The Weekly Daf #32 
Bava Metzia 86-92
Week of 9-15 Tishrei 5755 / 14-20 September 1994
By Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Dean, Ohr Somayach Institutions                  
 
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Dedicated in the memory of Aaron A. Seruya Z''L of Gibraltar

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Who Has The Right To Eat? 

The Rule:
     "When you enter the vineyard of your neighbor you may eat grapes
      at will..."                                     (Devarim 23:25)

  The privilege of eating the grapes in another man's vineyard is limited,
  explain our Sages, to those who are employed to harvest those grapes.
  There is, however, the minority of opinion of the Sage Issie ben Yehuda
  that this privilege extends to anyone who enters the vineyard.

The Problem:
  "How could there possibly be a view that a man may enter another's
   vineyard without permission and eat from his grapes?"

The Solution:
  Rabbi Cahana explained that even the Sage Issie limited this privilege
  only to those who enter the vineyard on their own in order to assist in
  picking the grapes and eat from the grapes as the only wages for their
  labor.  His interpretation is nevertheless rejected by the majority of
  the Sages.  They consider it unreasonable that the Torah would grant such
  a privilege since the vineyard owner certainly prefers hiring workers,
  paying them to do the harvesting, and providing the bonus of grapes to
  eat, rather than expose his vineyard to a general invasion of self-
  appointed harvesters.
                                                            Bava Metzia 92a

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A Word To The Worker


Although a worker has a legal right to eat an amount of grapes which 
exceeds even the amount of wages he is paid we have a responsibility to 
counsel him to refrain from doing so because such gluttonous behavior will 
discourage people from hiring him.

                                                           Bava Metzia 92a

Summarizing the benefits granted to the employee and the special caution 
urged by the Torah on the employer to pay wages honestly and on time 
Maimonides reminds us that the employee also has responsibilities to give 
his employer an honest day's work both in quantity and quality:

"He must not deprive the employer of the labor due him by idling a bit here 
and there and thus dishonestly wasting the day and he must also work with 
all his might.  The saintly Yaakov said of his service to his father-in-law 
`I served your father with all my might.'  He therefore gained his reward 
in this world as well by being blessed with great wealth."
Mishne Torah, Laws of Hiring 13:7

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