The Laws of Terumos and Maasros - Rabbi Michael Shlomo Avishid shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:10 Speaker 2 Okay, so we’ll have a class on terumos and maasros. We live in Eretz Yisroel, and, by the way, produce from Eretz Yisroel also reaches places outside Israel, so these are things we need to know. There’s a very, very long section in the Shulchan Aruch. I understand you’ve more or less made summaries from books that compile the laws. In Yoreh De’ah, it’s siman 331, with 156 subsections. That’s really a great deal of material. On the other hand, there are far fewer lengthy commentaries on the subject, because the well-known commentators, like the Shach and the Taz, weren’t from Eretz Yisroel. And by the time fruit from Eretz Yisroel reached them—well, it didn’t arrive in normal condition. There weren’t ships with refrigeration and so on, so it wasn’t very relevant. It was more of a law for the days of Moshiach. The Rema also comments much less on these sections and subsections, because, more or less, these were matters he had little reason to get into. So it’s important to know that the material, with all its details, is there in Yoreh De’ah 331. In one class, we’ll try to look at the practical points. First of all, on the Torah level, I’m sure you noticed in the books you studied the phrase “your grain, your wine, and your oil.” The five species of grain, oil, and wine. Yes, “your wine” means wine, and “your oil” means oil. Those are the things that, in principle, are subject to the Torah obligation. There are Rishonim—the Rambam, for example—who hold that tree fruit is also subject to the Torah obligation. In practice, more or less all the poskim concluded that it is a rabbinic obligation; only grain, wine, and oil are subject to the Torah obligation. And even that was when all the Jewish people were in the Holy Land. But today, not all its inhabitants live there, so the obligation is rabbinic, even in Eretz Yisroel. That is the ruling in practice. That is to say, the Rema also cites the

02:56 Speaker 2 opinion that it is a Torah obligation. There is such an opinion, but he says that, ultimately, the accepted practice is to treat it as a rabbinic obligation. By the way, what practical difference does it make? Whether it’s a Torah or rabbinic obligation, you have to separate terumos and maasros, and you can make a bracha in either case. We make brachos on rabbinic obligations too. There are many practical differences, though, if you want to go into it in depth. Let’s take one from the Shulchan Aruch. It concerns a discussion the Rebbe addresses several times in Likkutei Sichos: whether or not we apply the principle of bereirah—retroactive clarification. Say a person owns a field in partnership with a non-Jew. Each has a share in it, but for now they both have a stake in the whole field. That’s also a question in the laws of partnerships: does each person own fifty percent, or does each person have an ownership interest in all of it? There are practical differences. Yeshivah heads make a great deal of this question. But ultimately, say the Jewish partner wants to take some produce and separate terumos and maasros. Who says the produce he takes is his? There’s a large pile here that has to be divided in two, and he takes some to make the separation. But who says it’s being separated from his fruit? Maybe it’s from the other fruit? So the question is whether we apply bereirah. When it’s eventually determined what he took, can we say retroactively that it was his portion from the outset? That’s a major discussion in many places in the Talmud. Is there bereirah or not? To put it very briefly, the conclusion, more or less, is that for Torah-level obligations we say there is no bereirah, while for rabbinic obligations we say there is. So that makes a practical difference for terumos and maasros. Since terumos and maasros are rabbinic obligations, the Shulchan Aruch gives this example. In siman 331, if I remember correctly, it says that since this is a rabbinic obligation, there is

04:58 Speaker 2 bereirah. So even if he separates maaser before identifying exactly which part is his, the separation fulfills his obligation for his share. That’s just to show that there is a practical difference. The main thing to know is that today the obligation is rabbinic. That’s an important point, and we hope Moshiach will come, there will be an ingathering of the exiles, and we’ll be able to separate maaser as a Torah obligation. Now, here in Israel, when we want to learn the laws of terumos and maasros, we might ask ourselves: Why do I need to know this? I shop at Shefa Shuk, or at this store or that store. Boruch Hashem, I don’t buy products that aren’t mehadrin. And even among mehadrin products, I generally buy those with the best kosher certifications. So what do the laws of terumos and maasros have to do with me? First, some people have gardens. If you don’t have one, maybe your grandmother does, and suddenly she has lemons. She has various kinds of produce—fruit, olives, clementines. I’m sure everyone has encountered something like that in their family. So now someone picked some, didn’t get around to separating maaser, and gives you a bag that is definitely tevel—produce from which terumos and maasros haven’t been separated. That’s why, in the Holy Land, you’ll have opportunities to separate maaser. And if you don’t have such opportunities, someone will ask you how to do it: “I got lemons from my aunt, and she didn’t separate maaser from them,” or “These are from my field. How do I separate maaser?” That’s one situation. Another is: why do we need a good kosher certification in the Holy Land? In a regular year, not a Shemitah year when we have to be concerned about Shemitah, why do we need a good certification for fruits and vegetables? It’s for fruit, not vegetables.

07:11 Speaker 3 Orlah.

07:12 Speaker 2 There’s no orlah with vegetables. Orlah applies only to fruit. So it’s only for fruit that we make sure to get a good kosher certification. That’s very useful to know.

07:24 Speaker 3 Maharsham.

07:25 Speaker 2 Huh?

07:26 Speaker 3 Maharsham.

07:27 Speaker 2 No, there’s no issue of maris ayin here. With vegetables, since there’s no such problem to begin with, there’s no problem going into a market or various other places and buying them. Why? Because vegetables aren’t a problem in the first place. You’re not walking into a non-kosher restaurant, where questions of maris ayin arise—though we haven’t found such a ruling in the Shulchan Aruch; still, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein discussed it. Sometimes people live in parts of Israel where there aren’t many good kosher certifications. Or they live in an area where getting to a supermarket with a very good certification means taking the car and going a long way. Meanwhile, there’s a grocery store across the street with Rabbanut certification. So what’s the main concern? With fruit from trees, I understand: there’s orlah. How careful are they? What are they relying on? Are they relying on the majority? There are whole discussions about that in the laws of orlah. So for fruit I rely on mehadrin certifications. But for vegetables? At worst, perhaps maaser wasn’t separated? In most cases, it is. That’s why, if you separate maaser because you’re in doubt, you certainly must not make a bracha. What generally happens is that, boruch Hashem, there are many Jews today who want to help other Jews fulfill the mitzvah. So what do they do? They go to stores—even stores with Rabbanut certification, even places on kibbutzim, including kibbutzim that might seem to you extremely left-wing. Often, once the obligation has taken effect—and it has to take effect first, after the produce has been processed and so on, and brought into—people go around separating maaser to help other Jews fulfill the mitzvah. But that’s the usual situation. Still, I’m not entirely at ease. Who says maaser was separated? Maybe the mashgiach didn’t come by. So

