Do you give truma from cherries?

Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and Rav Isaac Zev Soloveitchik seem to be having an argument about the Rambam in Laws of Truma ch 1 halacha 5.
[That Soloveitchik was the son of Reb Chaim. I think he is the one who founded the Yeshivat Brisk in Jerusalem.]

I have mentioned before today some of the main points in this subject and I might try to go over them again. But right now I wanted just to focus on this argument. I am not sure how to organize this also so bear with me.
The basic Gemara from where this all starts is in Yevamot 16 side a. עמון ומואב מעשרים מעשר עני בשביעית. (Amon and Moav give tithes to the poor on the seventh year.) And down a few lines is says דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא והניחום כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית (for the master said many cities were conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt but were not settled by the exiles returning from Babylonia because the First sanctification sanctified the land only for the time when Jews would be living there, but the second sanctification sanctified the land permanently, and they left those cities in order that the poor would have access to the tithes for the poor on the seventh year.)

Rashi is perfectly clear. The areas of עולי מצרים are not sanctified at all and there is simply a rabbinical decree to give the tithes to the poor and לקט שכחה ופאה. No Truma or any other maasar.

The Rambam writes this same thing as the Gemara but adds a few words. הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא והניחום כשהיו ולא פטרום מן התרומה ומעשרות כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית

"They did not פטר (absolve) them." There is only one way to understand these words as far as I can see. That those areas were obligated and when people returned from the exile in Babylonia they left them in their original state of obligation. And that is exactly how Rav Shach understands this Rambam [I think.] That that land is obligated in Truma and Maasar from the Torah and the whole idea of קדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד ךבא is relevant only to sheviit.

That is as far as I can get right now.

Let me just add that Rav Soloveitchik holds that the land conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt but left by the exiles returning from Babylonia has all the regular laws of the land of Israel according to the Rambam. This is from what I can see what Rav Shach is about to disagree with. To me it seems at this minute that he is going to say that it has all the laws of the land of Israel only in reference to the laws of truma and maasar but not sheviit.

You can see already where all this is going. Rav Shach is probably going to be saying that those lands were not obligated in Sheviit--but the Chazal [sages] could have made those lands obligated in shevviit if they had wanted to. But they decided not to, and so the only obligation they have is truma and maasar. That explains the language of the Rambam here. And I am guessing that even without reading further that this will end up explains a good many of the other questions that this subject has in it.
I mean what is the most obvious question here. It is the fact that the Rambam holds קדושה ראשונה לא קדשה לעתיד לבא  and yet still holds from  כזיב until Amon is נאכל אינו נעבד and he explains in that very halacha that נאכל  refers to the ספיחים which means he hold the land has the holiness of  שביעית. So that would probably mean it has a law of Sheviit by decree of the Sages until the people of Israel return a third time at which time the full holiness of teh Torah will apply.

 I think you should learn Musar and Torah. Musar means classical books of Jewish Ethics and also books from the disciples of Israel Salanter like Isaac Blazzer. His book Or Israel is very good if you can find it.  Also there is a book חובות לבבות   and the אורחות צדיקים.

That is when you learn Torah, people like you more.
And from doing it not for the sake of Heaven one will come to do it for the sake of Heaven.

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Israel Salanter was not the person that started the path of Musar. {medieval Books of Jewish Ethics} Rather it was Shmuel from Salant.

Israel was a young kid that saw that Shmuel was a tzadik, and he also saw how he became a tzadik-- by learning Musar. Israel Salanter put two and two together to conclude the way to become a tzadik is by learning Musar.

There were yeshivas and synagogues in those days, but his idea was to create what he called a "Beit Musar" a building devoted only to one thing alone the study of Musar. What I suggest here is to rekindle this idea. Instead of wasting money on things the Torah says not to, why not build a house of Musar in every city and hamlet?


Kollels are country clubs so it is  a waste of time and money to donate anything to them. Besides the  fact that the very existence of any kollel is against halacha. [See the Rambam in Hilchot Talmud Torah.]
Synagogues are generally sectarian, and so not worth giving money to. The best synagogues are Reform and Conservative, but they have not enough emphasis on learning Musar and Torah. [And from ignorance of Torah, they sometimes choose values that are highly destructive towards Jews and the USA. They tend to embrace people that want to eliminate the Jewish people and the State of Israel.] the insane religious world  are satanic cults as a rule. The idea of keeping Torah is right, but that is just the cloak they hide under. They generally follow some satanic leader who pretends to be a tzadik.

So it seems to me that making a house of Musar is the best idea.



