Arakhin 24a — the Talmud in English

For Scripture says

in the section of Arakhin:

“And if he is poor, ‘he’ is to be valued according to your valuation,”

and they expound:

“Keep him alive from your valuation,”

for this is what it implies: he shall remain in existence from your valuation! And therefore they maintain him.

We learned in the Mishna:

“But not for his wife and his sons, etc.”

What is the reason?

For they expound:

“He”

shall be kept alive

“from your valuation,” but not his wife and his sons—

“from your valuation.”

We learned in the Mishna:

“Rabbi Eliezer says: If he was a farmer, one gives him his team, etc.”

And we explain:

And the Rabbis,

who did not mention a team or a donkey [Rabbeinu Gershom] and maintain that one does not give a farmer his team, nor a donkey-driver his donkey, their reason is:

Those

his team and his donkey

are not implements of a trade, but rather are assets!

And one does not give him assets.

We learned in the Mishna:

“If he had one kind”

in abundance, etc., one does not say to him, “Sell,” etc.

And we raise an objection:

It is obvious

that they do not leave in his possession enough to acquire a trade implement that he had not previously possessed, for

just as it suffices for him

[it was sufficient for him]

until now

with one trade implement,

now too, does it suffice for him?!

And we answer:

You might say: Until now

[until now]

when he had

an equivalent one from the numerous implement, enough so that he would have in his possession

to lend

[to lend] to others,

there were

—those others who benefited from it—

lending him

that implement which he lacked, and it was as though he had two of each kind in his possession, and therefore it was sufficient for him. But

now,

after the treasurer takes the additional implement that he had for lending to others,

there is no

now anyone

who lends him

from the lacking implement; again,

it does not

suffice for him with the lesser implement, and if so, we should leave in his possession from the numerous implement more than the two that he needs;

it teaches us

that they do not leave it for him!

We learned in the Mishna:

“One who consecrates his assets, they raise his phylacteries for him. There was a certain man who sold his assets”

[he sold his assets, and phylacteries were among them]

he came before Rav Yeimar, who said to them: ‘Remove his phylacteries’

[take his phylacteries off his head], until he purchases them with money! For the sale of his assets includes the sale of his phylacteries as well.

And we raise an objection:

What does this teach us

Rav Yeimar? Is it not the case that

this Mishna

эта

is

what we learned:

“One who consecrates his assets, they raise for him

[for money,] his

phylacteries,”

and just as consecration takes effect also upon the phylacteries, the same law applies to a sale?!

And we answer:

You might say: There,

with regard to consecration,

it

is that they say that he intended to consecrate even his phylacteries, because

he holds: I am performing a mitzva

[I am doing] by consecrating for the repair of the Temple, and therefore, with regard to all his assets, his intention was in his consecration;

but with regard to selling

[a sale], it may be said that

a mitzva belonging to his body,

such as phylacteries,

a person does not sell. It teaches us

that even when he sells all his assets, his intention extends also to his phylacteries!

Mishna:

Whether one who consecrates his assets, or whether one who values himself, he has no

for the treasurer [who cannot take them as security for the valuation, and in consecration they are not included among his assets to consecrate them—Rashi, Bava Kamma 102a:]

neither his wife’s clothing, nor his sons’ clothing,

since it does not belong to him. And

not dyed garments

[dyed clothing—Tiferet Yisrael]

that he dyed for their sake

of his wife and sons,

nor sandals

of his wife and sons, and even if they are

new

and they have not yet worn them, the treasurer has no claim to them, for they are presumed to be theirs from the time

that he purchased them

the consecrator

for their sake

of his wife and sons. [And the same law also applies to clothing—Tiferet Yisrael].

A poor person who values himself, who is judged according to what his hand can reach, to pay only according to what the koen values him, does not have the value of his assets assessed except according to what they are; and therefore:

Even though they said

[that is, people are accustomed to say]:

a.

“Slaves are sold in their clothing for enhancement,

[that is, selling slaves when they are dressed in fine clothing enhances their price,]

for if clothing worth thirty dinars is purchased for him

only, and one dresses him in it at the time of his sale,

it enhances him

—more than his price without fine clothing—

by a maneh!”

b.

And likewise,

people are accustomed to say: “A

cow

that is destined to be sold,

if they wait

[delay]

for it until the market

[market day] to be sold there,

it enhances

its price, for it is sold at a high price!”

c.

And likewise,

people are accustomed to say: “A

pearl

that is destined to be sold,

if they raise it

from the village

to the large city,

where merchants come, and there they will sell it,

it enhances

its price!”

With regard to Arakhin, one does not say that the person who makes a valuation should give the consecrated property according to the higher value. Rather, the slave is assessed as he is “at his time,” and the cow and the pearl according to their value “in their place,” and this is what the person who makes a valuation gives to the consecrated property. For this is the principle:

“The consecrated property has only its place” [excluding a pearl],

except in the case of a pearl,

“and its time”

[excluding a slave and a cow].

Gemara:

The Sages taught:

It is written:

“And he shall give its valuation ‘on that day,’”

holy to the Lord, to teach:

that he shall not delay

the treasurer

a pearl for the poor

[for the poor]—for a lowly and poor person who valued himself, and had a pearl worth less in the village of the person making the valuation, but whose price is enhanced in the large city—the treasurer shall not delay it for him and say to him: “Take it up to the large city, and give according to that price!” Rather, the pearl is assessed according to what it is worth here, and the person making the valuation may delay it and sell it for whatever he wishes, but he gives the consecrated property only the amount for which it was assessed, for at the time the koen assessed him, he had no more.

“Holy to the Lord,”

to teach that

ordinary consecrations are for the repair of the Temple!

We have completed the chapter “The Valuation of the Orphans.”

