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Created: 15 May 2025

In this week’s Parasha, in the context of describing the yearly cycle of the chagim, the Torah tells us “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not remove completely the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning of your harvest; you shall leave them to the poor, and to the stranger; I am the L-rd your G-d” (Vayikra 23:22). 

Why are the mitzvot of Peah (leaving corners for the poor) and Leket (leaving gleanings for the poor), which were just mentioned in last week’s Parasha, repeated almost verbatim in this week’s parasha, in the context of the festival cycle? 

To answer this question, we must ask a more fundamental question: why are these mitzvot necessary in the first place? Isn’t the mitzvah of tzedakah overarching? After all, we are told, “but you shall open your hand wide to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he lacks,” (Devarim 15:8); in other words, one way or another, we have to cover the needs of the poor in our community. Why then does it matter to the Torah how we accomplish this – whether we harvest our fields completely and then give the entire amount needed by the poor in cash, or whether part of it is left to the poor to gather themselves? 

The 13th century Sefer HaChinukh (Positive Commandment 213) suggests a possible answer to both of our questions. He says that our performance of these commandments, like the yearly festival calendar, is intended to embed kindness and mitzvot into the very pattern of our existence. Tzedakah is not just a mitzvah; it is a way of life. 

In an agrarian society, in which people subsisted on farming, the commandments of Leket and Peah accomplished this. Every day that a farmer ploughed and planted, knowing that he was going to have to leave the corners of the field for the poor, he was working tzedakah and chesed into his daily routine. Every day that a farmer harvested, leaving gleanings for the poor, he was doing the same. Just as the Jewish calendar was woven into the farming calendar, so too was daily kindness. 

The Torah’s method of weaving such chesed into our daily lives is not always translated automatically in the 21st century workplace. It is up to us to find the modern-day corollaries of Peah and Leket, ways of weaving tzedakah and chesed into our daily existence, at home in our communities as well as in our places of work.