Note the close relationship between loans and tzedakah. Reminds me of this article from JOFA:

Can You Spare a Loan?
The Evolution of Tzedakah in Rabbinic Literature
Wendy Amsellem

on pages 4-5 of the PDF
http://www.jofa.org/pdf/Journal%20Spring%2007.pdf

why is only Maaser Rishon [i.e. Maaser Rishon - that which goes to the levi] and not Maaser Oni [the maaser that goes to the poor]mentioned on page four of the article?

OT: Define pshat.

1. If I can recap what appears to be the Rebbe's definition as explained on this thread, it seems that pshat is how a five year old without a background in rabbinic texts would understand Tanach if read in order from beginning to end, albeit a five year old so advanced as to render his chronological age meaningless.

2. I think that the definition has been somewhat fluid over time, with our use of the term today differing from the working definition of medieval exegetes which in turn differs from how Chazal used the term. There's a nice essay in the front of Dr. Lockshin's translated and annotated Rashbam commentary to Devarim http://www.amazon.com/Rashbams-Commentary-...2690&sr=8-7 where he surveys some of the definitions. [If you do not have access to this book, if you PM me a fax number, I'd be happy to send you a copy of the essay by fax]. To use one example of many he uses, there's no way Chazal's use of the term pshat in Chullin 6a

QUOTE(Soncino)
What is the plain meaning of the above quoted text? — It refers to a pupil sitting before his master. For R. Hiyya taught: When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider well him that is before thee. And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to an appetite. If the pupil knows that the master is capable of answering the question, then he may ask it; otherwise . . . Consider well him that is before thee. And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite, and leave him.


is what anyone today would consider pshat and the simple, plain meaning of the verse in question.

3. Here's a trial balloon:
Pshat ha-mikra has a similar meaning to halachah peshutah, or the commonly accepted (and practiced) halachah, from the meaning of pshat as spread out. In other words, pshat is whatever the commonly accepted understanding of the verse in question is at any particular place and time.

http://www.hashkafah.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=865942
That said, I used the term in the post above as "translation", rather than what I think peshat really is.

I have no idea. But I don't think that negates the writer's thesis, that although there were agricultural gifts to the poor, cash gifts [as opposed to loans] are not pshat.

That said, I used the term in the post above as "translation", rather than what I think peshat really is.

I realize it does not negtae anything, but I had to nitpick and pick one thing, so I did.
Looking at the verse in Devorim 15:7-11 again, I think that one could very well say that the simple pshat (the way pshat is being used HERE - translation) is that it is talking about giving monetary tzedakah and the issue of not being scared before shemitah etc. is just an extension of that, I realize there are two ways of looking at it, but I don't think it that simple that there are no literal pshat verses about the "modern" monetary tzedakah.

The fact that he's worried the shemitah will cancel the debt means it's a loan and not a gift.