of the Jubilee cycle. The mishna’s statement should be read as follows: After the Jubilee Year, one may not redeem a field for less than the price of a year, meaning that as long as a year has not been completed, he does not deduct it from the price of redemption. For example, if there are five and a half years remaining until the Jubilee Year, he must give six sela and six pundeyon for its redemption, not five and a half of each of a sela and a pundeyon.

The Gemara asks: What is the tanna teaching us? Is he saying that one does not count months in order to lower the price to be paid to the Temple treasury? Such an interpretation is untenable, as that halakha is taught explicitly in the following line of the mishna: One does not count months in order to lower the price to be paid to the Temple treasury. The Gemara answers: The tanna is not attempting to teach a separate halakha here. Rather, he employs the style known as: What is the reason, and the mishna is to be read as follows: What is the reason that one may not redeem a field after the Jubilee Year with less than the price of a complete year? It is because one does not count months in order to lower the price to be paid to the Temple treasury.

§ The mishna teaches: One does not count months in order to lower the price to be paid to the Temple treasury, but the Temple treasury may count months in order to raise the price of redemption. With regard to this statement, the Sages taught in a baraita: From where is it derived that one does not count months in order to lower the price to be paid to the Temple treasury? The verse states: “Then the priest shall reckon for him the money according to the years that remain until the Jubilee Year, and a deduction shall be made from your valuation” (Leviticus 27:18). This teaches that you are to calculate years, but you are not to count months.

Furthermore, from where is it derived that if you, i.e., the priest representing the Temple treasury, want to consider months as a year so that it will be considered as though a complete year has passed, you may do so? And what are the circumstances in which the priest would want to do this? For example, in a case where one consecrated the field in the middle of the forty-eighth year and wishes to redeem it. In such a case, if the months that have passed are calculated as a complete year, then the halakha with regard to the redemption of a field in the year preceding the Jubilee Year is in effect, and the field must be redeemed according to its full valuation of fifty sela per beit kor, rather than the redemption price of two sela and two pundeyon per beit kor that would apply if the calculation were based on two years remaining until the Jubilee.

From where is this halakha derived? The verse states: “Then the priest shall reckon for him,” which indicates that the priest reckons for him in any case, i.e., the calculation is to be performed according to his discretion.

MISHNA: In the case of one who consecrates his ancestral field during a period when the Jubilee Year is observed and wishes to redeem it, he gives the Temple treasury fifty sela, a talmudic measure referred to in the Bible as silver shekels, for an area required for sowing a ḥomer, a measure known in talmudic terminology as one kor, of barley seed (see Leviticus 27:16). If there were crevices [neka’im] ten handbreadths deep in the field, or if there were boulders ten handbreadths high, then when calculating the redemption price those areas are not measured with the rest of the field. But if the depth of the crevices, or the height of the boulders, was less than that amount, they are measured with the rest of the field.

If he consecrated the field two or three years before the Jubilee Year and wishes to redeem it, he gives the Temple treasury a sela and a pundeyon, a pundeyon being one forty-eighth of a sela, per year remaining until the Jubilee Year. And if he said: I will give the payment for each year during that year, one does not listen to him; rather, he must give the entire sum in one payment. This is the halakha both with regard to a case where the owner redeems the field and a case where any other person redeems the field. What then is the difference between redemption by the owner and redemption by any other person? It is only that the owner gives an extra one-fifth in addition to the payment, and any other person who redeems the field does not give the additional one-fifth.

GEMARA: The Sages taught in a baraita: The phrase: “The sowing of a ḥomer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver” (Leviticus 27:16), is referring to an area required for sowing one kor, thirty se’a, of barley seed, and not an area that yields one kor of barley crop, which is significantly smaller. This area is measured according to a field sowed by hand and not sowed by oxen. Since oxen sow the field by pulling a planter, which spreads the seeds at a higher density, the area containing one kor sown by oxen is smaller than the area of one kor sown by hand. Levi taught in a baraita: The area is not measured according to the sowing of a particularly dense layer of seeds, nor a sparse layer, but rather in accordance with an average amount of seeds.