09:33 Speaker 2 So knowing the laws of terumos and maasros is very relevant in the Holy Land, and that’s an important point. Even outside Eretz Yisroel—there’s an interesting halacha mentioned by the Rambam and also stated plainly in the Shulchan Aruch: produce from Eretz Yisroel that was taken abroad is exempt from terumos and maasros. That’s what the Shulchan Aruch says too. Now, when you look at the sources—the Tosefta, the Mishnah, tractate Challah—you find, for example, the concept of produce brought from abroad. Of course, the basics of terumos and maasros apply in the Holy Land, not abroad. And even in Eretz Yisroel, the obligation today is rabbinic, as we mentioned. But there is such a case—it’s rare—of produce brought from abroad into Eretz Yisroel, or produce in Eretz Yisroel belonging to a non-Jew. Right? Say an Arab sells you grapes from Chevron, but it’s his field. Today there are problems with buying from them along the roads, so with vegetables there wouldn’t be those issues, but saying that they’re actually exempt from terumos and maasros isn’t certain. He might have bought them from a Jew. There are many Jews in Eretz Yisroel and many fields owned by Jews. He might have a Jewish friend he bought them from, and now he’s selling them to you. So relying on an exemption isn’t simple. If you know him—he’s your neighbor, and you know he has a field near his home, and people sometimes go over and buy things from him—then fine. If it belongs to the non-Jew, whether in Eretz Yisroel or abroad, it’s exempt. But if the final processing was done by a Jew, it’s obligated in terumos and maasros. So that’s rare. Because what happens? If you have an orange from abroad that arrives in Eretz Yisroel, obviously its final processing was done at their packing facilities, where it was gathered and everything, so there’s

12:09 Speaker 2 no obligation here. But if these are grapes intended for pressing, or I bring olives from abroad in large quantities to turn them into oil in Eretz Yisroel, then their final processing takes place in Eretz Yisroel, and there may be an obligation to separate terumos and maasros. So the Mishnah in Challah, which discusses produce brought from outside Eretz Yisroel into it, makes the ruling depend on whether its processing was completed in Eretz Yisroel. By contrast, when discussing the reverse case, it apparently says without qualification that produce from Eretz Yisroel that was obligated, but then went abroad, is exempt from terumos and maasros. That’s how the Rambam states it plainly, and so does the Shulchan Aruch. But there is a discussion about this. Many poskim—the Radbaz and many others in their responsa—argue otherwise, and even the Kesef Mishneh on the Rambam. After all, Rabbi Yosef Karo states it without qualification in the Shulchan Aruch, but in the Kesef Mishneh he seems to say that the same distinction applies here: when it says produce from Eretz Yisroel that went abroad is exempt from terumos and maasros, it means its processing was completed in Eretz Yisroel. And—sorry—it means its processing was not completed in Eretz Yisroel, and it was completed abroad, so it’s exempt. But if its processing was completed in Eretz Yisroel, as it is in most cases, then the produce remains obligated when it goes abroad. The plain wording of the Shulchan Aruch implies otherwise. There’s no condition there. It doesn’t say it depends on whether the processing was completed. It says produce from Eretz Yisroel that went abroad is exempt. So that’s a bit difficult: how can you imagine produce obligated in terumos and maasros suddenly becoming exempt the moment it crosses the border? The Minchas Chinuch raises that question and answers it. He says: So what? There are verses about this. It says it applies in the Holy Land; this isn’t there, it isn’t in the Holy Land. So the exemption takes effect. Among the poskim, then, there are opinions on both sides. There’s

14:26 Speaker 2 the Bach, who is lenient; the Minchas Chinuch, who is lenient; the Mahari Korkos, who is lenient; and the Kesef Mishneh, the Radbaz, and several other poskim who are stringent. Today, I believe the contemporary compilations say to separate because of the doubt—though I haven’t checked this particular book—to separate without a bracha from produce that went from Eretz Yisroel abroad. But still, remember that the plain meaning of the Shulchan Aruch is that you don’t have to. Even the Radbaz himself, who argues that one must separate, says that the Rambam certainly holds otherwise, because he states the law without qualification. So according to the Rambam, it’s exempt. And, incidentally, the Shulchan Aruch uses the Rambam’s exact wording. In other words, even those who disagree apparently acknowledge that someone who writes as the Rambam does is saying it’s exempt. So why do we separate from it anyway? This matters for someone living abroad today who encounters produce from Eretz Yisroel. Boruch Hashem, quite the opposite of what you might expect: the very best fruit, the very best produce, is exported. What we get in Eretz Yisroel is the less desirable merchandise. Everything you think is good isn’t as good as what’s exported. Why? Because abroad they pay in euros, pounds sterling, or dollars, and they pay better than they do here. So the farmers prefer to send their very best produce abroad. People abroad therefore encounter produce from Eretz Yisroel—avocados, oranges, dates, and so on. Now, what’s very interesting is that there’s a great deal of ignorance about this abroad. In Eretz Yisroel, we wouldn’t think of buying tree fruit without a hechsher. Even when there is a hechsher, you say, “No, I don’t accept that hechsher.” You know how it is? People send me pictures all the time: “Rabbi, I’m in Rami Levy right now. Here’s the hechsher from so-and-so. Rabbi, should I buy it? Should I buy this?” And every rabbi has

16:38 Speaker 2 his own way of answering. But we’re selective—even about mehadrin hechsherim, we’re selective. Then suddenly the fruit goes abroad, and that’s it? It crosses the border, and this isn’t a question of exemption from maasros, because you can always separate them abroad without a bracha. We’re talking about concerns of orlah. Because of orlah concerns, it’s a problem in Eretz Yisroel. So now you’re on a flight. There’s a hechsher from a rabbi whose certification you wouldn’t rely on, and you’ve taken an apple. But suddenly the plane takes off. Five or six minutes later you’re abroad, over the sea, and that’s it: you take out the apple, and it’s become fine. Why has it become fine? From what I heard from Rabbi Groner about the Rebbe’s father, a"h, he wouldn’t buy fruit from Eretz Yisroel. Perhaps if someone brought it especially for him—but not what people bought in stores that stock avocados and other things from Eretz Yisroel. It’s straightforward. Why? It’s produce from Eretz Yisroel that went abroad. What hechsher does it have? There’s a great deal of ignorance about this. So many Chabad people come and ask, “Rabbi, I have an avocado. How do I separate maaser from it?” But wait—it says Carmel on it; it says Eretz Yisroel. So—

18:19 Speaker 4 What percentage of the market is it?

