Maasros, Chapter 3, Mishnah 1. This mishnah is built on several principles we established in the earlier chapters, and once again it deals with figs. Keep in mind that the law of figs is complex: the mishnah in Chapter 1 established that their ordinary completion of work is from the moment they are picked, since it is preferable to eat them fresh. But figs can also be dried, and therefore there is an alternative stage of completion of work: if a person chose not to eat them fresh but rather as dried figs, the work is not completed until he brings them up to his roof and spreads them out to dry. It emerges that the completion of work of a fig depends on intent - on what takes place in the mind of the owner of the figs.
And since that is so, an interesting situation arises in which everything depends on him, and this is the language of the mishnah:
"HaMa'avir te'einim bachatzeiro liktzos" - a person who is carrying figs through his courtyard, intending to bring them up to the roof and dry them there. We have already established that bringing produce into a courtyard by itself creates the obligation to separate maasros, but only with produce whose work has been completed. (This last point is in fact a dispute among the Tannaim, but our mishnah takes it as self-evident.)
Therefore, if the figs were designated to be eaten fresh, bringing them into the courtyard obligates separating maasros before eating them. But if they are merely passing through the courtyard and are designated to go up to the roof to dry, they have not reached completion of work, and passing through the courtyard does not obligate separating maasros before eating a casual snack.
"Banav uvnei veiso ochlin upturin":
His children and the other members of his household may eat from those figs in the courtyard while they are being carried through it on the way to the roof, and they are not required to separate maasros. The reason: the figs have not reached completion of work, and so they are still exempt from maasros.
The difference between the homeowner and the members of his household:
The owner of the figs himself, upon whose intent and thought the whole question of whether they have reached completion of work depends, may not eat. As the Bartenura presents it: since the matter depends on him, an onlooker sees a man eating fresh figs without separating maasros, and it appears as though he is eating tevel. A person cannot speak out of both sides of his mouth - claiming on the one hand that he intends to dry the figs, and at that very same moment eating them fresh. Therefore he himself is forbidden to eat the figs fresh in the courtyard before separating maasros, while everyone else, since the matter does not depend on them, and even his children and the members of his household, are permitted.
When the homeowner reaches the roof itself, the place where the figs are dried, the matter once again becomes evident and self-evident to any onlooker that his intent is to dry them, for here he is actually drying them. At that point he too once again becomes permitted to eat from the figs as a casual snack, incidentally, without separating maasros.
"HaPo'alim she'imo":
Here we encounter issues similar to those we examined in the previous chapter. We said that workers who are entitled by Torah law to eat from the produce they are working with are exempt from tithing before they eat. But in the case before us the workers are not working with the produce itself; they are porters, hired solely to carry the figs through the courtyard to the roof. That being so, the Torah grants them no right at all to eat these figs. And if they do eat from them, it will be in one of two ways:
A gift: the owner of the figs gave them out of the generosity of his heart, and told them to take some for themselves while carrying the figs.
Wages: the workers were hired as employees of the owner, and part of their wages is payment in food.
As we have already mentioned, in the time of the Mishnah, when everyone lived at a basic subsistence level, it was very common for part of a person's wages to include his meals. And if workers receive food as part of their compensation, then, as we established in the previous chapter, the law treats this as a sale. And once produce is sold, the obligation to separate maaser takes effect: whoever buys something must tithe it before eating, and there is no longer any room for a casual snack. It follows that if the workers are contractually entitled to receive food as part of their compensation, it is as though the owner sold them the figs, and they may not eat them before tithing.
On the other hand, if the workers are eating because the owner gave them a gift, this is not a sale, and they may eat the figs without tithing them, as a casual snack. And this is exactly what the Mishnah says: "Bizman she'ein lahem alav mezonos - ochlin u'peturin" - when there is no contractual obligation on the owner's part to feed them, the workers may eat from the figs freely, and they are exempt from any maaser obligation because this is a casual snack. But "im yesh lahem alav mezonos - harei eilu lo yochlu" until they tithe, since giving the figs as wages is considered a purchase, and a purchase obligates the separation of maaser.
