The second tractate in the Talmud deals primarily with the undesirability of a person being over meticulous when he harvests his field. To use a popular expression, one should not squeeze a penny until the eagle screams. Rather small quantities of burdensome to gather crops should be abandoned to the poor. This would include produce in the corners and edges of the field, small amounts of grapes, either on the vine or that have fallen to the ground, small quantities of grains that drop at the time they are being gathered, and small bundles that have been forgotten in the field.
The economic context of this mishna is a society where most of the people supported themselves by farming a personally owned plot of land. Through cash crops, there was specialization and trade but it was not nearly as developed as it is in a modern advanced economy. Tithes given, four out of seven years, were the primary support of the poor, while the above were incidental gifts. As a result the mishna rules that the amount of peah (פֵאָה - edge or corner), the plants on the edge of the field to be unharvested, does not have a minimum quantity.
The rabbis say one should leave leave not less than one sixtieth of the field, but his does not seem to be a Biblical requirement. It's possible to learn that a person should not be chincy from this mitzvah, but the letter of the law is, "When you reap your land's harvest, do not completely harvest the ends of you fields", (Leviticus 19:9), therefore something must be left. Rabbi Yehuda holds that at least one plant must be left on the edge. However the tone of the mishna is that crops must be left for the poor, their location in the field is not of importance, and that the issue is charity. The section about leaving crops to the poor ends with the line, "l am Hashem your God", (ibid 10). Rashi explains that it means, "a judge to extract punishment", specifically on people who do not obey this command.
The general approach to land in the Chumash is that it belongs to God and man is basically a tenant and a worker on it. As a result a farmer's ownership of the plants as well as the fruits and vegetables on them is less than that of a storekeeper's or manufacturer's inventory. A similar sentiment is later expressed by Moshe rabenu when he gives permission for a pedestrian to eat a small quantity of grapes or wheat from a field that he is passing by, but he can't really take anything with him, (see Deuteronomy 23).
The second mishna in Peah adds that although there is no fixed amount one must consider the size of the field and the number of the poor. In other words one should give proportionally more if there is a bumper crop or there is a lot of poverty. The mishna adds a third criteria, "to the extent of one's humility (הָעֲנָוָה). This creates a significant amount of discussion among the commentaries. Most of them make homilies that add emphasis to the previous ideas concerning wealth and poverty. One does say that a humble person would give more. Submissiveness is an aspect of עֲנָוָה. It would seem that a person, with a stronger commitment to this mitzvah or mitzvahs in general, would more greatly submit himself to it by donating more. As a paradigm considering a mitzvah in terms of resources, need, and importance is a good one.
One of the general messages of the Torah is that the poor should be supported, one should have a personal relationship with them, and that mitzvahs, even ones not directly related to this precept, are a good vehicle for this goal. As a result for a store to give a slow moving product to a shul lottery, the item in the soiled package to a poor family, or over abundant vegetables and cookies to a collel, would all be reckoned as splendid deeds. A variant would be giving the end of a salami to a shopper's child. Also a small amount of shoplifting, padding of expense accounts, and making personal use of company property should be ignored.
לע"נ האמא מלכה בת חיים ז"ל נלב"ע טז ניסן תשנ"ח
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