[Avodah] Bikurim -- halakhah lemaaseh

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2024 at 11:23:27AM +0300, Ilana Elzufon via Avodah wrote:
> On one foot (and I could be wrong), but just looking at the mishna it seems
> that bikkurim have no minimum shiur (as we say every morning) and that
> there is no problem similar to tevel if a tiny amount of bikkurim is mixed
> in with regular produce, so there are no tangible consequences to not
> designating bikkurim. Conversely, there's no way to do the mitzva without
> Beit Hamikdash and tumah v'tahara.

Challah's shiur deOraisa is a perutah. Because there is no "nesinah" of
less than a perutah.

The AhS estimates that the homeowner's 1/24 or the baker's 1/48 is actually
worth a peturah. His logic is quite clever, but also quite involved. See
YD 322:3 (which happens to start today's AhSY)
<http://www.sefaria.org/Arukh_HaShulchan%2C_Yoreh_De'ah.322.3>

> Hafrashat challa seems to me somewhat unique, in that it was deliberately
> extended to chu"l, despite the lack of tumah v'tahara, in order that "it
> not be forgotten from Israel." I have wondered whether the dedication to
> preserving specifically hafrashat challa (currently derabbanan even in EY)
> has anything to do with women's strong connection to that particular mitzva.

Or perhaps the reverse causality -- the Mishnah (Shabbos 2:6) identifies
nidah, challah and hadlaqas haneir as women's mitzvos. It could be that
the typical woman was zehirah in challah even before the churban, which
is why the Sanhedrin found it important to keep alive.

Perhaps more telling, but further from the churban... Mes Geirim 1:4
<https://www.sefaria.org/Tractate_Gerim.1.4> says that we require a
giyores accept these three mitzvos.

Looking that up, I found something interesting yet further from the
subject line:
Whereas a man (1:3) has to accept leqet, shikhechah, pei'ah. So a male
geir has to accept mitzvos of chessed singled out from the big picture,
whereas a giyores has to accept ritual mitzvos. Given today's chinukh
priorities, we would have assumed the reverse, if anything.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
Author: Widen Your Tent                    -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF