Uktzin, Chapter 3, Mishnah 8. Throughout this chapter we have been mapping out the boundary line of food: which substances are tender enough, edible enough, and valued enough by people to be classified as ochel and therefore capable of becoming mekabel tumah. Our mishnah presents two items produced by the date palm that sit right on that line, and it teaches us something remarkable: one and the same substance can be judged a food for one area of halachah while being denied that status in another.
What is kore?
"Kore" is the tender inner shoot of the palm tree, known to us as hearts of palm. At first it is soft and fit to eat, and as time passes it stiffens and turns into plain wood. Today it is a food people are quite used to, but in the era of the Tannaim it seems no one would plant a date palm with the intention of harvesting its shoot. The shoot was eaten, but that was never the purpose for which the tree was grown.
Because of this very uncertainty, whether kore should be classified as produce of the tree or as a piece of the tree itself, Maseches Berachos devotes a full discussion to the berachah recited over it. For us the accepted halachah is borei pri ha'eitz, since nowadays trees are grown precisely for these soft shoots, which are pickled and served as food.
Wood for everything, food for maaser sheini
The mishnah states: "harei hu ke'eitz lechol davar," kore is legally wood in every respect. What follows immediately from that is that kore cannot become tamei, since wood is not something that receives tumah.
The mishnah then adds a surprising qualification: "ella shehu nilkach bekesef maaser," one may still spend maaser sheini money to acquire it, when the intention is to eat it. In that one area, it counts as a food.
Kafniyos
Next the mishnah discusses "kafniyos." What exactly are they? The meforshim offer differing identifications. According to one approach, the term refers to the hard woody bit that sticks out of the date. According to another, kafniyos are dates that are still underdeveloped and have not reached ripeness.
About these the mishnah teaches that they are "ochlin," they hold the halachic standing of food, "u'pturos min hamaasros," yet no maasros need be separated from them. Regarding the laws of maaser, then, the halachah does not view them as food whatsoever.
A question from Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri
This split ruling regarding kore, that maaser sheini coins may be used for it although it remains immune to tumah, seems to run against an opinion cited earlier in our chapter. Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri argued with Rabbi Akiva and maintained that the two halachos cannot be separated: whatever qualifies as ochel may be bought with maaser sheini funds, and whatever fails to qualify may not. If so, how does our mishnah permit purchasing kore with maaser sheini money while simultaneously refusing to call it food where tumah is concerned?
Two answers of Tosfos
Tosfos addresses this in his comments on Maseches Niddah (nun alef, amud beis), and he suggests two ways to resolve it.
- Kore is not comparable to spices. Tavlinim will never, however they are treated, turn into something a person eats by itself; their whole role is to lend taste to other dishes. Kore is in a wholly different category, because after preparation the kore is itself consumed. Therefore it truly earns the title ochel, and maaser sheini money may be used to buy it.
- What it is now as opposed to what it will become. As matters stand at this moment, the kore can be eaten, even though hardening lies ahead of it. Being something that grows from the earth and is presently suitable as food, it may be acquired with maaser coins. On the other hand, since "sofo lehiskashos," it is destined to turn into hard wood, the halachah declines to treat it as a food with regard to tumah.
Thus one shoot of the palm straddles the dividing line: wood as far as tumah is concerned, and food both for our plates and for the coins of maaser sheini.