Bava Batra 72a — the Talmud in English

But the Gemara raises a difficulty:

And can you establish it as referring to Rabbi Shimon in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva,

that one who consecrates property consecrates generously?

But it was taught in a beraita

Arakhin 14a]:

If a person consecrated

within his orchard

three trees

, when they are planted

in a plantation

of

ten

trees

per beit se'a,

which is the appropriate measure for an orchard, as trees planted in this manner are arranged in the proper manner for planting trees, and all the land between the trees is needed for the trees,

he has consecrated

with this act also

the land, and

also

the trees

that are small

between them,

as is the law with regard to one who sells three trees, for by doing so he also sells the land and the trees between them.

Therefore,

since the consecration of the trees is one consecration together with the land,

when he redeems

the land and the trees from the consecration, he

redeems

them not according to the separate values of the trees and the land, but redeems everything according to the special fixed price that the Torah established for the redemption of land [when it is an ancestral field, which one inherited from his father], according to

a beit zera of a homer of barley, for fifty silver shekels.

That is, the redemption is calculated proportionally, according to a price of fifty silver shekels for an area suitable for sowing a “homer of barley,” and not according to the value of the land. For the Torah states [Leviticus 27]: “And if a man consecrates a field of his ancestral property to the Lord, your valuation shall be according to its seed; a homer of barley seed at fifty silver shekels,” and the trees are included within the category of the “field.”

But if the spacing of the trees was

less than this

[than the measure of a plantation of ten trees per beit se'a], so that they were crowded and are considered a forest rather than a plantation, and will ultimately be uprooted,

or

they were spaced

more than this,

so that they were not planted in the proper arrangement for planting trees, and the land is not needed for them, it is like one who consecrates a tree alone without land, which must be redeemed according to its value.

Or if he consecrated them one after the other,

not as an orchard but as each tree in its own right—

he has consecrated neither the land nor the

trees between them.

Therefore, when he redeems them—

he redeems the trees according to their values.

Moreover,

and it is not only these trees, whose land between them was not consecrated and which therefore can be redeemed only according to their value.

Rather, even if he first consecrated

the

trees

[which were not planted in the proper arrangement for planting trees, and the land was not consecrated along with them],

and then returned and consecrated the land,

the trees are not redeemed together with the land at the price of the land. Rather,

when he redeems them—

he redeems the trees according to their values, and then redeems a beit zera of a homer of barley for fifty silver shekels.

And the Gemara analyzes this:

Whose opinion is this?

According to whose approach is this beraita stated?

If

it is according to

Rabbi Akiva,

then

he said: A seller sells generously, and all the more so one who consecrates!

According to him, even one who sells two trees sells the land between them, and all the more so, if one consecrates three trees one after the other, he consecrates the land and the trees between them as well.

If it is according to the Rabbis,

who disagree with Rabbi Akiva with regard to a sale and maintain that one sells begrudgingly,

they say

in our Mishna that only

a seller sells begrudgingly, but one who consecrates property consecrates generously!

Rather, it is obvious

that this beraita is according to the opinion of

Rabbi Shimon,

who maintains in our Mishna that the legal status of one who consecrates a field is like that of a seller: he did not consecrate the grafted carob tree or the sycamore trunk. The beraita therefore comes to teach us that Rabbi Shimon maintains that one who consecrates property does so begrudgingly in a matter involving ownership; therefore, if he consecrated three trees one after the other, he did not consecrate the land or the trees between them.

The discussion can now continue:

And Rabbi Shimon

himself,

in accordance with whose opinion

among his teachers does he maintain this?

If it is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva,

of whom Rabbi Shimon was a disciple, this cannot be said, because

he said

—Rabbi Akiva said—that

a seller sells generously.

And all the more so, one who consecrates!

Rather, it is obvious

that Rabbi Shimon said this

in accordance with the opinion of the Rabbis, and Rabbi Shimon maintains

that according to the Rabbis, the legal status of property consecrated to the Most High is like that of ordinary property,

just as a seller

sells begrudgingly, so too one who consecrates property consecrates begrudgingly, and retains the land!