Tractate Peah, Chapter 3, Tosefta 3

Notes:

1. Since the previous Tosefta mentioned a law pertaining to gifts to the poor and Non-Jews so this Tosefta states another regarding the same subject. It is not related to any Mishna.

2. For a description of what the tithes are and in particular what Maaser Ani is see above Tosefta 1:6, note 7.

3. Maaser Ani, just like Maaser Sheni (Second Tithe), has a special holiness to it which places on it certain limitations. For example, its recipient was not allowed to use it to repay a debt or give it away as charity to someone else. See Tosefta Peah 4:16. Also, the produce of Maaser Ani had to stay in the Land of Israel and was not allowed to be taken outside of it. See Sifri (Reeh 110). There are other restrictions as well which will be described in Tosefta Peah 4:16. Due to this holiness the produce of Maaser Ani could not be given to a Non-Jew since holy objects were not allowed to be handled by Non-Jews.

It should be noted that Maaser Ani was proactively given by the owner of the produce to the poor after he has separated all of the tithes, as opposed to other gifts to the poor which were simply left in the field and the poor would go themselves and collect them. Therefore with regard to Maaser Ani the owner had a choice to whom to give it to.

I would like to point out that Chasdei David and Minchat Bikkurim explain that the reason that the owner of the produce could not give it to the Non-Jew was not because Maaser Ani has any special holiness to it, but rather because the Torah gave a special privilege to the Jewish poor to take it and protected this privilege by not allowing it to be given to the Non-Jews. This explanation is not correct, because if this was true then all gifts to the poor, including Leket (fallen stalks), Shikcha (forgotten sheaves) and Peah (corners of the field) would only be allowed to be given to Jews since the Torah wanted to protect their privileges of collection. However, Mishna Gittin 5:8 explicitly states that Leket, Shikcha and Peah can be given to poor Non-Jews.

4. Chulin refers to any ordinary object that does not have any special holiness to it.

5. Literally: fixed. Since produce that was untithed could not be eaten once it was tithed it was considered to be “fixed for eating”. Produce that was originally owned by a Jew had to be tithed even if later on it passed through the hands of a Non-Jew. Therefore, Jews were not allowed to give or sell to Non-Jews untithed produce (Tevel) for the fear that the Non-Jew may sell it or give it to another Jew and that Jew will think that he does not have to remove any tithes from it since it came from the Non-Jew, when in reality he does have to remove all of the tithes since the produce originally came from a Jewish farmer. See Tosefta Demai 1:11 and 1:13.

6. Since the general law is that Non-Jews are allowed to take gifts to the poor (see Mishna Gittin 5:8) they are welcome to come by to the granaries together with poor Jews and collect Maaser Ani as well. However, since Maaser Ani cannot be given to Non-Jews due to a technicality in its status the owners were encouraged by the Rabbis to give the Non-Jewish poor a crop donation of the same size as Maaser Ani, but from the owner’s regular crops that do not have any holiness to them. For amounts of Maaser Ani donations for various crops see Mishna Peah 8:5 and Tosefta Peah 4:2.