18:20 Speaker 2 Okay, so again.

18:23 Speaker 4 No.

18:24 Speaker 2 But I’ll tell you why that isn’t a question. That’s why I prefaced this with what I said. In Eretz Yisroel you don’t ask what percentage it is, and yet you’re selective. So because it crossed the border, you’re no longer selective? It’s the same fruit. Or, if your argument is that the percentages are very low, so you don’t take precautions, then the same should apply in Eretz Yisroel. But there’s no reason to distinguish between Eretz Yisroel and abroad.

18:49 Speaker 4 The whole issue of maasros when it crosses the border applies to maasros, not orlah?

18:54 Speaker 2 No, no. Incidentally, orlah applies abroad too, even to fruit grown there. But the difference is that doubtful orlah is permitted abroad, whereas in Eretz Yisroel we’re stringent about doubtful orlah. But as for orlah abroad, there’s certainly no question that taking fruit out of Eretz Yisroel does not exempt it from orlah. There’s no such halacha. Now, where I would use the argument he made is when someone calls and says, “Rabbi, I bought lots of oranges, lots of avocados.” Then the rabbi can say, “All right, I know the percentages. It’s zero point something—it isn’t even one percent.”

19:30 Speaker 4 There are Israeli avocados all over the world. There are Israeli oranges all over the world.

19:34 Speaker 2 Yes.

19:35 Speaker 4 If I’m in Uganda, am I buying an Israeli orange?

19:38 Speaker 2 I don’t know, but they do reach Europe and America. Yes.

19:42 Speaker 4 Well, wow.

19:43 Speaker 2 Yes. It says “avocado”; it’s written on it. It says “Carmel Israel”; it says “Jaffa.”

19:49 Speaker 4 People don’t buy those.

19:50 Speaker 2 Huh?

19:51 Speaker 4 People don’t buy those.

19:51 Speaker 2 Yes, but there’s a lot of nonsense about this. A lot.

19:55 Speaker 4 But maybe the market abroad is bigger, so that makes more of a difference.

20:00 Speaker 2 No, that’s a different point.

20:03 Speaker 4 No questions.

20:03 Speaker 2 If you’re saying, “I come across oranges for sale and it doesn’t say where they’re from—do I need to worry that maybe they’re from Eretz Yisroel?” Don’t go that far. No. I’m talking about when it says so on the fruit.

20:16 Speaker 4 Huh?

20:16 Speaker 2 Of course it says so. On every orange sticker: “Jaffa.” It says “Jaffa”; it says...

20:22 Speaker 4 Those are the percentages within Eretz Yisroel itself.

20:24 Speaker 2 Yes.

20:25 Speaker 4 All over the world—if it says so.

20:27 Speaker 2 Yes, but that—

20:28 Speaker 4 In Eretz Yisroel, I need to check the percentages within Eretz Yisroel.

20:30 Speaker 2 Yes. So when you know—or it says on the dates where they’re from, where they come from. Sometimes they come from Jordan or Tunisia, and sometimes they come from Eretz Yisroel, and it says so. It says “Israel.” So here, it certainly isn’t crossing the border itself that changes things. But again, what I wanted to say at the beginning is that when fruit goes abroad, even though many want to say it’s completely exempt, many are still concerned about the view of the Radbaz and several other poskim, and the Kesef Mishneh’s explanation that...

21:07 Speaker 4 About everything.

21:07 Speaker 2 About everything. Anything that goes abroad is still obligated in separating terumos and maasros, because the processing was completed in the Holy Land. If grapes from Eretz Yisroel are sent abroad to be made into wine, the processing is completed there, abroad, and then it’s certainly exempt according to all opinions. The Maharsham has an innovative ruling. He says that if, from the outset, the fruit was intended for export—from this kibbutz it goes straight to Europe—then even the opinions that require terumos and maasros agree that it’s exempt in this case, because it was destined for abroad. Fine, but in practice, you receive fruit abroad and have already bought it. So there’s room to say, as he said, the percentages are very, very low, and you’ve already bought it, so at least we tell people to separate terumos and maasros. It’s certainly a hiddur, because many opinions are lenient about this, but it’s still a practice to separate without a bracha. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard this idea. People often say: You bought fruit, but you don’t know how to separate terumos and maasros, you don’t know the wording or how to do it. So take such-and-such an amount and say that it should be separated as written in the book Kashrus, or whatever it’s called, Mishnas Hakashrus. Or say that it should be separated as written in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 331. That’s easier to remember. Are you familiar with this idea? It’s very common abroad, because many people don’t know how to do it. I got lemons from Eretz Yisroel; Grandma brought something, and terumos and maasros need to be separated. So how do I do it? There’s maaser rishon and maaser sheini. We’ll discuss all the details. But how do I actually do it? So there’s this idea of saying that it should all be separated as written in such-and-such a book, without really understanding what you’re doing.

23:13 Speaker 2 This innovation comes from the Litvish world. It’s an innovation of the Chazon Ish. He brings proofs from Even Ha’ezer, section 38: someone who doesn’t know how to make conditions should say that the condition should be as written there. He doesn’t know what the conditions of the tribes of Gad and Reuven are or how to formulate them, so he says it should be according to the conditions laid out in Shulchan Aruch, section 38 or something like that. The Chazon Ish wants to derive this from there. Many—most poskim—rejected it and challenged it very strongly. He brings four or five proofs, and they go through the proofs one after another and refute each one. Now, when it actually arrives abroad, and the straightforward reading of the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch would seem to be that it’s exempt from terumos and maasros, I can still understand that sometimes someone calls and doesn’t know how to do it or what to say, and you don’t have time to explain to him how to take a siddur—or something else with the wording—and say, “Let’s do this, this, and this.” So I can imagine relying on the Chazon Ish’s approach, because even today, in Eretz Yisroel, the obligation is rabbinic. If it isn’t your wine, oil, or grain at all, but avocados or oranges, it’s already rabbinic. And when there’s a doubt about a rabbinic obligation for produce that went abroad, when you don’t even know whether separation is required, I can imagine—

24:39 Speaker 5 Abroad, with the intention that it would go abroad.

24:40 Speaker 2 The intention. Fine, if you... But, but what does it mean in practice? It means I can imagine doing that, but it isn’t the proper way to do it from the outset. There’s a procedure for separating. We need to cover what we usually say and explain how the whole process works. First, there are the years of the maaser cycle. That makes a practical difference in knowing whether it’s maaser rishon, maaser sheini, or maaser ani. You need to know when you’ve moved from one to another: am I separating maaser sheini, or am I giving maaser ani? Also, I can’t separate from one year’s produce for another year’s. They aren’t the same year. If I took tomatoes from Tel Aviv and tomatoes from Jerusalem, even though they aren’t from the same field, that’s fine; they’re from the same year. I have five tomatoes here and five tomatoes there, and I can separate from them. And if I choose to separate from the Tel Aviv tomatoes, that will work for the vegetables and fruit from another city, Jerusalem, as long as they’re in close proximity. There’s no problem with that. But separating from one year’s produce for another year’s doesn’t work. So that’s important. There’s also the Shemitah year. In the Shemitah year, produce is exempt from terumos and maasros altogether. It’s supposed to be ownerless. That’s why it says in Shulchan Aruch, and in many places—especially in the Shlah—that produce in Shemitah is exempt from terumos and maasros. It’s like a tree that’s ownerless, open to everyone, planted just for beauty, and people are allowed to take from it. It’s exempt from terumos and maasros. So you need to know whether you’re in the first year, the second year, and exactly when you move from one to the next. It isn’t complicated at all, but you do need to know it. So first of all, regarding terumah—

26:56 Speaker 2 and terumas maaser, which we’ll learn about, it makes no difference which year it is, except when the produce is exempt, in the Shemitah year.

27:02 Speaker 5 Is maaser rishon required?

27:04 Speaker 2 So wait—could Shemitah be relevant now? We’ll see. Essentially, the rule is that during Shemitah the produce is ownerless, but in the other years, terumah and terumas maaser are required. Now there’s a law regarding maaser rishon. Maaser rishon goes to the Levi. So in every year except the Shemitah year, when produce is exempt from maasros, there’s maaser rishon. But maaser sheini applies in the first, second, fourth, and fifth years. Only in the third and sixth years is there maaser ani. Now, with regard to Shemitah, I want to get into the whole issue, because there’s a well-known disagreement between the Mabit and the Beis Yosef. The Rebbe discusses it at length in Likkutei Sichos: does the produce become ownerless automatically, by decree from above, or does the owner have to declare it ownerless? It makes a practical difference if you didn’t declare it ownerless: is there an obligation to separate terumos and maasros during Shemitah? And in that case, which maaser would apply? The year is normally exempt, but if you are obligated to separate maaser in the seventh year, would it be maaser ani or maaser sheini?

28:15 Speaker 5 What’s the difference between maaser and maaser sheini? Why specifically those years?

28:19 Speaker 2 That’s what the Torah says. It isn’t—there is a rationale here... It’s a Torah law that in the third and sixth years, instead of separating maaser sheini—which is really yours, except that you bring it up to Jerusalem, or, if carrying it is difficult, redeem it for money and then buy things within the boundaries of Jerusalem, and so on—you give it to the poor. The third year, now. So first of all, we’ve learned that Shemitah produce should be completely exempt, and only in the third and sixth years do we have maaser ani instead of maaser sheini. But it doesn’t end there. You can be in the third year and still give maaser ani, and the reverse is also true. Why? Because what determines when you’ve moved from one year to the next? For vegetables, it’s 1 Tishrei. And there’s another important factor: it depends on when they’re picked. Anyone who studied the beginning of Kiddushin remembers the discussion about the esrog. The sugya is actually in Rosh Hashanah, page 14, but when studying Kiddushin, pages 2 and 3, you always learn the Tosafos there and the whole discussion about the esrog being like a vegetable, and so on. So it follows the time of picking. It’s very interesting, and there’s a disagreement about this too, but let’s take the lenient view that “picking” means actually picking it, not when it becomes ready to be picked. So imagine that it’s now 3 Tishrei 5785. I’ll go back a few months. We’re now in the third year of the Shemitah cycle, right? 5782 was Shemitah, then 5783, 5784, 5785—5785 is the third year. So now, in the third year, imagine that on 29 Elul 5784 I went into my yard, picked ten tomatoes, and put them in the refrigerator. Then, on 3 Tishrei 5785, a few days later—four days later—I picked another ten, ten, ten tomatoes. When I separate, first of all, I can’t separate from one batch for—

30:53 Speaker 2 the other and say, “I have twenty tomatoes altogether; I’ll separate from these.” No, wait. This is from the second year and that is from the third, because I picked these in 5784 and those were picked in 5785. The ones I picked on 29 Elul are subject to maaser sheini, and the others to maaser ani. So with vegetables it’s very simple: 1 Tishrei and the time they were picked.

31:22 Speaker 5 But when you go into a store, you don’t know when they were picked.

31:25 Speaker 2 Right. So sometimes you may need to separate tithes and not know when the produce was picked, right? If you really are in doubt, sometimes you can tell: they’ve only just opened the store, but the produce has certainly been there for a few days. It takes a day, a day and a half, for the shipment to arrive. But if you’re in doubt, then regarding maaser ani, you say: if this needs to be maaser sheini, it is maaser sheini; if it needs to be the other tithe, it is that.

31:54 Speaker 5 There could be a mixture of tomatoes, couldn’t there?

31:57 Speaker 2 Ah, no. Then what you should do is—not, in any case, separate from one batch for the other. That applies regardless.

32:02 Speaker 5 From one batch for the other.

32:03 Speaker 2 No. I mean, if you took—oh, I understand: some of your tomatoes are from here and some are from there.

32:10 Speaker 5 There could be a mixture in the same store.

32:11 Speaker 2 Yes. Once you can’t resolve it, there’s nothing you can do, and you can’t find out—since the obligation here is rabbinic, because this is in Eretz Yisroel nowadays and these are tomatoes, not grain, wine or oil, there is certainly room to be lenient. So you do what you can.

32:28 Speaker 5 To say it’s both maaser sheini and—

32:30 Speaker 2 That you can say, yes, because of the doubt. And here, too, the burden of proof is on the one seeking to take something from another, so you won’t even have to give it away. But let’s move on. What have we learned? We learned about the third and sixth years, and that for vegetables, the year begins on 1 Tishrei and is determined by when they’re picked. Now, for fruit, it’s 15 Shvat. In other words, until you reach 15 Shvat, there’s no question at all. If you’re in Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Teves, or even early Shvat, clearly everything you’re dealing with belongs to the previous year. Even if you’re in the third year, for this purpose you’re actually in the second year. And that’s still not the whole story. Even after 15 Shvat, that isn’t yet the deciding factor, because here the deciding factor isn’t when the fruit is picked. If it were, what you picked before 15 Shvat would belong to the previous year, and what you picked afterward would belong to the new year. But it doesn’t follow picking; it follows chanatah, the fruit’s early stage of development. What exactly is chanatah? The Rishonim disagree about that. And what does reaching a third of its growth mean? It means the fruit has reached—people who understand fruit can tell whether it has reached a third or not. There are also ways to determine this through planting, but we won’t get into that. So if it reached a third before 15 Shvat—you know, you saw the lemons, or the—lemons raise another issue, but say you have an avocado. If you can see that it reached a third before 15 Shvat 5785, it belongs to the second year, and consequently it’s maaser sheini. If it reached a third after 15 Shvat, as sometimes happens with citrus fruits that develop later, then it belongs to the third year. This matters both for separating tithes from one year’s produce for another’s and for knowing whether it’s maaser sheini or maaser ani, or whether you’re in the Shemitah year

34:35 Speaker 2 or not. It’s always important to know. Where things get a little complicated is with an esrog. On the one hand—and this, too, is a matter of disagreement—because it’s a tree fruit, its year changes on 15 Shvat. But because it grows like a vegetable, needing a lot of water and so on, its status follows when it’s picked. So what you picked—this is interesting. You have an esrog. If it was picked after 15 Shvat, it belongs to the current year, say the third year. If it was picked before 15 Shvat, it belongs to the previous year. So we have fruit and vegetables. There are other things we could ask about, too, such as grain and legumes. For them, the year also begins on 1 Tishrei, but it doesn’t follow picking; they aren’t vegetables. It depends on when they reach a third of their growth. But most of what we actually separate tithes from is generally fruit and vegetables. So for vegetables: 1 Tishrei, according to picking. For fruit: 15 Shvat, according to chanatah. The exception is the esrog: in one respect it’s like fruit, in that its year changes on 15 Shvat, but its year is determined by when it’s picked. And where there’s disagreement, making things even more complicated, is with citrus fruit—or at least lemons, which are very similar to esrogim. Do they have the same status as an esrog or as other tree fruits? Because the authorities disagree, many poskim adopted all the stringencies and said we give them the status determined both by picking and by chanatah. If that creates conflicting results, then of course, if you see that a lemon reached a third before 15 Shvat but you picked it afterward, you’ll have to treat it as both maaser sheini and maaser ani because of the doubt. Okay? We’ll see how to do that. So that’s one point. We’ve now learned about the years. Now let’s learn

36:59 Speaker 2 briefly, the order of separating the tithes. So here’s how it works: when I take fruit or vegetables, whatever they may be, and I need to separate tithes—say it’s definitely tevel, untithed produce—then, since there’s a mitzvah, there’s also a blessing for separating terumos and maasros, and so on. What do I need to separate? There’s terumah for a kohen. That is, a kohen is supposed to receive terumah. The Torah doesn’t specify any amount to give him; it doesn’t say. It does specify an amount for the Levites and for maaser ani: a tenth. Here it doesn’t say you have to give a tenth. You have to give something. So according to Torah law, if you have two hundred oranges—say, a hundred oranges—you can take one orange, even cut off a quarter of it, and that’s terumah for the kohen. Now, in the past the kohen was ritually pure. Here the terumah is ritually impure, and in Eretz Yisroel we’re very careful to make sure it becomes impure. That’s why we put a little water on what we designate as terumah. If rain falls on it while it’s still attached, that’s different; once it’s detached, we want to make sure it gets wet, so that when you touch it, it becomes impure. Because spoiling, throwing away or destroying pure terumah is a serious matter. So we need to make sure it’s impure terumah. Now, how much was I supposed to give the kohen? There’s no set amount, but back when we actually gave it, the Sages said that giving one-sixtieth was stingy. Really, that isn’t a good measure; it’s called a grudging eye. If you give two out of a hundred as terumah—there’s even an allusion to “two out of a hundred.” If you have a hundred oranges, that means two oranges, two percent. Two is called the average measure, and one-fortieth is a generous eye.

39:11 Speaker 6 A generous eye.

39:12 Speaker 2 A generous eye, because it’s more. So the Shulchan Aruch says that today, in any case, the kohen doesn’t eat it. Why be generous just for it to go to waste? It goes in the trash anyway. By the way, how do you throw away terumah? You put it in a plastic bag and close it, so it won’t be mixed with and spoiled by all the leftover cholent gravy, yogurt and other things—the stench in the trash. So in practice, today the first separation is terumah, and it has no set amount. Even if you saw in the Mishnah that the average measure is two out of a hundred, that was when it was actually given. When it isn’t actually given, we follow the basic law: any amount will do. Next is maaser rishon. Maaser rishon is the tenth given to a Levite. So if it’s definitely tevel, you’re supposed to actually give a tenth to a Levite. I’ve already, as it were, taken some out. I’ll explain how we do this in practice, how we arrange the fruit. For now, I’m giving the order of separation. If it were that simple, I’d have a kohen right here in front of me: “Here, take a quarter of an orange—even for a thousand oranges, that’s yours. Goodbye.” But it’s worth having him stay, because perhaps—though if he doesn’t stay, that’s all right too. From what remains, I take ten percent. What does ten percent mean? Say I have about a hundred oranges. So I take an orange, right? And give it. Actually, one is big, one is small, and nobody really counts them all. So they would weigh them. You weigh the produce and see: if I have a hundred kilos, the tithe is ten kilos. Now, to make this easier: I already took a small piece out of one orange. Now

41:31 Speaker 2 I see that I have, say, a hundred oranges. I take one orange, just to make it easier. I take an orange and—wait, sorry, it’s a hundred oranges, so a tenth is ten oranges. I give the Levite ten oranges. Then I can say goodbye to the Levite. Now what does the Levite do? From the ten oranges he received, from the ten percent he received, he himself has to give a tithe of the tithe. But this is terumah. Our terumah has no set amount; the Levite’s terumah does. What does he have to give? A tithe of the tithe. So if you have, say, a hundred oranges and he received ten, right? He has to give one out of the hundred. Right? But from what he has, yes?

42:31 Speaker 7 A tithe of the tithe is one out of a hundred, or one out of a hundred—

42:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

42:35 Speaker 7 A tithe—

42:35 Speaker 2 It’s one out of a hundred. But how much does that come to? Because it’s a tithe of the tithe. So if he received ten oranges, he himself is supposed to give one orange.

42:48 Speaker 7 Yes, one orange.

42:48 Speaker 2 Right. Okay. So then—now, who does he give that orange to? To the kohen. And that will be his terumah. Now, he can’t give that either, because the terumah is impure and the kohen is impure, and so on. So that has to be disposed of too. But here you can’t say, “Since it’s going to be disposed of, give him any amount.” No. Because the required amount here is a tenth of the tithe. Okay. So this applies every year except years that are exempt, like Shemitah. So I gave terumah. I gave ten percent to the Levi. The Levi then gave a tenth of the tithe, which is one percent of the whole—the one orange out of the ten oranges he received. Okay. So that takes care of the kohen. We’ve fulfilled all the obligations toward him. I fulfilled my obligation, and the Levi fulfilled his obligation toward the kohen. Now, what we do today—because often you can give it to a Levi, and later we’ll explain how you give it to a Levi—but sometimes you want to set aside the Levi’s portion and also act, so to speak, on his behalf. You transfer ownership to him, so that you can separate the tenth of the tithe on his behalf. In other words, you separate—you can set aside, say, one orange, which is one percent, for him, plus the little bit of orange you set aside for your own terumah. But you can’t, for example, just separate—let’s say I take an orange and another small piece and say, “This is my terumah and the terumas maaser.” What terumas maaser? You haven’t yet given the tithe to the Levi; you haven’t even separated it for him. So you can’t do that. You can cut it and first say, “This is my terumah,” and then you can say, “Nine here and one here”—meaning, this is the tithe for the Levi, from which I’m giving the tenth,

45:10 Speaker 2 the tenth of the tithe, to the kohen. Okay. Now that I’m done with the Levi, if it’s the first, second, fourth, or fifth year, there’s maaser sheini. Now, maaser sheini—what do I do? I need to take from what remains.

45:32 Speaker 8 Ninety.

45:33 Speaker 2 Exactly.

45:34 Speaker 8 Another ninety.

45:35 Speaker 2 From the ninety. I need to take ten percent of that. For whom? For me. It’s for me, but I can’t go up to Jerusalem with it nowadays. There’s impurity, and there are things that depend on offerings, and we don’t have an altar. We can’t do it. And it’s forbidden to use that money to buy food and eat it in Jerusalem. So what do I do? I redeem the ten percent I separated. I don’t have to—here, let me tell you, you don’t have to separate it physically. You can say that it’s here on the plate, and that it is redeemed onto a coin. It becomes ordinary produce, and its sanctity passes onto the coin. Now, according to halachah, since we don’t eat it today—if we did, as in the past, the coin would have to equal its value. If ten oranges cost, uh, ten shekels, you’d need ten shekels. But since we don’t do that today, it’s enough to redeem it onto a coin, and then you need, essentially—

46:46 Speaker 8 A coin worth a perutah, right?

46:48 Speaker 2 Worth a perutah. Good. So, a coin worth a perutah. For example, let’s say a perutah is worth nine agorot. Let’s round it to ten agorot.

46:58 Speaker 8 A perutah is ten agorot? Isn’t it more? Isn’t it thirteen?

47:01 Speaker 2 If it went up.

47:03 Speaker 8 No, it’s ten.

47:04 Speaker 2 Yes, I think so. Ten.

47:06 Speaker 8 Nineteen.

47:06 Speaker 2 Yes, nineteen. You can check [unclear] this morning. So let’s say it’s ten agorot. Then a one-shekel coin gives you ten uses. You don’t have to take out the coin you put in the cupboard every time you separate the tithe. You say that it’s redeemed onto the coin you’ve designated. You can do that ten times. Take a ten-shekel coin, and you have plenty of uses. So for someone who only occasionally picks things from his garden, or has these opportunities very rarely, even a one-shekel coin gives him ten uses. Eventually you’ve used up those ten times. What do you do? You take that coin and say, “I redeem it onto another coin.” And onto how much of it? Onto a perutah’s worth. So everything on the one-shekel coin now transfers to the other coin. You have another nine uses. If you redeemed everything onto a perutah’s worth, you have another nine uses.

47:58 Speaker 8 No. You have another ten uses on the first coin.

48:01 Speaker 2 You’ve already used it ten times. Okay, now it’s used up. So what do you do with that coin? And you still have years before biur maasros, the disposal of tithes. Biur maasros is in the fourth and seventh years. Yes, before Pesach. All right, before Pesach, the seventh day of Pesach. I’m talking about this [unclear], but then I’m finished. I transfer it. So clearly that coin is now completely free, and one perutah’s worth of the new coin has already been used. I have another nine uses left. Ultimately, when the time for biur maasros arrives, since I can’t take the money up to Jerusalem, I have to dispose of it. People would throw it into the Dead Sea—or into the sea—or throw it, uh, onto railroad tracks.

48:49 Speaker 8 Can you break it?

