As part of the Talmud’s larger discussion of designating animal parts for priests, the rabbis also discuss produce designated for poor people. The Talmud brings a beraita that lays out exactly what landowners must leave behind in the fields and orchards:
Four gifts are left to the poor from a vineyard: Individual fallen grapes, incompletely formed clusters, forgotten clusters and pe’ah.
Three from grain: Gleanings, forgotten sheaves and pe’ah.
Two from a tree: Forgotten fruits and pe’ah.
From all three kinds of produce, an owner must contribute that which is forgotten — meaning that which the owner unintentionally fails to reap in the initial harvest. They must also leave pe’ah, which involves intentionally leaving the corners of their fields unharvested, so that poor people can come and harvest it themselves. Both are part of the biblical social safety net. The Torah lays out additional parts of the grain and grape harvest that are contributed to poor people, as described in the beraita.
The beraita will eventually identify the biblical verses that are the sources of each of these rules, but first it tells us more about the givers and recipients of this produce:
All of these, the owner does not have the benefit of discretion. And even a poor person of Israel — the court removes them from his possession.
Any poor person has the right to come and harvest these gifts, whether or not the owner wants them to. The other side of this inclusion is that poor people, who are permitted to benefit, are also obligated to leave these agricultural gifts in their own vineyards, fields and orchards. According to the biblical sources for these laws, the land is ultimately God’s, and God has obligated everyone to participate in this social safety net. And if anyone — even a poor person — refuses to leave these gifts in the fields, the court has the right to seize them and distribute them to their rightful owners: poor people.
This interpretation means that everyone has something to contribute. We are not a society divided into givers and takers, but a society in which many both give and take — in different seasons of our lives, or even at the same time.
While it is incredible that the Torah laid out a social safety net so many millennia ago, it’s apparent even from biblical texts that this program didn’t “catch” everyone in need. The laws of agricultural gifts allow poor people to harvest life-sustaining foods, but that assumes that they are able-bodied enough to do this backbreaking physical work. The Book of Ruth tells us this work was too difficult for elderly individuals and put women in a sexually vulnerable position (Ruth 2:9). A range of physical disabilities may also have made such work impossible for some. Was there a way to get the aid into their hands?
Quite possibly. On today’s daf, the beraita offers this teaching as well:
The poor man’s tithe, which is distributed from within one’s house, the owner has the benefit of discretion. And even a poor person in Israel, the court removes it from his possession.
In the third and sixth years of the sabbatical cycle, Israel is commanded to give a tenth of their produce to poor people (Deuteronomy 14:28). The beraita teaches that for these particular gifts, landowners are permitted to choose the recipients. This would have given them the ability to get that particular produce into the hands of people who could not glean for themselves.
Today’s daf reminds us to think holistically about how our systems work, whose needs they meet, and who gets left out. We are also reminded to be intentional in our work to create pathways for greater inclusion that promote both human life and human dignity.
Read all of Chullin 131 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 8, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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