Comentario sobre Demai 7:8

עשר שורות של עשר עשר כדי יין – that are arranged in the Land [of Israel] that in every matter that you count whether from the east to the west or from the north to the south, you will find ten rows [jugs of wine] ten which are one-hundred jugs [of wine].

Introduction In this mishnah a person has ten rows of jugs each containing ten jugs of wine, and he wants to tithe them. However, he makes an unclear statement as to which of the jugs will be tithe, leaving the mishnah (and subsequently us) to try to figure out which row or which jugs he might have meant.

שורה החיצונה אחת מעשר – one earthen wine jug that is in the outer row, I have established as [First] Tithe on the other earthen wine jugs that I have.

One who had ten rows each containing ten jugs of wine, and said: “One exterior row shall be tithe,” and it is not known which row [he meant], he must take two jugs [each from the ends of] a diagonal line. In this case he declared that one of the exterior rows should be tithe, but since there are four exterior rows, we can’t be sure which he meant. The problem is that if he doesn’t take out the terumat maaser, he can’t drink any of the wine. This holds true for all five scenarios in the mishnah. What he must do is take two jugs that are at the corners, that is at the end of the diagonal lines crossing the square. Each jug at the end of the row counts as the end of two rows because it is at the corner. Thus, if he takes the northwestern jug and the southeastern jug, he has taken at least one jug from each of the rows. He can sell these two jugs to a priest for the price of one jug, because one jug, which is terumat maaser, he has to give to the priest for free.

ואין ידוע איזה – [it is not known which] outer row, for behold there are four outer rows corresponding to the four directions.

[If he had said:] “One half of one exterior row shall be tithe” and it is not known which half row [he meant], he must take four jugs from the four corners. In this case he said that one half of one exterior row should be tithe. Evidently, there are some jugs on the outside rows that are twice as big as those inside, so that five of them can cover tithes for the whole lot. The problem is that there are eight half rows. In this case, he has to take four jugs, one jug from each corner, to make sure that he has covered all eight half rows. Again, he can sell the four to a priest, subtracting the price of one for the terumat maaser that he owes the priest in any case.

נוטל שתי חביות באלכסון (he must take two barrels from diagonally opposite corners) – one to the southeastern corner and second to it in the northwestern corner, for each earthen jug [of wine] that is in the corner is counted for two directions, and he should fill up from both of them one earthen jug [of wine] and it will be tithed [as heave-offering of the tithe for the one-hundred jugs].

[If he had said:] “One row shall be tithe,” and it is not known which row [he meant], he must take one [whole] row in a diagonal line. In this case, he makes one row tithe, but we don’t know which. What he must do is take one diagonal row of ten jugs in order to make sure that he gets at least one from each horizontal or vertical row. He sells them to the priest, again subtracting the price of one.

חצי שורה החיצונה אחת מעשר (a half of one outside row is designated as [First] Tithe [for fifty jugs])- but if he said, one earthen jug [of wine] that is in the middle of the outer row, it I have established as [heave-offering of the First] Tithe on the other earthen jugs [of wine] that I have.

[If he had said:] “Half of one row shall be tithe,” and it is not known which half row [he meant], he must take two rows in a diagonal line. If he says half of one row, he will have to make two diagonal lines (an X), one going from the northwest corner to the southeast and the other from the northeast to the southwest. This way he can ensure that he gets one jug from each half row. He sells the twenty jugs to a priest, subtracting one.

ואין ידוע איזה – [and it is not known which] half row from the four outer rows.

[If he had said:] “One jug shall be tithe,” and it is not known which jug [he meant],he must take from every jug. The worst case scenario is that he has made one jug tithe but he doesn’t know which one it is. Now there is potential terumat maaser in any of the jugs, so they must all be sold to the priest, who will end up paying less than their market value. As in all other cases, one of the jugs must be given to the priest for free. Congratulations! We have finished Demai! It is a tradition at this point to thank God for helping us finish learning the tractate and to commit ourselves to going back and relearning it, so that we may not forget it and so that its lessons will stay with us for all of our lives. I admit this was not an easy tractate. The laws of demai are connected to the laws of terumah and tithes, which we haven’t even learned yet, making a difficult tractate even more difficult. What I thought was very interesting in this tractate was the ways in which the rabbis used the issue of properly tithing to separate those who observed these laws from those who did not, yet still made sure that these groups could live together in the same society. As firmly as they believed in upholding the Torah’s laws, they did not want to see Jews completely unable to live in the same communities. They also believed that a person has a responsibility to make sure that his actions don’t cause others to transgress. That is why one cannot sell untithed produce to a person who is known not to tithe. While we may not be so aware of these laws today, the problems that the rabbis faced may not have been all that different. Tomorrow we begin Tractate Kilayim.

נוטל ארבע חביות מד' זויות – because there is on each corner from he two halves that are in the two outer rows that are near it, and he fills up one earthen jug from those four one and it will be the [heave-offering of the] tithe.

שורה אחת מעשר – but if he said, one earthen jug [of wine] that is in one row from these ten rows – it I have established for [First] Tithe and it is not known in which row it is.

נוטל שורה אחת באלכסון – that is to say, he takes ten earthen jugs from one row from the southeastern corner until the northwestern corner, or from the southwestern corner until the northeastern corner and he fills from all of these ten earthen jugs [of wine] one earthen jug and it will be [the heave-offering of the First] . But for what reason does he take in a diagonal line and he doesn’t take from one entire row straight from east to west or from north to south? For when he takes in a diagonal line, whether one counts all the entire rows from east to west or whether that he counts them from north to south, it is found that he takes one earthen jug [of wine] from each and every row, what is not the case if he were to take one row the length of from east to west or from north to south.