Mishnayos Eruchin Perek 7 Mishnah 1

אין מקדישין – an ancestral field.

פחות משתי שנים (less than two years before the Jubilee year) – as it is written, regarding one who dedicates an ancestral field (Leviticus 27:18): “[the priest shall compute the price] according to the years that are left [until the jubilee year],” and [the word] שנים/years is not les than two. A person who dedicates his ancestral field in the first year of the jubilee and comes to redeem it, gives fifty Sela for an area requiring a KOR of seed, as it is written (Leviticus 27:16): “fifty shekels of silver to a HOMER of barley seed, etc.” But if he dedicated it ten or twenty years after the Jubilee year, we calculate the remaining years until the coming Jubilee year, and he gives a SELAH and a PUNDIYON for each year, as it is written (Leviticus 27:18): “But if he consecrates his land after the jubilee, the priest shall compute the price according to the years that are left [until the jubilee year], and its assessment shall be reduced,” that is, the deduction [from the price of redemption according to the years of redemption] that he doesn’t give fifty complete [years]. But a person who dedicates [his field] two years before the Jubilee [year], he redeems it for two SELA and two PUNDIYONIM, as it is written (Leviticus 27:18): “according to the years that are left”, and such is the accountability which goes up of the redemption of the ancestral field for each year a SELA and a PUNDIYO, for if he dedicated it in the first year after the Jubilee he would redeem it for fifty shekel, deduct from them the forty-nine coming years until the next Jubilee forty-nine shekel, it is found a Sela for each year and an additional Sela, and this additional Sela is divided into PUNDIYONIM, for in each SELA there are forty- eight PUNDIYONIM, therefore a SELA and a PUNDIYON for each year less a PUNDIYON. And just as they required him to give a SELA and a PUNDIYON for each year, for forty-nine years – forty-nine SELA and forty-nine PUNDIYONIM, and there is here one additional PUNDIYON more than the fifty shekel that the Torah mentioned, that PUNDIYON is agio (an addition) to the units (making fifty, as a round sum, instead of forty-eight – see Tractate Bekhorot 50a), meaning to say for the customary addition weight in retailing that he must give for each and every shekel on its own. Alternatively, even though the Selah is not other than forty-eight Pundiyonot, he is required to give forty nine, which is a Selah and a Pundiyon for forty-nine years, because one who gives Pundiyonim to purchase a Sela from the money-changer gives forty- nine Pundiyonim, and that is an agio (an addition) to the units (making fifty, as a round sum, instead of forty-eight. And the person who dedicates his ancestral field less than two years prior to the Jubilee year, there isn’t deduction from the price of redemption according to the years of possession (see Tractate Arakhin 24a), but if he comes to redeem it, he gives fifty complete [shekels], for concerning deduction, it is written (Leviticus 27:18): “according to the years that are left until the jubilee, and its assessment shall be so reduced,” and the minimum of שנים/years is two years. And it is good advice that our Mishnah teaches us that a person should have consideration for his possessions (see Tractate Negaim, Chapter 12, Mishnah 5) and not dedicate them [to the Temple] less than two years [from the Jubilee year] and not lose forty-eight Sela.

ולא גואלין אחר היובל – and not after the Jubilee, it is stating near the Jubilee [year], but this “after” refers to even after twenty or thirty years. And this is what it says: A person who comes to redeem [his field] in the middle of the Jubilee and to give a Sela and a Pundiyon for the coming years, and he would stand in Nisan, which is the middle of the year, he should not say: “I give half-a-Sela and half-a-Pundiyon from this year, but rather, he gives a complete Sela and Pundiyon. And that is why it (i.e., the Mishnah) states, “They do not redeem it less than a year after the Jubilee”, for as long as the entire year did not go out, he does not deduct anything at all and he does give a redemption fee for half-a year- but rather a full year’s redemption fee. And what is the reason? Because we don’t calculate months with the Dedication to the Temple. A person who comes to redeem his field five and one-half years before the Jubilee [year], we don’t calculate them as six months that had passed from the sixth year, but rather, he gives six Sela and six Pundiyonim, as it is written (Leviticus 27:18): “the priest shall compute the price according to the years that are left,” years – you calculate, but you don’t calculate months, meaning to say, all that which remains is considered years, to make remaining month a year, but you don not calculate the months that passed, to deduct from the Shekel and Pundiyon for them.

אבל הקדש מחשב חדשים – meaning to say, if it is interval of dedication to the Temple, that we calculate it through the passing of the half year that passed, as for example, that a person sanctifies to the Temple in the half of the forty-eighth year of the Jubilee, for if you calculated for that passage, it would be less than two years before the Jubilee and we don’t redeem for a deduction from the price of the redemption according to the years of possession with due deduction other than for fifty years. But if you say that we don’t calculate the months that passed, we have here two years prior to the Jubilee, and there is loss to that which is dedicated to the Temple that he did not give other than two Sela and two Pundiyonim, here certainly we calculate them according to the complete passage of time, and there aren’t two years before the Jubilee [year], but we don’t redeem for a deduction from the price of the redemption other than for fifty shekels, as it is written (Leviticus 27:18): “the priest shall compute the price,” nonetheless.

בשעת היובל – at the time when the Jubilee is in vogue. But at the time when the Jubilee is not in vogue, he redeems it according to its value like the rest of the things dedicated to the Temple.

זרע חמר שעורים – a place where he is able to sow a KOR of barley when they sow with the quantity of seed which it takes when throwing with the hand and with an intermediate sowing, not that the seed should be pressed together greatly or spread out and dispersed a great deal.

נקעים עמוקים וכו' (cavities that are ten handbreadths deep) – and that they would be filled with water that are not appropriate for sowing, but if they are not filled with water, for since, they are proper whatever it may be, even though they are not measured with it, we calculate them on their own, and they are redeemed according to the calculation of fifty Sela for a Bet Kor/an area requiring a Kor of seed.

פחות מכאן נמדדין עמה – even though they are filled with water and hey are not proper for sowing, since they are not ten [handbreadths] deep. And similarly rocks, since they are not ten [handbreadths] high, they are called by the name of the land [it is part of] and are not considered on their own.

אלא נותן את כולו כאחד – as it is written (Leviticus 27:18): “the priest shall compute the price” until there would be all of the money would be as one.