Arachin, Chapter 6, Mishnah 1. This chapter turns from the laws of valuations themselves to the practical machinery of collection: how property that is owed to the Beit Hamikdash treasury, or owed to a creditor, is actually turned into money. When a person consecrated a piece of property to the Beit Hamikdash, the official in charge of the treasury would sell it and apply the proceeds to whatever the Beit Hamikdash needed. Before the mishnah addresses that sale, it first pairs it with a different kind of court sale, and from there it moves to a case where consecrated property and a wife's ketubah collide.
Selling the Property of Orphans
Picture a man who passes away and leaves behind minor children along with unpaid debts. Those to whom he owed money have a right to collect, and the only source of payment is the property he left, which has passed to his young heirs. Beit Din therefore steps in and sells a piece of that property to satisfy the debt. Two concerns pull at the court at once: the lender deserves what is coming to him, and the children must not lose out. Both depend entirely on the land being sold for what it is genuinely worth.
So the mishnah teaches: "Shum yetomim sheloshim yom." The appraisal of orphans' property stands for thirty days. During that month the court evaluates the field and publicizes that it is coming up for sale, so that the news spreads and a real crowd of buyers appears at the auction. The wider the publicity, the higher the bidding, and the closer the sale comes to the true value of the land.
"Ushum hekdesh shishim yom." The appraisal of consecrated property stands for sixty days, twice as long, since the interests of the Beit Hamikdash treasury are given even greater protection.
"Umachrizin baboker uva'erev." In both cases the announcement is not made once and forgotten. It is proclaimed twice daily, morning and evening, throughout the period: thirty days for the orphans' property, sixty days for hekdesh.
A Wife's Ketubah Against Consecrated Property
The mishnah now turns to a connected issue. When someone consecrates property that already carries a prior lien, the consecration cannot push that earlier claim aside; hekdesh acquires nothing that has already been pledged elsewhere. Marriage itself creates such a pledge: from the day of the wedding, everything a husband owns stands as collateral for his wife's ketubah, guaranteeing her payment should the marriage end through divorce or through his death. So if he later declares that property hekdesh, her claim was there first, and she retains the right to collect her ketubah from it.
Here the Chachamim saw an opening for abuse. Suppose a man consecrates his property and afterward regrets it. He could arrange matters with his wife: he divorces her, she steps forward and claims that the consecrated property is hers by virtue of her ketubah lien, she collects it out of the hands of hekdesh, and then he remarries her and the two of them enjoy the property that the Beit Hamikdash was supposed to receive.
The mishnah's case: "Hamakdish nechasav vehayetah alav ketubat ishah." A man consecrated all of his property, and he was carrying the obligation of his wife's ketubah, meaning he was married and his property was already pledged to her.
"Rabbi Eliezer omer: kesheyegareshenah, yadir hana'ah." Rabbi Eliezer says that when he divorces her, he must take a vow forbidding himself from ever deriving benefit from her. That vow closes the door on remarriage, and therefore closes the door on his ever enjoying the property again. Once he has bound himself in that way, she may collect her ketubah from the consecrated property, because only then can we be confident that the divorce is genuine and not a maneuver to recover his hekdesh.
"Rabbi Yehoshua omer: eino tzarich." Rabbi Yehoshua holds that no such vow is required. If a man regrets having consecrated his property, he has a straightforward remedy: he can approach an expert chacham and have the consecration annulled. Since that door is open to him, there is no reason to suspect that he is divorcing his wife as a scheme to retrieve his property.
Behind this disagreement lies a machloket recorded in Masechet Nedarim. Rabbi Yehoshua holds that one who regrets a vow can undo it through hatarat nedarim before a chacham, and in his view that applies to a declaration of hekdesh as well. Rabbi Eliezer holds otherwise: certain vows can indeed be released by a chacham, but a declaration consecrating property as hekdesh cannot be undone that way. Since the man has no legitimate route back to his property, the temptation to stage a divorce is real, and the mishnah must guard against a scandal in which the Beit Hamikdash is robbed of what belongs to it.
The Same Concern with a Guarantor
The mishnah ends with a case built on the same logic, this time involving someone who accepts the role of guarantor for a woman's ketubah. He commits himself that should she one day become a widow or a divorcee while her husband is left with no assets to pay her, he will cover the sum out of his own pocket.
"Kayotzei bo, amar Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel: af ha'arev le'ishah bichtuvatah vehayah ba'alah megareshah, yadir hana'ah." Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said that the same rule applies to a guarantor of a woman's ketubah. Her husband divorces her and claims he has no money, so the burden falls on the guarantor. Here too the husband must vow that he will never benefit from his wife, making remarriage impossible. Only then may she collect from the guarantor.
The mishnah states the worry outright: "shema ya'aseh kenunya...veyachazir et ishto." Perhaps the husband never meant to dissolve the marriage at all, and the couple has quietly schemed together to get at the guarantor's assets. He divorces her, claims he is penniless, she presents her ketubah to the guarantor and collects, and once the money is in hand he marries her again, leaving the two of them supported by a stranger's wealth. Requiring the vow before any collection takes place blocks that scheme and protects the guarantor, exactly as the earlier ruling protects what belongs to hekdesh.