The Working Poor 83

Metzia 7:5

A worker may eat a cucumber, even a dinar’s worth,

or dates worth a dinar. Rabbi Elazar Chisma says:“A

worker may not eat more than his wage.” However,

the sages permit it. Nevertheless, we teach a person

should not be a glutton and shut the door in his own

face.

While Rabbi Elazar Chisma wanted to put specific limits on the amount a worker may eat, the sages of the Mishnah felt that a general warning to the workers not to abuse their employers was sufficient. The discussion of the rabbis of the amoraic era® on this issue is intense and complicated but ultimately confirms the position that workers may eat more than their wages.”

In subsequent generations, we find that the poskim(halakhic scholars) continued to struggle to find the appropriate balance between the prerogatives of the farm laborers and protections for the farmer. In the Shulhan Arukh, while Joseph Karo codifies the Talmudic opinion, Moses Isserles (Poland , c.1530-1572) supports the validity of Rabbi Elazar Chisma’s minority opinion®* limiting the amount a worker may eat. In Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 337.7, it is written:

A worker is permitted to eat from his employer’s

produce, even if the amount he eats is worth much

more than his wage. For instance, if his wage is not

even a dinar he can still eat cucumbers or figs equaling

a sela.” But he advised against eating too much, in

order not to jeopardize his future employment

opportunities.(Isserles: There are some who teach

that a worker may eat of his employer’s produce only

if he was hired for a full day’s work. But if he was

hired only to pick one cucumber, he may not eat it

[because his employer would then be left with