It is written [Leviticus 27:16–21]: “And if a man dedicates to Hashem part of the field of his ancestral property [that is, a field that he inherited from his father or from his other heirs — Rambam], then your valuation [for redemption from the dedication by the owner or another] shall be according to the seed required for a homer of barley, at fifty silver shekels [each beit kor at fifty sela, when he redeems it at the beginning of the Jubilee years]]. “

If from the year of the Jubilee he dedicates his field, according to your valuation [according to this value stated] it shall stand.” “

And if after the Jubilee he dedicates his field, the koen shall calculate for him the money [when he comes to redeem it] according to the remaining years [of its redemption] until the Jubilee [how so? The value of its forty-nine years when he redeems it at the beginning of the Jubilee years is fifty sela; thus, a sela and a pondion for each year. And when he comes to redeem it, he shall give a sela and a pondion for each year of the remaining years until the Jubilee], and it shall be deducted from your valuation [the one stated — which is fifty sela — a sela and a pondion for each year from the beginning of the Jubilee years until the year in which he redeems it; and this is called ‘the deduction of money’].” “

And the field, when it goes out in the Jubilee, shall be sacred to Hashem, like a field of herem, to the koen; his ancestral property shall be.”

And the Sages of blessed memory derived from what the Torah said, “according to the years” remaining until the Jubilee—and there are no years fewer than two—that one who dedicates [a field] fewer than two years before the Jubilee does not redeem the dedication with a deduction of money; rather, he gives the entire value fixed in the Torah. And therefore:

Mishna:

One does not dedicate [a field] fewer than two years before the Jubilee,

for if he comes to redeem it, he will have to give the entire fifty sela in its redemption. Therefore the tanna teaches us good counsel: that he should not dedicate it at all—thus the Gemara explains it in its conclusion.

Nor does another redeem [it]

at the beginning of the year of

the Jubilee, less than one year,

that is, in the Jubilee year itself. [This is its simple meaning, and the Gemara explains it.]

Months are not calculated for a dedication.

One who redeems in the middle of a year does not deduct from his redemption the months that have elapsed; rather, he gives a sela and a pondion for this year, as though he had redeemed it from the dedication at its beginning.

But a dedication

for which it is advantageous to it that the elapsed months be calculated, and that we not regard it as though it stood at the beginning of the year—this dedication

calculates months!

For example, if he dedicated it in the middle of the forty-eighth year before the Jubilee: if we take into account that several months of this year have already elapsed, it turns out that he dedicated it fewer than two years before the Jubilee, and one who dedicates fewer than two years before the Jubilee does not deduct anything at all from his redemption; rather, he gives all fifty sela to the dedication. But if we do not take into account the months that have elapsed, and instead say that it is as though he stands at the beginning of the year, it turns out that there are two years from the time of his dedication until the Jubilee; then he deducts from his redemption all the years that have passed. It follows that it is advantageous to the dedication to take into account that these months have already elapsed and passed from the year!

Gemara:

And we raise an objection against the Mishna, which says that one does not dedicate fewer than two years before the Jubilee, implying according to its simple meaning that the dedication does not take effect at all:

And we set it against [another teaching]: One may dedicate both before the Jubilee

and this implies even fewer than two years,

and both after the Jubilee; but in the Jubilee year itself he should not dedicate, and if he dedicated, it is not sacred?!

And we answer:

Rav and Shmuel both say: One does not dedicate in order to redeem with a deduction fewer than two years

for one who dedicates fewer than two years has no law of deduction in its redemption; rather, he gives fifty sela .

And since one does not dedicate in order to redeem with a deduction fewer than two years,

therefore the Mishna teaches us that

a person should have compassion

on his property and should not dedicate fewer than two

years,

so that he should not lose forty-eight sela in its redemption.

It was stated: One who dedicates his field in the Jubilee year itself: Rav said: It is sacred, and he gives fifty!

For this is what the Torah said: “If from the year of the Jubilee he dedicates his field, according to your valuation it shall stand.”

And Shmuel said it is not

sacred at all,

for when one dedicates an ancestral-property field before the Jubilee, it goes out in the Jubilee from the dedication to the kohanim; therefore, in the Jubilee itself the dedication does not take effect at all, since in the Jubilee it goes out from the authority of the dedication!

And similarly they disputed below, 29b, concerning the sale of an ancestral-property field that returns to its owners in the Jubilee: if he sold it in the Jubilee year itself, Rav holds that it is sold and immediately goes out to the owners, while Shmuel holds that it is not sold at all.

Rav Yosef challenged

Shmuel:

Granted, with regard to a sale,

this is understandable,

that Shmuel disputes Rav—

who holds that in a sale it is sold and goes out—because

there is room to say a kal va-chomer: Just as a sold field

before the Jubilee

already goes out now,

in the Jubilee, and returns to its owners, a field

that is not sold

before the Jubilee

is it not the law that it should not be sold,

in the Jubilee?!

But here,

with regard to dedication,

is there room to say

such a

kal va-chomer: A sacred field already goes out now; is it not the law that it should not become sacred?!

And yet the field does become sacred?!

But we learned

with regard to a field that he dedicated before the Jubilee:

The Jubilee arrived and it was not redeemed—

kohanim enter it and give its value

to the dedication for the repairs of the House—

the words of Rabbi Yehuda!

And since it goes out from the dedication through payment, it is no longer possible to learn a kal va-chomer that a field dedicated in the Jubilee should not become sacred at all.

And we answer:

Shmuel holds like Rabbi Shimon,

who disputes Rabbi Yehuda;

he holds, saying: They enter,

the kohanim,

but do not give

money! And since it goes out from the dedication without payment, there is a kal va-chomer regarding one who dedicates in the Jubilee itself: it is not sacred at all!