[Avodah] Terumos Umaaseros

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

In the thread "Tu BiShvat today", R' Micha Berger wrote:

> We don't actually take 10%, so the Tu biShvat to Tu biShvat
> accounting doesn't matter.
>
> Besides, individuals only make the terumos umaaseros declaration
> on the food before them. Do the big fruit growers lump produce
> season by season and therefore need to separate the years?

I'm not sure what you're saying, but I suspect that it is incorrect. It is also possible that you *are* correct, but I fear that some readers might misunderstand you, so I hope it is okay if I clarify some issues here.

An individual who is taking terumos umaasros (for whatever reason) most certainly DOES do more than merely recite a declaration.

In the course of the process of taking terumos umaasros, different parts of the food acquire a new halachic status. Some of these parts are physically separated from the other parts, and others are separated only by an invisible line.

Because the separation is happening, it is important for there to be a unified identity of the food being separated. For example, if one has a mixture of apples and oranges, one cannot simply say, "The apples are teruma, and now I can eat the oranges." Rather, one must take teruma from the apples, and also teruma from the oranges. If the two are evenly mixed, then one may take some apples&oranges as teruma for the other apples&oranges, but if one tries this for maaser they had better be very evenly mixed or the proportions won't come out right.

This also applies to the year in which the fruit was grown. One may mix his spring apples and his summer apples with no fear, but if one would mix Teves apples with Adar apples -- they may as well be apples and oranges.  I have heard that because of Tu B'Shvat's position on the harvesting calendar, it is unlikely that a farmer would ever confront this situation l'maaseh, but it is certainly an important concern l'halacha. It can also be an important point on the consumer level -- Suppose one has a bottle of olive oil which he purchased many months ago; he should not take terumos umaasros from it together with the bottle he bought today (unless a product code on the bottles can identify which year they're from).

What I wrote so far applies to both the physical separations and the invisible separation. But there are indeed physical separations! RMB wrote, "We don't actually take 10%..." That is true. But we DO separate a little more than 1%, which we do need to dispose of in a respectful manner. This portion contains the Terumah Gedola and the Terumas Maaser, which are separated from each other by and invisible line, and are assur for us to eat nowadays. The rest of the food has three statuses, separated from each other by invisible lines: Maaser Rishon, either Masser Sheni or Maaser Avi, and Chullin. If one has done the procedure properly, then all three of these will be mutar to eat.

I've obviously left out MANY details, and will be happy to expand on this if anyone is interested. My main points were that (A) we do not merely recite a declaration, but that part of the food must be respectfully discarded, and that (B) because of the changes of status, it is important to isolate species from species and year from year.

Akiva Miller


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