פירוש על מעשרות 5:8

שום בעל בכי – pungent garlic that he who consumes it cries and his eyes flow with tears. But it appears to me that it is garlic that grows in Mount Lebanon, for they call Lebanon in Arabic by that language.

Garlic from Balbeck, onions from Rikpa, Cicilician beans and Egyptians lentils, and Rabbi Meir says qirqas, and Rabbi Yose says qotnym are exempt from tithes and may be brought from any man in the seventh year. The produce mentioned in this section can be assumed to come from outside of the land of Israel. Such produce is exempt from tithes. It also may be bought from anyone during the seventh year, even from a person who is generally suspected of selling seventh year produce (see Sheviit 9:1). The identity of the plants mentioned by Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yose is unknown.

רכפא – name of a place.

The seeds of upper arum pods, the seeds of leeks, the seeds of onions, the seeds of turnips and radishes, and other seeds of garden produce which are not eaten, are exempt from tithes, and may be bought from any man in the seventh year; and even though the plants from they grew were terumah, they may still be eaten [by non-priests]. The seeds mentioned here are not eaten and therefore one need not separate tithes from them. Also, one can buy them from a person who is suspected of selling seventh year produce because the sanctity with which one must treat seventh year produce does not apply to these seeds, since they are not generally eaten. The mishnah notes that this is true even if these seeds grew from terumah plants. Although the “father” of the seeds is terumah, the seeds themselves are not even subject to tithes. This would be all the more true if the parent plants were not grown from terumah seeds. Congratulations! We have finished Maasrot! 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. Tomorrow we begin Tractate Maaser Sheni.

גריסין הקילקין – pounded beams that come from Sicily, the name of a place, and they are square, as it is taught in [Tractate] Negaim (Chapter 4, Mishnayot 8-10): “like the square Sicilian pounded bean.

ועדשים המצריות – it has one sharp head, and these species are desert-like and their presumption is that they are ownerless because they are not sewn in a garden. Therefore, they are exempt from tithing.

אף הקורקס – in Arabic KALKAS, and it is a kind of the species of carob.

הקוטנם – from the species of lentils, and the Halakha is according to the anonymous Mishnah.

ונלקחים מכל אדם – even from those who are suspected of selling Seventh-year produce.

זרע הלוף העליון – I heard the [edible] leaves of the wild colocasia/LOF/arum – trained for the leaves (similar to colocasia, with edible leaves and root, and bearing beans) but the seed of the LOF that is regular is liable [for tithing]. And Maimonides explains that this Mishnah is transposed/not in order regarding the higher pods of arum, and arum/LOF is from the species of onions.

שאע"פ שאביהן תרומה – even though that one of each of these which are garden seeds which are not eat, which are heave-offering/Terumah, and their seeds, the large ones are eaten, and we don’t state that hose which grow as Terumah/heave offering are Terumah, but rather, that the seed sewn is from things that are appropriate for eating.

שאביהן – the seed, which is the “father” to that which grew from it.