You can sell a field and you can declare it hekdesh. You can sell yourself or as a thief you can be sold by Beis Din. Can you declare yourself hekdesh or would you immediately be required to redeem yourself? A person can buy a field or buy a person. Can they declare the person hekdesh or does that automatically free the person? Thanks
Pat, Greenbelt, MD USA
A slave indeed can be made Hekdesh. He will either be used by Hekdesh, or the treasurer of Hekdesh will sell him and his value will go to Hekdesh.
On the other hand, a free person is not subject to Hekdesh in the way that you describe. There are however, two forms of Hekdesh that do apply to free people. A person can obligate himself to pay his "Damim" or his "Erech." Both terms refer to his value, however the first refers to one's market value (as a slave), while the second refers to a set value prefixed by the Torah. This set value depends upon the age and sex of the person whose Erech was pledged to Hekdesh. Below you will find an excerpt from our Background to the Daf to Kidushin 17:4 that discusses the concept of Erech.
Neither require any sort of redemption, since the declaration is purely a personal obligation. That is to say, unlike an object that has been declared Hekdesh, nobody actually becomes holy. One simply pays the required sum to the treasurer of Hekdesh. The money goes to Bedek ha'Bayis (the fund for repairs towards the Beis ha'Mikdash etc.).
Best wishes,
Rabbi Eliezer Chrysler
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4) [line 17] CHAMISHIM SHEB'ERCHIN
(a) Erech (= endowment valuation) refers to a special form of vow. If a person declares, "Erech Ploni Alai" ("I accept upon myself to give the endowment value of so-and-so [to Hekdesh]"), he must give the specific value that the Torah designates for the person's gender and age group as stated in Vayikra 27:1-8 (see below, (b)). It makes no difference at all whether the person is healthy or sick, strong or weak.
(b) The Erech that the Torah specifies for children between the ages of 1 month and 5 years is 5 Shekalim for males and 3 Shekalim for females (Vayikra 27:6). For youths and young adults between the ages of 5 years and 20 years, the Erech that the Torah specifies is 20 Shekalim for males and 10 Shekalim for females (Vayikra 27:5). For adults between the ages of 20 years and 60 years, the Erech that the Torah specifies is 50 Shekalim for males and 30 Shekalim for females (Vayikra 27:3-4). For adults over 60 years of age, the Erech that the Torah specifies is 15 Shekalim for males and 10 Shekalim for females (Vayikra 27:7).