A chocher rents a field for 10 kor of wheat. The wheat quality is poor due to drought. Can he pay with better wheat from elsewhere?
The chocher pays from what the field actually produced. If the quality is poor, he gives the poor wheat. If the field produces excellent wheat, he cannot substitute cheaper market wheat — he must give from the actual field.
Question 2
Most fields in a city are damaged by locusts. A sharecropper's field is also damaged. Can he reduce his payment?
When a blight affects the majority of fields in the city, the renter may reduce his payment proportional to his loss. This is considered a shared regional disaster, not his personal misfortune.
Question 3
A sharecropper wants to skip weeding. He offers: 'I'll pay you the full amount regardless.' Must the owner accept this?
The owner can object even if full payment is offered. When the sharecropper leaves, the field will be overgrown with weeds, harming future fertility. The owner has a right to proper agricultural stewardship, not just payment.
Question 4
A sharecropper was contracted to sow sesame but sowed wheat instead. The wheat yield equals the expected sesame yield in value. What happens?
When the wheat yield equals what sesame would have produced in value, the owner can only complain — he suffered no financial loss. No additional payment is required. If the wheat produced less, the sharecropper pays the difference.
Question 5
A sharecropper agrees that if he leaves the field fallow he will pay 100 dinarim. He leaves it fallow. Does he owe 100 dinarim?
A stipulated fixed sum ('if I fail, I'll pay 100 dinarim') is an asmachta — an overcommitment that was never truly intended as a binding obligation. It is unenforceable. He pays only the owner's proportional share of what the field would have yielded.