Menachos, Chapter Ten, Mishnah Two. We continue to discuss the Omer offering and the manner in which it is brought. The Mishnah opens by stating: "Mitzvas ha'omer lavo min hakarov" - the fresh barley from which the Omer is brought must come from the place closest to the Beis HaMikdash.
The reason for the law - we do not pass over mitzvos:
This principle does not stem from the laws of the Omer offering as such, but from the general rule of "ein ma'avirin al hamitzvos" - we do not pass over a mitzvah. When an opportunity to perform a mitzvah presents itself to a person, "a mitzvah that comes your way, do not let it go stale": one may not let it pass by, grow old or become spoiled.
Regarding the harvesting of the Omer: One who passes fields containing suitable barley and skips over them in order to take barley from a more distant place is passing over the nearby opportunity that came his way - and this is not done.
Regarding the arrangement of tefillin: For this very reason one arranges the tefillin bag so that the tefillin of the hand are accessible first, since they precede the tefillin of the head, so that a person will not have to pass over the tefillin of the head in order to reach those of the hand.
And when there is no barley nearby:
Such is the mitzvah ideally, but if there was no ripe and suitable barley in the vicinity of Jerusalem - "mevi'in oso mikol makom" - it is brought from anywhere, and there is no impediment to this. However, as we already learned at the beginning of the eighth chapter, "anywhere" means anywhere within the Land of Israel, for the barley of the Omer must come from the Land of Israel. The basis for this is the verse that specifies this regarding the Omer offering: "When you come into the land... and you reap its harvest" - the reaping must be from the harvest of the Land of Israel.
An incident that occurred:
The Mishnah continues and relates an incident that actually happened - "sheba migagos tzerifin" - that it once came from the roofs of Tzerifin. On one occasion there was no barley available in the vicinity of Jerusalem. The Gemara explains the historical background: this was at the time when the two brothers, the sons of Queen Shlomtzion at the end of the Hasmonean dynasty, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, were at odds over the kingship. Hyrcanus, with the help of the Romans led by Pompey (in the year 63 BCE), laid siege to Jerusalem, where Aristobulus was stationed with his forces. As part of the siege they destroyed the grain in the surroundings of Jerusalem, and no barley could be found for bringing the Omer, and therefore they brought it from another place in the Land of Israel, namely the roofs of Tzerifin.
Similarly, the Mishnah adds: "Ushtei halechem mibik'as ein socher" - and the two loaves from the valley of Ein Socher. Seven weeks later, on Shavuos, they needed wheat for bringing the two loaves, and that too they did not take from the surroundings of Jerusalem but from the valley of Ein Socher. A straightforward reading of the Mishnah indicates that with the two loaves as well there is a similar preference to bring the wheat from nearby, and in any case the historical events are recorded here as they occurred.
The question of Tosafos:
Tosafos challenge this understanding. With the Omer there is a technical mitzvah of performing the harvesting, as we learned in the previous Mishnah, that the barley is reaped even on Shabbos. In the other offerings, by contrast, obtaining the material is merely a preparation for the mitzvah: one must obtain the wheat in order to make the two loaves from it, but in terms of the halachah, if a sack of wheat flour were to fall from the sky, it too would be valid. Whereas with the barley of the Omer, a sack of barley flour that fell from the sky would not suffice - it must specifically be reaped.
From here Tosafos conclude that the principle of "ein ma'avirin al hamitzvos" does not apply to the wheat of the two loaves. They therefore explain that the first part of the Mishnah deals with the law of "ein ma'avirin al hamitzvos," while the second part - the wheat that was brought from the valley of Ein Socher for the two loaves - is merely a continuation of the account of the events of that period, and contains no issue of "ein ma'avirin al hamitzvos" in its own right.
In summary: In this Mishnah we learned that the Omer must be brought from the nearest place, based on the principle that one does not pass by a mitzvah; and if there is no suitable barley near Jerusalem, it may be brought from anywhere in the Land of Israel, as derived from the verse "When you come into the land and you reap its harvest." We examined the incident in which the Omer was brought from the roofs of Tzerifin and the Two Loaves from the valley of Ein Socher during the siege of Jerusalem, and the approach of Tosafos, which distinguishes between the mitzvah of reaping that applies to the Omer and the preparatory stage of the mitzvah in the case of the Two Loaves.