Question: But their processing has not been completed?
We saw the dispute between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehudah as to whether selling produce whose processing has not been completed obligates tithing, and the halachah follows Rabbi Yehudah, that produce whose processing has not been completed and which was sold does not require tithing before eating. Our Mishnah does not in fact decide between them, but there was room to think that just as in the first clause, where the case involves a courtyard and not a sale, passing through a courtyard obligates tithing only when the produce has reached the completion of its processing - so too here: even if giving the payment is equivalent to a sale, since these figs have not reached the completion of their processing and they are being brought up to the roof to dry, and this status depends on the intention of the owner, who certainly has this in mind, the payment, which is equivalent to a purchase, should not obligate the workers to tithe. So why, then, does the Mishnah say that they are obligated to tithe?
It is a good question, and one cannot answer that our Mishnah follows the view of Rabbi Meir, since that answer somewhat contradicts the first clause of the Mishnah. The Yerushalmi states explicitly that Rabbi Meir disagrees with our Mishnah in the first clause: in his view, passing through the courtyard obligates the separation of maaser even for produce whose processing has not been completed, and therefore even his children and members of his household could not eat from these figs once they reached the courtyard, since once they enter the courtyard one must tithe, even though their processing has not been completed.
The explanation: a miniature crop with independent status:
In our Mishnah, then, we must say that a different factor is at work here. These workers, in that they are in effect purchasing the figs as part of their wages, have what is called a miniature harvest, a miniature crop. This crop is theirs, and it is subject to a status of its own, independent of the large crop. The large crop has not reached the completion of its processing, since it is going up to the roof to dry; but the miniature crop that they receive is eaten here and now as fresh figs, and therefore it has reached the completion of its processing, and it is obligated in maaser at the moment the workers acquire these figs as their wages.
A further question: but a single fig is not a miniature crop?
This case already came before us in the previous chapter, and there we said that at least two figs are required, a joining and gathering of figs, in order to create a miniature crop, whereas a single fig does not constitute a miniature crop. Yet in our Mishnah there is no mention at all of the worker needing to receive at least two figs in order to become obligated in the requirements of maaser. Rather, we must say, and at least this is one answer, that even a single fig received in the courtyard as payment by the workers is obligated in tithing as a separate miniature crop, whose status is independent of the large crop. This one fig has in fact reached the completion of its processing, and is therefore subject to the requirements of maaser on the part of the worker, since he receives it as payment, as a purchase in every respect.
And why should this be treated differently here from the earlier cases, in which a single fig did not constitute a small crop? The answer, or at least one of the answers, is that two separate factors are at work here:
The purchase factor: the effective sale involved in giving the figs to the worker as wages.
The courtyard factor: the very fact that this is taking place in the courtyard and by passing through it.
These are two separate and independent reasons pushing toward the obligation to tithe: a purchase, under certain circumstances, obligates the separation of maaser before a casual snack, and so does a courtyard. And here, since both factors are present together, they combine to obligate the workers who receive these figs as their wages to tithe them even if they received only a single fig, before they have accumulated a number of figs that constitutes a small crop. Here even a single fig constitutes this small crop, because both factors - the purchase factor and the courtyard factor - are active.
In summary: In this mishnah we learned that the completion of the processing of figs depends on the owner's intention. Therefore, one who carries figs through his courtyard in order to dry them on the roof - his children and members of his household may eat them and are exempt, since their processing has not been completed, while he himself is forbidden, because the matter depends on his own intention and he would appear to be eating untithed produce, until he goes up to the roof and his intention becomes evident. As for the workers: if they have no claim to meals from him, their eating is a gift and they are exempt; but if they do have a claim to meals from him, this is like a purchase and they are obligated to tithe. And we explained that the obligation stems from the fact that the figs they received constitute a small independent crop whose processing has been completed, and even a single fig creates an obligation here, because of the combination of two factors - the purchase and the courtyard.