Re Menachot 76b - The Mishnah at the top of the page teaches that the Omer comes from 3 se'ah and the Lechem HaPanim from 24 se'ah. My friend claims that a Rabbi told him that 3 se'ah is the size of a football pitch and 24 se'ah is the size of 8 football pitches. Are these numbers correct, as they seem huge?
Howard Jackson, Jerusalem, Israel
1. I think what your friend heard was probably the following. There is a measurement of area which is called a "Beis Se'ah." This is the area of 50 Amos by 50 Amos. In this area of land one can sow a Se'ah of produce. (See, for example, Tiferes Yisrael to Kil'ayim 2:8, and see Rashbam to Bava Basra 99b, DH Beis Arba'ah, who writes that the courtyard of the Mishkan was 100 Amos by 50 Amos, which is two Beis Se'ah.)
2. Accordingly, if we say that 1 Amah is approximately 50 centimeters (this is actually slightly larger than the measurement according to Rav Chaim Naeh, and slightly smaller than the Shi'ur of the Chazon Ish), then a Beis Se'ah is 25 meters by 25 meters, and 3 Beis Se'ah are 75 meters by 25 meters.
3. I have here figures for the measurements of a football (soccer in American) pitch (sports field in American) and it is approximately 100 meters by 50 meters. In fact, a football pitch is approximately three times larger in area than a Beis Se'ah.
4. What your friend heard was relating to a Beis Se'ah -- literally "the house of a Se'ah," i.e. the area in which one sows a Se'ah. A Se'ah is a measurement of volume of produce. There are 6 Kav in 1 Se'ah, and 4 Lug in 1 Kav, and 6 eggs in 1 Lug. This means that one Se'ah is the volume of 144 eggs. Hence, according to the Mishnah in Menachos (76b) the amount of barley which was reaped for the Korban ha'Omer was the volume of 432 eggs, which was then sifted very finely (13 times) in order to obtain an "Isaron" of flour which was suitable for the Omer offering.
5. What we are saying now is that 3 Beis Se'ah is one third of the size of a football pitch. This area was large enough to sow a quantity of barley that that would suffice for the Korban ha'Omer after it had been sifted very finely. A large amount of barley was required to obtain the final product of the very fine flour (as a lot of waste material resulted from the sifting).
I hope we have helped to clear up the confusion a little and show how this area of land was required to grow the raw coarse barley which was needed to provide the fine flour of the Omer offering.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom