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The Torah details the right of field workers to eat from the produce they’re harvesting, specifying, “You may eat as many grapes as you desire until you are full” (23:25). Since this law applies to any type of produce, why does the Torah use grapes as the example (especially since grapes were more commonly drunk as wine than eaten as fruit).

Rav Hirsch quotes a halachah (law) that one may not squeeze the juice from the grapes and throw away the rest of it, as this indicates wasteful insensitivity to another’s property. While the owner needs to be sensitive to the workers’ desire to eat from their produce while working, the workers need to, in turn, be mindful of their employer’s property and treat it as their own. This underlying focus on another’s position is the foundation of the Torah and in bettering ourselves and our interactions with others.

Shlomo Ressler

Quotation of the week:
"When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change."