Rav Shach says that the fruit of the seventh year is not automatically הפקר [abandoned].
He is weaving together a complicated picture in order to solve a difficult Rambam. This Rambam is in the Laws of Maasar Sheni I: 5-6
For the general audience here let me just preface my remarks with the fact that years 1,2, 4,6 of the sabbatical cycle one gives the second Maasar. That is you give Truma to the priest every year. Then you take a tenth of your crop and give it to a Levi. Then you take another tenth and bring it to Jerusalem to the Temple. You give a basket there and the rest you eat in Jerusalem. But in years 3 and 6 instead of the second tenth you give a tenth to the poor.
The Etrog [a kind of fruit] you count the year by the time of picking. But still the Rambam says if it ripened in the 6th year you give truma and the tenth.
The Beit Yoseph says the Rambam is doubtful and so goes both ways to be strict. This is nonsense. The Rambam would have said so if he was doubtful. And also what about other years besides the seventh? Why not bring two tenths in the fourth year if he was doubtful?
The Gra says he is going by R. Yochanan that even though we go by the time of picking still in terms of the seventh year, if it ripened in the 6th we give truma.
The picture Rav Shach is painting is built of several components. One is the question the Minchas Chinuch brings if the Torah makes the fruit abandoned of if one is required to abandon it. The other is the point the Or Sameach brings up of the fruit is the fruit of the seventh year even while attached or only after it is picked. The other is the point I started with that the Torah does not say it is abandoned rather the Torah gives it to all Israel.
But I am still fumbling around trying to figure out how these points can answer the Rambam.
I mean if the fruit is not הפקר then truma could apply. But why should it? We still have a verse that fruit of the seventh year is not obligated in Truma.
For the general audience here let me just preface my remarks with the fact that years 1,2, 4,6 of the sabbatical cycle one gives the second Maasar. That is you give Truma to the priest every year. Then you take a tenth of your crop and give it to a Levi. Then you take another tenth and bring it to Jerusalem to the Temple. You give a basket there and the rest you eat in Jerusalem. But in years 3 and 6 instead of the second tenth you give a tenth to the poor.
The Etrog [a kind of fruit] you count the year by the time of picking. But still the Rambam says if it ripened in the 6th year you give truma and the tenth.
The Beit Yoseph says the Rambam is doubtful and so goes both ways to be strict. This is nonsense. The Rambam would have said so if he was doubtful. And also what about other years besides the seventh? Why not bring two tenths in the fourth year if he was doubtful?
The Gra says he is going by R. Yochanan that even though we go by the time of picking still in terms of the seventh year, if it ripened in the 6th we give truma.
The picture Rav Shach is painting is built of several components. One is the question the Minchas Chinuch brings if the Torah makes the fruit abandoned of if one is required to abandon it. The other is the point the Or Sameach brings up of the fruit is the fruit of the seventh year even while attached or only after it is picked. The other is the point I started with that the Torah does not say it is abandoned rather the Torah gives it to all Israel.
But I am still fumbling around trying to figure out how these points can answer the Rambam.
I mean if the fruit is not הפקר then truma could apply. But why should it? We still have a verse that fruit of the seventh year is not obligated in Truma.
