[Avodah] [Areivim] Cutting of olive trees.

[Michael Makovi]

> Olive trees are regularly cut back to ensure better growth and yield.

> One way to tell the difference is that the trees are actually cut back to
> large stumps and not pulled out of the ground.

The entire tree is cut down? I thought they'd just be pruned of their
branches...? I'm not an agriculture guy though...

I am thinking of the halacha in Shabbat perek shvi'i daf 73b that if a
person prunes his tree AND wants the wood, he is liable for kotzer and
zomer; if he only wants to prune, but does not want the wood, he is
liable for zomer only. Whereas a person who prunes his ground
vegetables is liable for both kotzer and zomer no matter whether he
wants the vegetables (kotzer) or not.

There are a few explanations, but the two that appealed to me were:
1) With a tree, cutting the branches is m'kalkel, even if it does
result in kotzer, and so you are not liable for kotzer. Only if you
have intent to harvest the wood, and use it productively, is the whole
operation not m'kalkel, and thus you are doing kotzer. You do zomer in
either case of course, since this is your intent.
2) Iglei tal says that wood is not a pri of the eitz. Only if you have
intent to harvest the wood, does the wood become a pri, and thus you
are doing kotzer. Again of course, you do zomer in either case.

With vegetables however, they grow back so quickly that it isn't
m'kalel (if one follows number one above). Or, they are intrinsically
the pri (according to two).

--

It's really nice: in my Gemara shiur (Mesechet Shabbat), we've got a
guy from some tiny little island in Greece, so whenever we have a
question about sewing or harvesting or doing anything else, we just
ask him. Tirmonsu (or some funky-sounding thing like that - lupine
beans) just came up in Shabbat, and he described to us exactly what
they are and how you have to boil them many times, etc. I was looking
at something in Chullin once, and he walked into the room, and I asked
him if he's ever butchered an animal, and he said he's done a chicken
and seen it done to sheep and lambs. He also told us a story of how he
went to visit his family during Sukkot, but he forgot his lulav in
Israel, so he and his mother drove around the countryside till they
found a naturally growing kosher one. Every mesechet Shabbat group
needs a guy like him.

Mikha'el Makovi