Thursday, January 26, 2012

Arachin 14 – Leniencies and Stringencies

Since symbolic valuation of a person is expressed in fixed currency, this can sometimes result in a leniency and sometimes in a stringency. Thus, whether one vowed to donate the symbolic value of the handsomest man in Israel or of the ugliest man in Israel, he gives fifty selah coins for a male between twenty and sixty years old.

Consecration of ancestral fields may likewise result in a leniency or in a stringency: whether he consecrates land on the perimeter of a city (the worst), or in the vineyards of Sebaste (the best), when he redeems it, he gives fifty silver shekels for an area on which a measure of barley can be sown .

This requires explanation. Ancestral fields are fields inherited from the original division of the Land of Israel between the tribes, or fields sold by the Temple treasury. What measure of barley? - Chomer (same as kor, about 10 cubic feet), and this much barley was enough to sow the area of about five acres. This is the area one would redeem for 50 silver shekels. If the land market value was higher, he got a leniency, if lower – a stringency.

Art: Sir Godfrey Kneller - Portrait of a young Man

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