A field is sold with 10 years remaining until the Jubilee for 100 dinar. After the purchaser benefits from it for 6 years, the seller wishes to redeem it. How much must the seller pay?
The sale price of 100 dinar is divided across 10 years = 10 dinar/year. After 6 years of benefit, 4 years remain. The seller must pay back 4 × 10 = 40 dinar (Halachah 5).
Question 2
Which of the following years does NOT count toward the two required crop years that must pass before an ancestral field can be redeemed?
Sabbatical years (and years of universal windblast or blight) do not count toward the two years because no crops were possible. Years a purchaser chose not to sow on his own initiative do count, since crops could have grown (Halachot 10–11).
Question 3
An ancestral field is sold successively to five different buyers. When the Jubilee arrives, to whom does the field return?
Even through 100 consecutive sales, the field always returns to its original owner in the Jubilee, as derived from Leviticus 27:24: 'the field will return to the one from whom he purchased it, whose ancestral heritage it was' (Halachah 15).
Question 4
A man sold his ancestral field. He now owns other fields and wishes to sell them to raise money to redeem the ancestral field. Is his redemption request valid?
The verse states 'and he attained enough to redeem it,' implying he must attain something not previously accessible. Selling other fields he already owned, or borrowing money, does not qualify (Halachah 17).
Question 5
A husband inherits his wife's ancestral field. What happens to it in the Jubilee year?
Although a husband's inheritance is a Rabbinic ordinance, the Sages reinforced it as if it were Scriptural, so he is not required to return his wife's ancestral land in the Jubilee. The exception is a family cemetery, which he must return to preserve the family's honor (Halachah 21).