Keilim, Chapter 17, Mishnah 7. This chapter is occupied with the standard measurements that Chachamim use throughout the Torah's laws, and here the Mishnah turns to one of the most familiar of them all: the dried fig, the "gerogeret." Whenever the Sages fix a quantity by the volume of a dried fig, which fig did they have in mind? Figs, after all, come in every size.
The answer comes without hesitation. The gerogeret of which Chachamim spoke is "lo gedolah", not the outsized fruit, "velo ketanah", nor the stunted one, "ela benonit", but rather a fig of average dimensions. The shiur was deliberately anchored to the typical specimen rather than to either extreme.
Where This Measure Is Used
Two familiar applications of the gerogeret come from the laws of Shabbat.
- Transferring food from a private domain out into a public one on Shabbat: a person becomes liable to bring a korban chatat only once the item he moved amounts to the bulk of a dried fig. Anything smaller falls short of the shiur that Chachamim assigned to foodstuffs.
- Shituf mevo'ot, the arrangement through which the residents of an alleyway are permitted to move objects between their respective courtyards over Shabbat. Each household places food into the shared collection, and every such portion must equal at least the volume of a dried fig.
In both cases, the fig intended is the medium one described here.
Rabbi Yehudah's Position
Rabbi Yehudah adds a geographical qualification. "Rabbi Yehudah omer": "hagedolah shebe'Eretz Yisrael", the large dried fig grown in the Land, "hi habenonit shebamedinot", corresponds in bulk to what counts as ordinary in the countries abroad. Produce in Eretz Yisrael develops more generously, so its figs come out bigger, and a fruit called "large" there is no more than an everyday fig elsewhere.
The practical result of Rabbi Yehudah's view is striking. He understands that when Chachamim spoke of a medium dried fig, they meant the medium fig of the countries outside the Land, the fig familiar in the Galut. Therefore a person living in Eretz Yisrael cannot measure by the average fig he sees in front of him; he must take a large Eretz Yisrael fig, because only that reaches the size of the ordinary fig of the other lands, which is the true standard the Sages set.
So the Mishnah has taught us both the rule and the dispute: the gerogeret is the average fig, and according to Rabbi Yehudah, "average" is defined by the figs of the lands outside Eretz Yisrael, which obliges someone in Eretz Yisrael to use a distinctly large fig when measuring.