We all have an ani, a poor person, inside us, a part of us that feels impoverished, inadequate, less than, deficient in some way, a part that makes mistakes and does not get it right some – or maybe even most – of the time. These parts want something; they want something desperately; they have holes that seem never to be filled.
What they want is pe’ah, a corner of the world where they can rest and be cared for in all their – and our – imperfection and impoverishment.
Peah, the corner of the field that is left unharvested for the ani, provides a haven for these parts of us. Lo tikhaleh, the Torah says – “don’t finish” it; don’t complete the harvesting all the way to the corners. Don’t make a perfect finished product. All the striving and efforting that we do in this world to produce and accomplish; that’s great – you have the whole rest of the field to do that fantastic work – but let it stop here, at the corner. Let this corner be incomplete and imperfect, wild and unkempt and messy. Let this be a place where our poorest parts can come in all their imperfection and non-accomplishment and feel welcomed and accepted and cared for in spite of their deficiencies, a place where it is ok to have not done it right, where it is ok to have failed.
Let this be a place where no one has to measure up to standards, to meet expectations. Peah, the Mishnah says, is one of the things sh’eyn lahem shiur, which have no measure, no standard. Peah is a place where people don’t have to meet standards, to pass the bar, where we can let go of the weight of constant evaluation and judgment, of the need to please and not disappoint, and just get cared for exactly as we are, no questions asked.
In the peah zone, our ani does not have to meet a standard of perfection, but neither does she have to meet a standard of ani-ness, of neediness, of suffering, in order to enter and receive care, receive love, receive compassion. There is no entry test to ascertain worthiness – is your trauma bad enough, your childhood wounds severe enough? No. If you feel the need to come to this field of unconditional care – and maybe we all do – you are welcome.
This field is not so much a place of no standards as it is a place beyond standards (like Rumi’s field beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing). This is divine space. We humans are strivers; we earn our keep. But God, God gives through grace, bestows gifts on us for free, loves us without conditions or prerequisites. Peah is a corner of the world, a place in our hearts, where we – and especially our ani – can receive those unconditional divine gifts, a sanctuary set aside from the rest of the work-a-day harvesting field.
Perhaps this perspective helps us understand why the mitzvah of pe’ah is listed in our parsha among the holidays. Like Shabbat and the other special days, pe’ah is a sanctuary – in space, as opposed to time – where we stop working and come to know that we will receive gifts even when we stop working, stop striving, that there is a love and a care that comes to us for free, simply by existing. The corner of the field left untended is like the corner of the week we leave unworked, a symbol of the divine love that comes to us without effort or earning. Pe’ah is indeed one of the mo’adei Hashem, one of the designated meeting places with the divine, an emotional space beyond this world where the most vulnerable parts of ourselves can relax and be held – without reason – in the endless light that fills the holes of even our neediest parts.
Photo by Pixabay at Pexels
Dear Rachel, thank you so much for your wisdom. Emor being my Bar Mitzvah parashat (I was also privileged to leyn the entire portion on my special day), I have often wondered why pe’ah was included and never really found a satisfactory answer until now. Your teaching has greatly increased my gratitude for Emor being part of my becoming a Jewish adult. Todah Rabba!