“Leket, Shikhecha, and Pe’ah” – Gifts or Taxation? Thoughts for Parashat Emor - Rabbi Gil Nativ, Ph.D.

Amid the list of Jewish festivals in Parashat Emor, we encounter a commandment that seems to “break the pattern” of the festival laws:

At first glance, the Torah seems to be encouraging landowners to give charity: your land has been blessed with abundant produce, so be generous—give some of what you have to those who have no land: the poor and the strangers.

But the wording “you shall leave them” (ta’azov otam) rather than “give” or “grant” hints at a deeper principle: the Torah does not appeal to the generosity or compassion of the landowner! This is unlike the language used for donations to the Mishkan, for example:

or for pilgrimage offerings.

What we have here is an ancient form of social welfare—something akin to national insurance or progressive taxation. Landowners are obligated to set aside a portion of their yield for those who have no land.

The direction the Sages took is clear: they sought to institutionalize the giving and minimize the extent to which the landowner could act voluntarily. Although they referred to Leket, Shikhecha, and Pe’ah collectively as “gifts to the poor”, we should not let the word “gifts” mislead us! These are not optional acts of kindness; they are framed as a duty. Even a minimum amount must be left: no less than 1/60th of the field's yield.

The landowner is not permitted to choose which poor people may collect from his field. They wait at the edge of the field and, once harvesting is done, they may enter without waiting for permission or any signal from the owner.

based on Mishnah Pe’ah 5:6:

Credit is due to the Sages: receiving charity can be degrading. Even today, unemployment benefits or welfare payments are not ideal, but they are preferable to reliance on the goodwill—or caprice—of the wealthy.

The story of Ruth the Moabite ends on a hopeful note: Boaz is a true gentleman. He protects the foreign widow from the whims of his workers, warns them not to harm her, and invites her to share in the workers’ meal. But one can imagine a much darker scenario: what if Boaz had said to Ruth- explicitly or implicitly- “You're a widow; you owe no loyalty to any man. Come to me once a week at night in the threshing floor to ‘warm me up,’ and in return, I’ll make sure you and your mother-in-law have enough food.”

Don’t like that proposal?

“Then I’ll file a complaint with the Interior Ministry about an illegal Moabite/Filipina worker wandering in my fields looking for work without a visa…”

Exploitation of Gerim (foreign workers) was widespread in biblical times, just as it is in the modern world. Otherwise, the Torah would not have repeatedly warned against oppressing the foreign worker, the widow, and the orphan. Legal obligations alone, like tithes for the poor in the third and sixth years of the sabbatical cycle, are not enough. There is certainly room for genuine voluntary giving- tzedakah and gemilut chasadim (acts of charity and kindness)- but we should remember what Maimonides said about the highest form of tzedakah: enabling people to support themselves, such as by providing employment or giving a loan to start a business.

“Give them fishing rods, not fish,” say modern sociologists—but Maimonides already said it just as well 800 years ago.

I pray that our society will find the means - both efficient and just (a difficult and complex combination) - to reduce the unreasonable, unjust, and likely inefficient gap between the ultra-wealthy and minimum-wage earners, and to enable everyone capable of working to find employment and support their families with dignity.

[i] Rabbi Avdimi bar Rabbi Yosef asked: Why does the Torah place this verse in the middle of the list of festivals—between Passover and Shavuot on one side, and Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot on the other? To teach you that anyone who gives Leket, Shikhecha, and Pe’ah to the poor properly is considered as if they had built the Temple and offered sacrifices there.

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