Q&A: "And the poor of your people shall eat" — only your people? Or the poor in general, but not specifically?
"And the poor of your people shall eat" — only your people? Or the poor in general, but not specifically?
Question
"And the poor of your people shall eat" — only your people?
And what about the non-Jewish workers who are now at home?
Do you need to tell them that it is ownerless?
Or is this purely for members of the covenant?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Please explain in more detail.
Discussion on Answer
So what do the workers have to do with it?
In principle, there is no such thing as partial ownerlessness. Ownerlessness is ownerlessness. (Only abandonment, according to Netivot HaMishpat, is a permission to take and not actual ownerlessness.) See the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel regarding ownerlessness for the poor.
However, if the fruits have the holiness of the seventh year, they must be eaten with the proper sanctity, and gentiles will not do that. I really don’t know how one can be strict about this in practice. One can indeed discuss whether eating with sanctity is an obligation on the person, in which case there is no problem if a gentile does not do so, or an obligation inherent in the object itself. On the face of it, if the fruits are ownerless, there is no specific person here to obligate in this, and it is hard to accept an object-based prohibition — who exactly would be transgressing if the gentile eats them?
See an overview here: https://www.toraland.org.il/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%A5-%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%94/%D7%A9%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%AA/%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%98%D7%94/%D7%A0%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%AA-%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A9%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%95%D7%99/
Also see Peninei Halakha, which discusses whether it is proper to prevent them from taking it, but I do not know how that could be done with ownerless fruit. Maybe by lying or by not revealing to them that it is ownerless? Or by taking possession before they do as quickly as possible?
The source didn’t open for me, and maybe it explains this inside. See here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ph.yhb.org.il/16-03-09/&ved=2ahUKEwiPxuPByuH4AhWehP0HHbmvB88QFnoECAsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2AhHi3EMRgL5mwEShvLzq-
Are the fruits on the tree — Sabbatical-year produce, which is ownerless — ownerless only for Jews?
Or also for the Arabs who work now in the neighboring house?
Do you need to tell the Arabs that it is ownerless?
When the Torah said, "the poor of your people," does it mean specifically your people and not the gentile?
Or just as "your poor" is not meant specifically, and even the rich may take, and Scripture simply spoke of the usual case — so too with "your people" it is not meant specifically, and in truth the ownerlessness applies to the gentile as well, except that Scripture spoke of the usual case?