355. Out of Left Field: The obligation to redeem a field for its designated value

If a person dedicated the value of a field, he must donate the amount designated by the Torah, namely fifty silver shekels for a field in which one could sow a chomer of barley. That’s a field of 2,500 square cubits, which, at approximately 18 inches to the cubit, would be something like 5,625 square feet, more or less.

The amount of fifty silver shekels is for an entire Jubilee period of 49 years. Pro-rated, it’s one shekel plus a small coin called a pundyon in the Talmud. A pundyon is worth 1/48 of a shekel but when changing money, one must pay the money-changer 49 pundyons to the shekel, the extra pundyon representing his profit. It is this 49-to-the-shekel rate that we use when redeeming a field, the Temple benefitting from the extra shekel.

All this only applies to a hereditary field. If a person consecrated a field that he purchased, it is appraised according to its actual value until the next Jubilee year. In the Jubilee, the field reverts to its original owner, since the one who purchased and donated it really only leased it from its hereditary owners. On the other hand, if one consecrated his own hereditary field, if he does not redeem it by Yoveil, the kohanim themselves pay the Temple for it and it becomes their permanent property.

The mitzvah of paying the value of a field applies to both men and women at a time when the Jubilee is in effect. As we have said, while consecrating property is always effective, one should be careful not to do so in the absence of the Temple.

This mitzvah is discussed in the Talmud in the seventh chapter of tractate Arachin. It is codified in the Mishneh Torah in the fourth chapter of Hilchos Arachin and is #117 of the 248 positive mitzvos in the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvos.