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The Development of the Tractates: Maaserot

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The Development of the Tractates: Maaserot CHAPTER SEVEN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACTATES: MAASEROT 1. INTRODUCTION Tractate Maaserot defines the class of produce that is subject to the separation of agricultural offerings and indicates when payment of those offerings must be made. It asks, that is to say, 1) when, in the course of a crop's growth and ripening, tithes may validly be separated from it and 2) when, in the subsequent harvesting and preparation of the produce, heave-offering and tithes must actually be paid?1 The Mishnah's answer to these questions depends upon the under­ standing-derived in part from Scripture-that Israelites owe agricul­ tural offerings to God in return for the use, granted them by God, of the land of Israel for the growing of crops. In light of this idea, the tractate points out that God is owed a share only once the produce actually has ripened and become useful as food. When the crop ripens, that is, God's role in its production is complete, such that he now may be paid the share he is owed. Even at this point, however, Israelites still may refrain from tithing. They may refrain until they physically appropriate the food for their own personal use, either to sell in the market or to prepare as a meal. In the tractate's view, God's absolute claim for a share of the crops of the land of Israel becomes due only at the point at which Israelites exercise their own final, personal claim to use the produce as their own. This notion, that the requirement to tithe is a reflex of the Israelites' desire for food, is found primarily in the tractate's Ushan stratum, which, indeed, comprises all but four of the rules before us. Specifically, Ushans rule that the obligation to tithe depends upon the individual's 1 See Jaffee, p. 1. In light of these questions, Tractate Maaserot serves as a prole­ gomenon to Tractates Peah, Terumot, Maaser Sheni and Bikkurim, which detail the processes through which the several offerings referred to here are physically separated and maintained. Except for the irrelevant fact of the ordering of the tractates, I find no basis for Albeck' s claim that Tractate Maaserot comprises a "continuation" of Tractate Terumot (,Zeraim, p. 217). THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACTATES: MAASEROT 229 intention regarding the produce. If an individual does not clearly intend food that he eats to constitute a meal, then no matter how much he actually consumes, he need not tithe. By contrast, any that the indi­ vidual does take food for a meal, he must tithe, even if the food has not reached a state in its processing at which it normally is eaten. While Y avneans too know that food must be tithed before it is used in a meal, they take no account of unusual or extenuating circum­ stances. Y avneans instead state simply that produce must be tithed when the individual brings it home, since it is there that he normally eats his meals. This leads only to a minor ambiguity in the law, con­ cerning whether or not courtyards are comparable to a person's home so as to render produce brought into them subject to tithes. The distinctive attitude that underlies the U shan approach to the law is familiar from the Ushan strata of the tractates already discussed. For the case of Tractate Maaserot, this attitude is described by Jaffee (pp. 4-5): What is striking in all of this is that the entire mechanism of restrictions and privileges, from the field to home or market, is set in motion solely by the intentions of the common farmer. Priests cannot claim their dues whenever they choose, and God himself plays no active role in estab­ lishing when the produce must be tithed. Indeed, the framers of Maaserot assume a profound passivity on the part of God. For them, it is human actions and intentions which move God to affect the world. God's claims against the Land's produce, that is to say, are only reflexes of those very claims on the part of Israelite farmers. God's interest in his share of the harvest, as I said, is first provoked by the desire of the farmer for the ripened fruit of his labor. His claim to that fruit, furthermore, becomes binding only when the farmer makes ready to claim his own rights to its use, whether in the field or at home or market. Describing the classes of produce subject to heave-offering and tithes and outlining the conditions under which these agricultural gifts must be separated, Tractate Maaserot is independent of any particular pas­ sage in Scripture,2 which, for its part, simply assumes that Israelites will 2 While Albeck (:?.,eraim, p. 217) notes, as I do, that Tractate Maaserot concerns all of Mishnah's agricultural dues, he cites Num. 18:21 ~24 as the single Scriptural pas­ sage pertinent to the tractate (p. 216). Since that passage describes the Levitical tithe (Mishnah's first tithe), in citing it Albeck presumably takes seriously the name of Mishnah's tractate. While that passage, along with all of Scripture's tithing laws, has general relevance for the materials before us, it has no direct implications that would account for Albeck's prominent placement of it. .
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