ראש השנה 15

15:1

Now which authority is reported to make plucking the determining factor? Rabban Gamaliel; and he says here Shebat? — The statement should have been reported differently, [thus]: Rabbah b. bar Huna said: Although Rabban Gamaliel said that [the tithe-year of] a citron tree is determined by its plucking like [that of] a vegetable, yet its New Year is Shebat. Why in the former statement is the expression used, ‘if it was the meeting point of the second and third years’, and in this statement the expression, ‘if it was the meeting point of the third and fourth years’? — This points out to us incidentally that the citron tree suffers from being handled, and since everybody handles it in the seventh year, it does not yield fruit till the third year [after blossoming]. R. Johanan inquired of R. Jannai: When is the New Year of the citron tree? — He replied: In Shebat. Do you mean [he asked further] Shebat of the calendar or Shebat of the cycle? — He replied: Shebat of the calendar. Raba inquired of R. Nahman (or, according to others, R. Johanan inquired of R. Jannai): Suppose it was a leap year, what is the rule? — He replied: Do as in ordinary years. Rabbah said: A citron tree which has blossomed in the sixth year and ripened in the seventh is not liable to tithe and not liable to clearance; while one which has blossomed in the seventh year and produced fruit in the eighth is not liable to tithe but is liable to clearance. Said Abaye to him: Your second clause is unobjectionable, because [you can say that] you take the more stringent view. But your first clause [surely involves a contradiction]? [For you say], ‘It is not liable to clearance’. Why so? Because we say, Make the blossoming the determining factor. But if so, it should surely be liable to tithe? — He replied to him: Everybody handles it, and you say it should be liable to tithe! R. Hamnunah, however, said: A citron tree which blossoms in the sixth year and ripens in the seventh is always reckoned as belonging to the sixth, and one which blossoms in the seventh and ripens in the eighth is always regarded as belonging to the seventh. The following was cited in objection: ‘R. Simeon b. Judah said in the name of R. Simeon: A citron tree which blossoms in the sixth year and ripens in the seventh is not liable to tithe and not liable to clearance, since no fruit is liable to tithe which has not both grown and been plucked in a period of liability. A citron tree which blossoms in the seventh year and ripens in the eighth year is not liable either to tithe or to clearance, since no fruit is liable to clearance which has not both grown and been plucked in the seventh year’. Now the first part of this statement seems to contradict R. Hamnunah, and the second part both Rabbah and R. Hamnunah? — There is a difference of Tannaim on this point, as it has been taught: ‘R. Jose said: Abtolmus testified in the name of five elders that a citron is determined by its plucking in the matter of tithe. Our teachers, however, took a vote in Usha and decided that it is determined by its plucking for purposes both of tithe and of Sabbatical year’. How does Sabbatical year come to be mentioned here? —

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15:2

There is an omission in the statement, which should read as follows: ‘[Abtolmus testified that] a citron tree is determined by its plucking for purposes of tithe and by its blossoming for purposes of the Sabbatical year. Our teachers, however, took a vote in Usha and decided that it is determined by its plucking for purposes both of tithe and of Sabbatical year’. It has been stated: R. Johanan and Resh Lakish both lay down that a citron tree which blossoms in the sixth year and ripens in the seventh year is always reckoned as belonging to the sixth year. When Rabin came [from Palestine], he said in the name of R. Johanan: A citron which blossomed in the sixth year and ripened in the seventh, even though [at the beginning of the seventh] it was no bigger than an olive and it subsequently became as big as a loaf, can render one guilty of breaking the rule of tebel. Our Rabbis taught: If the fruit of a tree blossoms before the fifteenth of Shebat, it is tithed for the outgoing year; if after the fifteenth of Shebat, it is tithed for the incoming year. R. Nehemiah said: This rule applies only to trees which produce two broods in a year. (Two broods, do you say? — He should say, as it were two broods). Trees, however, which produce only one brood, like date trees, carob trees and olive trees, even though they blossom before the fifteenth of Shebat are tithed for the incoming year. R. Johanan said: In regard to carob trees, it has become the general custom to follow the rule of R. Nehemiah. Resh Lakish sought to confute R. Johanan from the following: ‘As regards wild fig-trees, their seventh year is the second year [of the Septennate] because [after blossoming] their fruit takes three years to grow’. — He made no answer. Said R. Abba the priest to R. Jose: Why did he make no answer? He could have said to him, I give the view of R. Nehemiah, and you bring against me the view of the Rabbis! — [He could not have answered him thus], because Resh Lakish could have retorted: Do you abandon the Rabbis and follow R. Nehemiah? — But he could have said to him, I speak to you of the general custom, and you speak to me of a prohibition? — [He could not answer thus], because he could have said to him: Where a prohibition applies, even if there is a general custom, do we allow it? — But he could have said to him: I speak to you of the tithe of carobs, which is Rabbinical, and you speak to me of the Sabbatical year, which is Pentateuchal! — The truth is, said R. Abba the priest, I wonder whether Resh Lakish put this question. Whether he put this question? But we are distinctly told that he did so! — What R. Abba should say is, whether he [R. Johanan] admitted the difficulty or not.10

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