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Text Excerpt
היכי דמי? דאמור בעשרים ואחד — הבעלים קודמין, ואם לאו — אומר לו: הגעתיך.
What are the circumstances of such an offer? It is in a case where the owner initially said he would purchase the field for 21 sela. In such an instance, the additional 1/5th amounts to 5 sela and one dinar, which means that the total payment of the owner is 26 sela and one dinar, greater than the offer of the other person. Accordingly, the owner takes precedence, and when the 1/5th is added to the 26 sela offer of the other person, the total price paid by the owner is equal to 31 sela and one dinar. And if the payment of the owner does not exceed the offer of the other person even when accounting for the additional 1/5th, then the treasurer says to the other person: The field has come into your possession.
מתני׳ מחרים אדם מצאנו ומבקרו, ומעבדיו ומשפחותיו הכנענים, ומשדה אחוזתו, ואם החרים את כולם אינם מוחרמים, דברי רבי אליעזר. אמר רבי אלעזר בן עזריה: מה אם לגבוה אין אדם רשאי להחרים כל נכסיו, על אחת כמה וכמה שיהא אדם חס על נכסיו!
Mishnah: A person may dedicate, for sacred or priestly use, some of his flock and some of his cattle, and some of his Canaanite slaves and female slaves, and some of his ancestral field. But if he dedicated all that he has of any type of property, they are not dedicated, i.e., the dedication does not take effect; this is the statement of R' Eliezer. R' Elazar ben Azarya said: If for the Most High a person may not dedicate all his property, it is all the more so the case that a person should spare his property and not give all of it to others.
גמ׳ מנא הני מילי? דתנו רבנן: ״מכל אשר לו״ — ולא כל אשר לו, ״מאדם״ — ולא כל אדם, ״מבהמה״ — ולא כל בהמה, ״משדה אחוזה״ — ולא כל שדה אחוזה.
Talmud: The Talmud asks: From where are these matters, stated in the Mishnah, derived? The Talmud explains that this is as A baraita states, with regard to the verse: “Notwithstanding, no dedicated thing that a man may dedicate to YHWH of all that he has, whether of man or animal, or of his ancestral field” (Leviticus 27:28). The verse indicates that one may dedicate “of all that he has” but not all that he has; likewise “of man” but not every man, i.e., not every slave of his; “of man or animal” but not every animal of his; and finally one may dedicate “of his ancestral field” but not all of his ancestral field.