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First of all, the Torah commanded the poor (including the elderly) to come to the fields and gather the gifts for themselves. So too, our attempts to help the poor should involve them working in some way, if at all possible. Second, the mitzva was for the poor to collect actual produce, rather than the money the owner made by selling it. Similarly, today, it is proper for manufacturers to provide the poor with their products rather than give them money. Third, ideally the poor should be helped in ways which involve minimal expense for the wealthy and maximal benefit for the poor. The agricultural gifts accomplished this wise and worthy goal remarkably well. For example, let us say the pay rate for a fieldhand to harvest 100 kilograms of produce was 100 shekels. If the owner also had to hire someone to gather the produce that was dropped, forgotten, or incompletely formed, the owner would have had to pay significantly more. Therefore, it turns out that the poor, who had no other work, benefited significantly from gathering what was left in the field, while the owner lost only a little. Additionally, there was a certain advantage to the owner in having the poor remove the forgotten fruits, because it prevented pests from being attracted to the trees and damaging them. This was especially true for grapes, which tend to be particularly delicate. As for pe’ah, it is true the owner would not have needed to pay extra for fieldhands to harvest it. Nevertheless, because pe’ah was at the end of the field, it was convenient for the owner, tired from a hard day’s work, to just leave it for the poor. Additionally, when dealing with fruits, pe’ah could be left from the highest fruits of the tree. These fruits would have been difficult for the fieldhands to reach, so it was convenient to leave them. The children of the poor could easily climb the trees and pick the fruits.
Nowadays, as we mentioned above, these agricultural gifts are no longer practical. Nevertheless, it would be advisable for our contemporary religious leaders to study modern economy and employment in depth, examine the plight of the poor and the causes of poverty, and derive principles from the original mitzvot to arrive at the best way to help the unfortunate of today. The goal would be to find a way in which the manufacturers of what people need – food, medicine, clothing, furniture, and housing – can involve the poor with their production and distribution. The efforts to help the poor would involve their being active participants, with a limited loss to the donors and a great benefit to the recipients.