§ The mishna teaches that if there were crevices ten handbreadths deep in the field, they are not measured with the rest of the field. The Gemara suggests: And let them be consecrated by themselves, as they are fit for sowing, and therefore they should require redemption at the same rate as the rest of the field. Accordingly, one could simply measure the field together with the crevices, and the measurement will be equal to the sum total of the sizes of the field and any crevices.

And if you would say that the mishna is referring to crevices that together take up only a small area, and since they do not measure a beit kor they are not consecrated, that cannot be correct: But isn’t it taught in a baraita: The verse states: “And if a man shall sanctify for the Lord part of his ancestral field” (Leviticus 27:16). Why must the verse state: “Field”? Since it is stated in the same verse: “Your valuation shall be according to its sowing; the sowing of a ḥomer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver,” one might say: I have derived only that this is the halakha when he consecrated a field like this, i.e., one measuring at least a beit kor. From where is it derived to include fields that are fit for sowing only a half-kor or half of a half-kor, a se’a or a half-se’a [vetarkav], or even half of a half-se’a? The verse states: “Field,” indicating that one may consecrate a field in any case, regardless of size.

Mar Ukva bar Ḥama said: Here, the mishna is referring to crevices that are full of water, which are not fit for sowing. Accordingly, they are not measured with the field, as the verse states that the valuation is in accordance with the areas fit for sowing barley seeds. The language is also precise, as the tanna teaches the halakha with regard to crevices similar to the way he teaches that of boulders, which are also not fit for sowing, as it states: If there were crevices ten handbreadths deep or boulders ten handbreadths high. Conclude from this that the mishna is referring to crevices unfit for sowing.

The Gemara asks: If so, then when the difference in height between the field and the crevices or boulders is less than ten handbreadths, they should also not be measured with the field. Why does the mishna indicate that they are measured with the field in this case? The Gemara responds: These crevices less than ten handbreadths deep are called cracks of the ground, and these boulders less than ten handbreadths tall are called spines of the ground. As there is no great disparity in surface level between them and the field itself, they are deemed part of the field and are therefore measured with it, despite the fact that they are unfit for sowing.

§ The mishna teaches that if he consecrated the field two or three years before the Jubilee Year and wishes to redeem it, he gives the Temple treasury a sela and a pundeyon per year. In this regard, the Sages taught a baraita that deals with the verse: “But if he sanctifies his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon for him the money according to the years that remain until the Jubilee Year, and a deduction shall be made from your valuation” (Leviticus 27:18).

The baraita states that the apparently superfluous phrase “And a deduction shall be made from your valuation” teaches that even the years that passed from the consecration of the field are deducted, and not only the years that passed before it was consecrated. That is, if the Temple treasury benefited from the field’s produce for a year or two, or if the Temple treasury did not benefit from it but the field nevertheless remained before it, i.e., in the possession of the Temple treasury, he gives a sela and a pundeyon for each remaining year until the Jubilee Year.

§ The mishna teaches: And if he said: I will give the payment for each year during that year, one does not listen to him; rather, he must give the entire sum in one payment. The Sages taught in a baraita: From where is it derived that if the owner said: I will give the payment for each year during that year, that one does not listen to him? The verse states: “Then the priest shall reckon for him the money” (Leviticus 27:18). The term “the money” indicates that the priest does not reckon the price for him unless all of the money will be paid together as one sum. This is the halakha with regard to both the owner and any other person. What then is the difference between redemption by the owner and redemption by any other person? It is that the owner gives an extra one-fifth in addition to the payment, and any other person does not give the additional one-fifth.

MISHNA: If one consecrated his ancestral field and then redeemed it himself, it is not removed from his possession to be divided among the priests during the Jubilee Year. If his son redeemed it, the field is removed from the son’s possession and returns to his father during the Jubilee Year. But if another person or one of his other relatives redeemed the field and the owner subsequently redeemed it from his possession, the field is removed from the owner’s possession and given to the priests during the Jubilee Year.

If one of the priests redeemed the field and when the Jubilee arrived it was in his possession, he may not say: Since it is removed from the possession of the one who redeemed it and given to the priests during the Jubilee Year, and since it is already in my possession, it is mine. Rather, the field is removed from his possession and is divided among all his brethren, the priests.

Traduction : The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

Arachin 25a explores redeeming a consecrated field before the Jubilee, detailing how partial months affect the calculation of payment owed to the Temple treasury.