Study Avodah Zarah folio 62B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
״העלה לי פירות הללו לירושלים לחלק״, אבל אומר לו: ״העלם לאוכלם ולשתותם בירושלים״, ונותנין זה לזה מתנה של חנם.
Bring this produce designated as second tithe to Jerusalem for me in exchange for a share of the produce, of which you may partake in Jerusalem. This is considered payment and is tantamount to conducting commerce with the tithe. But he may say to him: Bring it to Jerusalem to eat it and drink it in Jerusalem, as long as he does not specify that it is payment; and once in Jerusalem they may give one another unrequited gifts. This indicates that what may not be given as payment may be given as a gift, and therefore the donkey drivers may be compensated with Sabbatical-Year produce.
ורבא אמר: לעולם דקדוש בקדושת שביעית, ודקא קשיא לך פועל — פועל דלא נפיש אגריה לא קנסוה רבנן, חמרין דנפיש אגרייהו — קנסו רבנן בהו. ומתניתין — חומרא דיין נסך שאני.
And Rava says: Actually, R' Yoḥanan means that the produce with which the drivers are paid is sacred with the sanctity of Sabbatical-Year produce, and as for that which poses a difficulty for you with regard to the halakha of the laborer cited in the Mishnah, which states that his wage is not sacred, that difficulty can be resolved as follows: There is a distinction between a laborer, whose wage is not great, and therefore the rabbis did not penalize him by decreeing that his wage is sacred, and donkey drivers, whose wages are great, and therefore the rabbis penalized them. And with regard to the Mishnah that deems forbidden even the laborer’s wage in the case of one who produces wine designated for libation, the stringency of wine used for a libation is different, and it is treated more stringently than Sabbatical-Year produce.