Commentaire sur Démaï 7:6

כלכלות – baskets.

Introduction As we have learned on other occasions throughout this tractate, one cannot separate tithes from produce that is exempt from being tithed on behalf of produce that is obligated in tithes. Our mishnah discusses one practical implication of this principle.

מעשרות זו בזו – the tithes that I have to separate from this basket will be placed in its neighbor.

There were before him two baskets full of tevel, and he said: “Let the tithes of this [basket] be in that [basket],” the first [basket] is tithed. The person has in front of him two baskets of untithed produce and for some reason, wants to separate tithes for one basket from another. He can state that the tithes of one basket will be taken out of the other. This is fine because both are untithed.

הראשונה מעושרת – [the first – basket- is tithed] and he separates from the second [basket] the tithes of both of them.

[If he said:] “Let the tithes of this [basket] be in that [basket], and the tithes of that [basket] in this [basket],” the first basket is tithed [whereas the second is not]. In this section, he wants to “criss-cross” the tithes, taking tithes for basket A from basket B and vice versa. In this section, the way he states this is not an effective of tithing the second basket because once he says “the tithes of basket A are in basket B” basket A is exempt from tithes. He can’t subsequently use the produce in basket A as tithes for the produce in basket B, because one can’t separate tithes from exempt produce (basket A) for obligated produce (basket B). Before he eats the produce from basket B he will have to separate tithes from it.

של זו בזו ושל זו בזו הראשונה מעושרת – but the second [basket] is not tithed, for immediately when he said, “[the tithes] of this one are in that one,” the first [basket] was made legally fit and became exempted from the tithes, but when he returned and stated, “of this one are in that one,” it is found that he was separating from this one [basket] that already had been exempted through the other one which is liable, and we don’t separate tithes from that which is exempt on that which is required, and he didn’t say anything, and takes from the second [basket] and the tithes for both of them.

[If he said:] “Let the tithes be so that the tithes of each basket be in the other,” he has designated [the tithes of either basket]. In this section, he makes one integral statement, as opposed to making a separate statement about one and then about the other. Since he simultaneously declares the tithes of both baskets, he is not separating tithes from exempt produce for obligated produce and the declaration works. Both baskets have been successfully tithed and he may eat from either of them.

מעשרותיהן מעשרות כלכלה בחברתה (their tithes are [designated such that] the tithes of each basket are in the other) – the tithes that are obligatory for these two baskets will be of one basket for the other, for he has designated the tithes of both of them as one and separates [tithes] from one for the other, and from the other for the one, for in each one, left eatables forbidden to be consumed prior to offering the priestly gifts (i.e.,טבל) in order to give tithes of its neighboring [basket]. But he does not separate [tithes] on them from another place, for he has designated a name and established the tithes of each one of them that are in the neighboring basked. Another explanation and this is essential: their tithes he tithes one basket with the other, he has designated by name and he separates [tithes] from whichever one that he wants and this is how we explain this matter of their tithes from either of them that I would want that the tithes will be a basket in his neighboring [basket].