Bekhorot

We have found that wine and oil [cannot be tithed for each other].1 Whence do we derive that this applies to wine and grain2 or grain and grain?3 We deduce this a minori [as follows]: If in the case of wine and oil which are not counted as diverse kinds in regard to one another,4 you must not tithe one for the other, all the more must wine and grain or grain and grain, which are counted as diverse kinds in regard to one another,5 not be tithed one for the other. But according to the opinion of R. Josaiah who said: [The law of diverse kinds does not apply] until one has sowed a wheat-seed, a barley-seed and a grape kernel with one and the same throw, how can you adduce this [argument]?6 He adduces it as follows: If in the case of wine and oil which are not counted as diverse kinds in regard to one another, even through the sowing of another seed,7 you must not tithe one for the other, all the more must wine and grain or grain and grain, which are counted as diverse kinds in regard to one another through the sowing of another seed,8 not be tithed one for the other. And whence do we know that you must not tithe generally any two other kinds9 [one for the other]? — [The tithing of] these10 is a rabbinical enactment and all the enactments of the Rabbis have the same scope as the [corresponding] biblical enactment. Hence just as two kinds which are ordained biblically must not be tithed one for the other, so also [two kinds] which are ordained rabbinically must not be tithed one for the other. Said R. Abba b. Memel to R. Ammi: According to this,11 in the case of the tithing of animals, since Scripture does not say: ‘And concerning the tithe of the herd, and the tithe of the flock’ ‘diverse kinds’ of the vineyard and is biblically forbidden. grain does not constitute ‘diverse kinds’. different kinds of grain. of forbidding tithing one for the other.