Ki Tetze

When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to fetch it. It shall be for the stranger, for the orphan and the widow; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Deuteronomy 24:19

We are obligated to be concerned for and helpful to, the weak and unfortunate, even to the extent of arguing their case in court. Although this may seem to be bending evenhanded justice, nonetheless, we do not always follow the strict letter of the law, just as God tempered justice in Egypt. We did not deserve redemption, but even so, God saw our difficulties and redeemed us.

Sforno (15^th Century)

Getting the community to treat the unfortunate with special consideration is a gradual process. First, one refrains from exploiting such people’s weakness. Next, one does not gather in one’s forgotten buts of harvest, a passive manner of providing for them. The third stage is the intentional setting aside of a corner of one’s field, for the disadvantaged to pick or harvest.

Moshe Alshich (16^th Century)

A story is told of a pious man who forgot a sheaf in his field. He said to his son, ‘Go and offer for me a burnt offering (of thanks to God).’ The son answered, ‘Father! What makes you want to rejoice in this mitzvah…?’ The father answered, ‘God has given all the other mitzvot in the Torah to be observed consciously. But his one is to be unconsciously observed…If when a man has no deliberate intention of performing a good deed it is nevertheless reckoned to be a good deed, how much more for one who deliberately performs a good deed…

Tosefta: Peah 3:8 (7^th Century)

(This Mitzvah) is beneficial to the owner of the field by which he acquires a generous nature, since the generous soul does not bother about the sheaf he happens to have forgotten and leaves it to the poor.

Sefer Hachinuch (Middle Ages)

These ordinances are meant to bring home to the owner of the field during the harvest and vintage that all this bounty has been given him on trust, that the land is holy to the Lord. He must not delude himself into thinking it is all his, but the duty rests on him to supply the needs of the poor. This concern for the stranger and poor man is not to be the product of pity or fear…but it is a privilege accorded the destitute as of right by God….

Samson Raphael Hirsch (19^th Century)