48:51 Speaker 2 You can break it. If you have a strong enough tool, or you take it to a jeweler to break it and make it unusable. Now, let’s say someone wasn’t clever enough to take a one-shekel coin; he took a ten-shekel coin. He says, “That gives me lots of uses, for years.” So, first of all, rather than destroy it, he can take the ten-shekel coin and transfer its sanctity to a ten-agorot coin, and then break the ten-agorot coin. He doesn’t have to throw away the ten-shekel coin. Okay? There’s another trick. You’re actually allowed to redeem it onto produce and then spoil that produce. Now, produce worth a perutah. Sugar also counts as produce according to all the halachic authorities. It comes from sugarcane, from beets, from various things. So you take a beet—uh, sorry, sugar. Now let’s say a hundred grams is worth three and a half shekels, for example. So, uh, a hundred grams is three and a half shekels, much more than a perutah. Work out how many grams of sugar are worth ten agorot. With, say, three heaped tablespoons of sugar, you’ve probably got more than the required amount. Right? So at the end you can redeem it onto that. Don’t redeem it onto sugar from the start. Some people recommend using sugar every time and then pouring it out. Why do that all along? Keep one coin in a drawer and redeem it onto the coin, and only when the time for biur maasros comes, redeem it onto a perutah’s worth of sugar. Right? And it’s very easy to make sure you have enough. You see that it’s three and a half shekels a kilo, so a hundred grams is three and a half shekels; you know you need much less than a hundred grams, and that’s it. Then you pour it down the sink, and you’re done with the redemption, with the disposal of maaser sheini. Now, as for the Levi,

50:52 Speaker 2 let’s go back. What do we do? You need to do this every year except Shemitah. Do I actually give it to the Levi or not? If it’s produce whose tithing status is uncertain, I separate it as a stringency because I don’t know. I bought vegetables in a store, and I’m not one hundred percent sure whether they were tithed. I’m doing it because of the doubt. The burden of proof is on the person seeking to take something from someone else. So you separate it because of the doubt, so to speak, and keep it.

51:22 Speaker 8 And you eat it?

51:23 Speaker 2 And you can eat it. The most surprising ruling is that of the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish is lenient, and many Litvish Jews follow this—and many teach it, mistakenly in my opinion, because it isn’t meant to be a general practice. He maintains that you don’t need to give it to a Levi at all. He says, “Who says he’s a Levi?” Today’s Levi’im—okay, we call them up to the Torah and so on based on their own statements; that’s more or less how their status is established. But halachically, we don’t have real proof that their ancestors stood on the platform in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, and so on and so forth. So he raises a doubt about it, especially since in most cases the obligation is rabbinic, or doubly rabbinic. Huh? Yes. So that’s why he says there’s no need to give it. But that’s what we do when the produce’s status is uncertain. When it’s definitely untithed, we give it. Now, how do we give it?

52:19 Speaker 8 Why, though? Why is that, really?

52:22 Speaker 2 Why, really? Because, first of all, the Shulchan Aruch says it explicitly. The Shulchan Aruch is not talking about the Beis Hamikdash. In section 19 of chapter 331, the Shulchan Aruch says that you give the maaser to a Levi, and the Rema adds in parentheses, “And some say to a Kohen.” And many people do that. Sometimes you don’t have a Levi, but you have a Kohen, and that’s also fine. So it says to actually give it. Now, can you imagine what a headache that is, and how embarrassing? Say you live in Kfar Chabad, you have your own little plot, and you have lemons. Every time you pick lemons, you have to go—maybe the Levi doesn’t live on your street, so you have to go to the other side. You’re in the housing developments, walking over to the Levi’s place, going from place to place and knocking on his door to give him what? All you did was pick four lemons. To give him the maaser from four lemons—even a piece of one—that’s embarrassing. Right. So what do you do? There are two approaches. In practice, because not many people really study these halachos, you hear something and take it into account. I’ve even seen plenty of rabbis hear something they were told and pass it on. But hold on: just as you studied meat and milk, or the laws of Shabbos, and reached precise conclusions, the same goes for maaser. Either you study it or you don’t. So I’ll give you an example. Here’s what some people do: they find a Levi at the shul at the beginning of the year. They even know that this arrangement can run for several years—for six years you can give to a Levi. You can give—but all right, you can’t set it aside now. Let’s say that every

54:18 Speaker 2 year you come to him and say, “Take a hundred shekels, take fifty shekels. It’s a loan. You owe me fifty shekels back, but don’t worry: whenever I have a little produce, I’ll deduct its value from the debt. And if I haven’t deducted enough by the end, I’ll waive the rest. Next year I’ll give you another fifty shekels.” So that’s one method. This method exists; the Mahari Korkos says it, and the Rabash strongly supports it. But one of the poskim who disagrees is no minor authority: the Avkas Rochel. The Avkas Rochel, the Pri Chadash, and several other poskim reject it and say no. They say, “What do you mean? You have to give the produce itself to the Levi.” Or, if you want another way—you find it hard to run after him and meet him every time to say, “Here’s a little bit of lemon”—then have a neighbor acquire that produce on the Levi’s behalf, the way we have someone acquire the eruv tavshilin on behalf of others. He lifts it, and it’s as though the Levi received it. Then you arrange with the Levi in advance: each time I’ll have someone acquire it for you, and you’ll sell it back to me. Since you’ve given it to me, I owe you money. I give you a fifty-shekel loan, and in effect I deduct the cost of the produce I buy each time. But what’s the difference here? That I actually have it acquired on his behalf. So this is the method that should be taught to anyone dealing with produce that is definitely tevel. Why? Why get caught up in the dispute with the Avkas Rochel and the Pri Chadash? So yes, that’s from the laws of—huh? New ones. Yes. In short, that’s the point. Now, regarding maaser ani: maaser ani applies in the third year. For vegetables, it depends on picking

56:31 Speaker 2 after 1 Tishrei. For fruit, it depends on the initial formation of the fruit—when a third of its growth takes place after 15 Shvat—and then it’s maaser ani rather than maaser sheini. So you don’t have to redeem it onto coins and so on. But this, too, you actually have to give to a poor person. And on this point as well, it isn’t always comfortable and so on. Some people use a kind of arrangement; there’s Keren Hamaasros, and some people do give it. But if you aren’t handing it over directly, the most meticulous way is really to use the same arrangement I described for the Levi. Of course, if I’m separating it because of a doubt, so that I don’t make a bracha and only say the formula, then I don’t have to give it to the Levi or to a poor person in the third and sixth years, because the burden of proof is on the person seeking to take something from another. So—okay, then... Do I need to have a specific poor person acquire it? Yes. Yes, correct. Now, by the way, with the fruit we give—if you actually give the produce to the Levi, choose good things for him. Good fruit. Not an orange that doesn’t look so nice. If it’s spoiled, obviously that’s no use at all; nobody would eat it. You can’t fulfill the obligation by separating that. But if something just isn’t the nicest-looking, you can designate it as terumah or terumas maaser. Why? Because in any case, nobody is going to eat it. That’s one point. The Shulchan Aruch explicitly says that you don’t have to take the finest produce. On the other hand, when it comes to what you give the Levi or the poor person, obviously don’t choose something unattractive for him. You’re doing this, and all the more so—there are many things that are

