Arachin, Chapter 8, Mishnah 1. We have been tracing the halachot of a man who dedicated his sdei achuzah, the field he inherited from his family, and who later wants it back from hekdesh. The previous perek established that the Torah's set rate of fifty shekalim governs only while yovel is functioning. Once yovel has ceased to operate, that set rate no longer governs, and the field is bought back for whatever it would fetch on the open market, so that hekdesh is not shortchanged. How is that figure arrived at? The treasury announces a public sale and hands the field to whoever offers the most, which secures for hekdesh the highest sum available. Our mishnah brings us inside such a sale.
The mishnah begins: "Hamakdish et sadehu besha'ah she'ein hayovel", someone dedicated his field during an era in which yovel is not observed, so that his inherited land goes for whatever the market will pay. "Omrim lo: petach atah rishon", and the first person the treasurers turn to is the man who owned the field: they ask him to name the opening figure.
Why give him that privilege? "Shehabe'alim notnin chomesh, vechol adam eino notein chomesh": the original owner, when he redeems his own consecrated field, must add a fifth on top of the price, while any other purchaser pays only the price itself. That means the same bid is worth more to the treasury when it comes from the owner than when it comes from anyone else. So the treasurers encourage him to participate, and they do that by letting him open the bidding.
The Case That Actually Happened
"Ma'aseh be'echad shehikdish et sadehu mipnei ra'atah": the mishnah records an incident. A certain man dedicated his ancestral field for one reason only, that the ground was worthless. Whatever he invested in cultivating it exceeded whatever it yielded, so handing it over to hekdesh came as a relief.
The officials duly began the sale with him: "Amru lo: petach atah rishon". His opening figure was startling. "Amar: harei hi sheli be'issar": let me have it for an issar. An issar is a minute coin worth eight perutot, so what he put on the table was roughly eight pennies for an entire field.
A variant tradition follows. "Amar Rebbi Yose: lo amar zeh ela keveitzah": in this version no coin was named at all. What the man put up was an egg. Hand me the field, and you will have an egg from me. Halachically such an offer holds, "shehahekdesh nifdeh bekesef uvishveh chesef": property belonging to hekdesh may be redeemed with currency or with any object of monetary worth, and an egg qualifies.
How the Bidding Ended
The mishnah returns to what became of the sale. The owner's opening figure, whether the coin or the egg, stood; nobody present was willing to raise it by so much as a peruta. "Amar lo: higi'atcha": the treasurer declared the field his, the bid having carried.
"Nimtza mafsid issar vesadehu lefanav": so the man parted with an issar and found himself still holding the same worthless field. His attempt to be free of it had turned him into its purchaser. The damage ran deeper than that one coin, for as the field's original owner he owed the added fifth as well, two further perutot.
The point that emerges from the mishnah is that the original owner cannot simply stand aside at the auction. The treasury presses him to bid, and his bid is the one it wants. This man walked away with the very field he had hoped to be rid of, and a little poorer for the privilege.