Maseches Maasros, Chapter 1, Mishnah 7. The Mishnah continues to define what constitutes gemar melachah - the completion of processing - for various foods, and here it deals with wine and oil. The practical consequence is the same as we have seen until now: once a food has reached the completion of its processing, one may no longer eat from it even a casual snack, nor may one feed it to his animal, until it has been properly tithed.
"Hayayin mishe'yekapeh": - wine, once he skims it.
Skimming means removing the layer of skins and seeds that floats on the surface of the wine in the pit. To understand this, one needs to be familiar with the structure of the winepress in the time of the Mishnah:
The upper press: a flat basin hewn into the ground, in which the grapes are piled and trodden underfoot until all their juice has been extracted.
The channel: a small conduit that carries the juice from the treading area down to the lower pit.
The lower press (the pit): a reservoir dug into the ground, into which the juice flowing from above collects.
The juice that collects in the pit sits there for a while and begins to ferment. The bubbles that rise carry the grape skins up to the surface, and from there they can be skimmed off. This is the completion of the processing for wine: once everything floating on the surface of the juice has been removed, what remains in the pit is considered wine - even before it is drawn off into vessels.
However, just as in the previous Mishnah regarding grain, where the kernels that had not been piled up and smoothed over on the threshing floor remained permitted for casual eating, so too here:
"Af al pi shekipah - kolet min hagat ha'elyonah u'min hatzinor v'shoseh" - even though he has skimmed it, he may take from the upper press and from the channel and drink. Even though the skimming has been done and the wine has reached the completion of its processing, a person may gather juice from the upper press where the grapes were trodden and from the channel that carries it down, and drink it as a casual snack without tithing it, since this juice never collected in the pit and never reached the completion of its processing.
"Mishe'yered la'ukah" - regarding oil: once it descends into the collecting pit.
Here too one needs to be familiar with the process of producing olive oil:
The yam ("sea"): a large basin into which the olives are placed. Sometimes this is preceded by a gentle pressing, to extract the virgin olive oil.
The memel: the millstone - a large stone disc with a square hole in its center, familiar from archaeological sites in Eretz Yisrael - which sits inside the yam. A wooden pole extends from its center, and a donkey turns it in circles until the olives are ground into a pulp.
The akel: the sack into which the olive pulp is placed.
The beam and the weights: these press down on the akel and squeeze every last drop of oil out of the pulp.
The ukah: the collecting pit at the bottom of the olive press, into which the oil flows.
The completion of the processing in pressing olive oil is when the oil reaches the ukah. However, in keeping with the earlier cases of grain and wine, any oil that has not reached the ukah remains permitted for casual eating:
"Af al pi sheyarad - notel min ha'akel u'mibein hamemel u'mibein hapatzim, v'nosen la'chamitah o la'tamchui" - even though it has already descended, he may take from the akel and from between the memel and from between the boards, and place it on a chamitah or into a tamchui. Even though the oil has already flowed into the ukah, one may take oil from the akel that held the pulp, from the cracks and grooves of the memel and the yam, and from between the patzim - the wooden beams in the olive press between which oil gathers - and place it on a "chamitah" (a type of wafer) or into a "tamchui" (a serving bowl). Obviously one does not eat olive oil on its own, but rather spreads it on the wafer or puts it into the serving dish.
Cooking as a substitute for gemar melachah:
From here the Mishnah moves on to a further topic. Everything we have said until now still stands: from gemar melachah (the completion of the produce's processing) onward, casual eating is forbidden and the produce must be tithed before it may be eaten. However, as we will see in the coming mishnayos, there are other actions that serve as a substitute for the usual gemar melachah, and one of them is cooking. If a person cooks his food out in the field - even though he has not brought it home, has not brought it to the market, and has not smoothed over the pile - once the food has been cooked, eating it is no longer considered casual eating.
Hence the question raised in our Mishnah: a hot wafer that has just come out of the fire, onto which oil is immediately spread - should we be concerned that the wafer cooks the oil, so that the oil would be forbidden as casual eating until it is properly tithed? The Mishnah rules that there is no such concern: a wafer that has already come out of the oven cannot cook the oil, and spreading oil on it is not considered cooking.
The same applies to a serving bowl, which never goes into the oven at all. This is comparable to the electric pot in which the cholent is prepared: it is a keli rishon, standing on the fire and cooking on its own. The serving dish into which the food is poured, by contrast, is a keli sheni, which never stood on the fire and merely received the cooked food into itself. A keli sheni does not cook the oil, and therefore oil that has not yet gone down into the collecting pit and was placed into a serving bowl may be used - and the food in the bowl along with it - for casual eating without tithing it.
By contrast, oil placed into a keli rishon - a pot or a pan that stood on the fire, even if it has already been removed from it - is cooked inside it, and this is considered cooking that forbids casual eating until the oil is tithed, even though the oil never reached the collecting pit and never reached gemar melachah.
"Aval lo yitein la'kedeirah v'la'ilpas k'shehein rosichin" - one may not place the oil that he took from the press basket, from between the press boards, or from atop the crushing stone, into a kedeirah (a pot) or an ilpas (a pan) while they are still boiling hot - hot enough that the hand recoils from them, about fifty degrees Celsius, or perhaps slightly less. At that heat the oil cooks, and it may no longer be used until it is properly tithed.
The opinion of Rabbi Yehudah:
"Rabbi Yehudah omer: la'kol hu nosein" - Rabbi Yehudah disagrees with the principle itself. In his view, one may place the oil into any vessel at all, even into a pot or a pan that are a keli rishon, provided that they have already been removed from the fire. A vessel that is not on the fire no longer cooks, and therefore olive oil placed into it is not cooked and remains permitted to be eaten without tithing.
"Chutz mi'davar sheyeish bo chometz v'tzir" - the exception, says Rabbi Yehudah, is where the pot or pan that was removed from the fire contains food with vinegar or brine in it. Vinegar is acidic, and it acts as a catalyst that speeds up the cooking of foods. Therefore, if the pot contains vinegar or brine and it is still hot, even though it is off the fire, one may not place olive oil into it; and if he did place it there, the oil is cooked and is no longer permitted before it is tithed.
In summary: In this Mishnah we learned two definitions of gemar melachah: with wine, from the moment it is skimmed, when the foam floating on the juice collected in the vat is removed; and with oil, from the moment it goes down into the collecting pit. In both cases, whatever has not reached the vat or the collecting pit - what remains in the upper winepress and in the channel, and in the press basket, on the crushing stone and between the press boards - remains permitted for casual eating without tithing. We also learned that cooking serves as a substitute for gemar melachah: a wafer and a serving bowl, which do not cook, do not render the oil forbidden, whereas a boiling pot and pan do cook and do render it forbidden; and in Rabbi Yehudah's opinion, even a keli rishon that has been removed from the fire does not cook, except for something containing vinegar or brine.
In the coming mishnayos we will continue to deal with the other actions that serve as a substitute for gemar melachah and with their implications for casual eating.