58:45 Speaker 2 between a person and Hashem even when you give something to another person. So clearly, you need to give “all the best to Hashem,” to give good things. Now, there’s an interesting discussion about casual eating. You know, if you go fruit-picking—many people go to different kinds of picking places on Chol Hamoed—sometimes you’re walking through the fields and eating. It belongs to someone; private individuals run these places as a business. And you feel like tasting a grape or some fruit. Thank G-d, there’s a halacha that when you take something to eat casually, you don’t have to separate terumah; it’s exempt from terumos and maasros. Then there’s a whole set of laws about it. What counts as casual? Can you pick a whole bunch of grapes and say that’s casual? The poskim say: take them one at a time, at most. But here, I think, there’s something that applies to many people. I once spoke about this with Rabbi Ashkenazi z”l; it wasn’t something the public found simple. People have a yard, they have a villa, and on their property—sometimes behind the villa, sometimes in front—they have a lemon tree, clementines, things like that. So they say, “I’m eating casually.” Under the tree—[unclear]—you’re outdoors under the tree, peeling a clementine and eating it. What, you don’t need to separate maaser? But it says that once it reaches the house, that’s a problem. Now, when you look carefully at the Rambam and the Bartenura, you see that there are conditions. First, it has to be part of the home, so to speak, adjacent to the house, but it also has to be a protected courtyard. That describes many homes. You have a villa, but there are gates and you close off the garden, right? Especially when it’s a little behind the—sometimes the villa isn’t right up against the street. But even when it really is

1:01:00 Speaker 2 on the street, many people have somewhat high fences and close it off. And what does “protected” mean? Obviously, if a thief wants to climb through a window, then even your house isn’t protected. But more or less, it isn’t out in an open field where anyone can come in. It’s also a place where, if someone enters—if it’s a stranger, you would generally say to him, “What are you doing here? Are you looking for something?” That’s what happens when you’re at your villa and someone enters the yard of the house. If someone hasn’t been invited, you generally say, “What are you doing here? Are you looking for something?” Maybe he’s delivering mail, I don’t know, maybe he’s bringing something. But a person doesn’t just walk into a place like that. So very often, those are the conditions of a home, of a courtyard belonging to the house. It’s not... Then sometimes there are places—I don’t know, maybe you know Kfar Chabad, near the library. You often see villas there standing in the middle of a plot of land, and that’s exactly it: the whole area doesn’t feel like part of the home, and there’s no enclosed yard around it. You know the kind that are open, with nothing surrounding them? So here it’s clear. Even if someone owns the tree, it isn’t a protected place. If someone walked around there and picked a lemon or something, you wouldn’t look at him as—there’s no defined yard around it at all. Even if the land registry lists it in your name. So it’s true that this is a place where you can eat casually, but with yards like the ones we have today, these aren’t simple matters. The fact that it’s considered, that it’s—a courtyard

1:02:40 Speaker 2 Is it a guarded courtyard if the branch extends over the street too? Yes, so if you—here too. That’s the whole… Yes, this could make a difference. The branch? Yes. Now, I’m not talking about whether someone passing by can take whatever he wants. Right? Many people make that mistake. They say, “Oh, the branch sticks out, so I can take the fruit.” No. If you know the owner doesn’t mind, that’s one thing; otherwise, you don’t take it. There’s a discussion—and the blessing? Once the fruit has fallen, there’s something to discuss. Can the owner also eat from that branch without doing anything? Yes, yes. And make a blessing? You mean hold it for the blessing, or… Not just the blessing. If it’s exempt, you can simply eat it without doing anything. And if it’s… If it’s a case of doubt, without a blessing, you mean? Yes. If you don’t know whether it’s a guarded courtyard or not. Okay, then in that case, don’t do it without a blessing. If you’re in doubt, bring it into the house and settle the matter. Yes. Now, one last thing. Sometimes people call and say, “Rabbi, I made a mistake. I cooked tevel. Is the utensil now prohibited?” There’s still a solution. If you have produce left from the same year, or you go and pick some from that same year, you can separate from it for what you cooked. You just have to intend explicitly—even say it out loud—that the separation should also apply to what was absorbed in the utensil. That takes care of the problem. And since you can separate from produce that is in close proximity, the items don’t actually have to touch. If you have lots of tomatoes, and you don’t specify that the separation applies to those tomatoes when each batch is in a different container, that’s a problem. They

1:04:30 Speaker 2 aren’t considered to be in close proximity; the containers separate them. If they aren’t touching, that’s a problem. But if they’re on the counter or on one large plate, here’s what I recommend: instead of making a blessing and then starting to cut a piece here and a piece there, don’t separate anything yet. As long as you haven’t said, “This is terumah,” or “This is terumas maaser,” nothing has taken effect, and you can still make the separation from produce in close proximity; it doesn’t have to touch. So you take something large, or put it there, and cut off the portion that will be terumah. You cut off a little more than that, and from the maaser you cut the tithe of the tithe that will become the Levi’s terumas maaser. Right? Now, if it’s a case of doubt, don’t even touch anything. Leave it all where it is and make the declarations about maaser, about maaser rishon and maaser sheini, including that it’s redeemed, and leave it as it is. But if you really have to give it over—say, it’s definitely tevel and you actually have to give it to the Levi, or use the arrangement we mentioned of having someone acquire it for him, or give maaser to a poor person—then before you do any of this, you can already arrange which part will be the maaser and which part will be… Altogether it comes to about nineteen percent plus a bit, right? So you take the produce, put the Levi’s portion here and the poor person’s portion there. You can set that up in advance and then say, “This is here and that is there,” and so on. That way, everything is more or less ready; then you make the blessing, and the portions are there.

1:06:28 Speaker 2 And by the way, regarding maaser—for example, maaser ani—it’s an obligation you have, but you don’t necessarily have to give over the very produce you separated first. You can later take some from here and some from there. It doesn’t have to be the exact portion you separated, because according to many halachic authorities, it’s essentially a financial obligation. So you can eat beforehand. That’s important. Say there’s a Levi who lives next door. Do you have to give him his portion before you eat? No. If you’ve set it aside for the Levi, you can eat. You can’t eat as long as the terumah hasn’t been set aside and you haven’t made the separation. Obviously, then you can’t eat. But as for the Levi’s portion, even if you haven’t handed it to him yet, you can eat. There’s no prohibition on eating your produce at that point. You simply have an obligation to give him his portion, but you’ve already separated it.