I should mention in a way of התנצלות apology that Rav Shach was once asked about the fact that he was critical. But he stuck with his guns. And my impression is everyone word he said was accurate.

Part of the problem is there is no where to go to learn the Ari.  Every place which advertises Kabalah is a cult. And they certainly don't teach the Ari anyway, except a couple of Kabalah yeshivas in Jerusalem which do teach straight authentic Ari and the Mechon HaKabalah or Kabalah Center which in fact do teach the authentic Ari.

In any case, my idea of how to go about learning the Ari is based on two separate periods in my own life. One period I concentrated a lot of the Ari--specifically the Eitz Chaim. That period was at the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY and I was married at the time and  devoted every spare second to learning the Ari. That is one approach. And I think it was effective because I was at the time in a place of serous Torah study.
The other approach was when I was in Israel in Safed. There I was not able to concentrate of the Ari as much as I had been doing in NY and instead I was doing what is called "שיעורים כסדרם" sessions in order.

The great thing about homosexual-ism is you know who to avoid.
No longer is it any option to send your children to public school where you know that they are being homosexuals have launched an evangelical movement to turn your children into sick people.



The only option I see is something like the Mirrer Yeshiva High school in NY, or something similar.

[For Christians, one could send his children to a Jesuit school. But if possible a Mirrer Yeshiva kind of thing is preferable. [Because at the Mir you get the Oral and Written Torah - both.]


If the mother is at home, then the best of all worlds is home schooling.
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Universities at this point are also no much to look at unless you are in a STEM program. [STEM is the modern way of describing what used to be called natural sciences.]


And race also tells you who to avoid.
Race makes  some difference. At least as far as I can see. I heard from one fellow in Ukraine about a mutual acquaintance   that he had married unknowingly a gypsy woman. There are white Gypsies that you would not be able to tell that they are Gypsies. She only told him after they were married. And low and behold his children with her turned out to be thieves. I have seen this same theme played out many times. Race determines a lot. And even though any person can rise above the fate of his or her genes but that does not necessarily apply to their children.

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The way to go about learning and keeping Torah--really depends on your level of education.
In my first year in yeshiva they were doing Chulin and the basic approach was to take a small section of the Gemara and show how you go from the Gemara to the Tur Beit Yoseph and then the Shulchan Aruch with the Taz. This was the beginning level and at the second year and after that we started getting more into Tosphot. Personally I did a lot of Maharsha  and Shita Mekubetzet also but that was because I was really not sure how to do "Iyun." [study in depth.] Ever since then I had a tendency to look up achronim.
And that fault of mine stayed with me for all my days in yeshiva. Getting to "how to learn" beyond just freshman looking up achronim took me  a very long time and I never would have graduated to real learning if not for having a learning partner that has the kind of analytical mind required for this kind of work.

My recommendation is to find a  person that knows how to learn. But this is very rare. A rule of thumb is don't bother looking outside of NY Lithuanian Yeshivas or Ponovitch in Israel. Jerusalem has lots of yeshivas but they can't learn worth a dime.
To get a big picture approach to learning it is good to study Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam and  Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. The Avi Ezri is in fact much better than Reb Chaim. Reb Chaim opened up the door to that kind of deep understanding of the Rambam but his book has flaws.  Rav Shach's Avi Ezri is much more  deep and clear and as far as I can see is without any flaws. There is no fault in this. Even the first attempt to build a bridge with no previous example is likely to fail. Rav Shach saw farther and clearer than Reb Chaim. But his book is ignored for the simple reason that he was not politically correct. He insulted everyone. And on purpose also. There would be fault in this if not for the fact that everything he said was right.

תורה עם דרך ארץ (Torah with work)

In almost all yeshivas, Torah becomes a way of making money. That is it becomes a mode of life to figure out how to get people to give charity. And this is only one problem. But it is not in all yeshivas. It is just one pitfall in the system. If at all possible it is best as one goes to yeshiva to also on the side to be leaning an honest profession. This is how they did it in Chaim Berlin in the time of Rav Hutner. And it also was how they did it in the Mirrer yeshiva during the time of Avraham Kalmonovitch. Later at the Mirrer it became policy to have only full day students for the four year program. In any case, this is  a balancing act that is hard to follow. But I think it is the path of Torah. It is what is known as תורה עם דרך ארץ (Torah with work) and to me it seems to make the most sense. The eventual result of the  "Torah alone" approach [or "Torah in order to collect charity" approach] is dismal. You get a whole litany of different kinds of insanity and very little real, authentic Torah.

Mainly what seems to happen is that people find it hard to learn Talmud all day, so they attach themselves to some מפורסם של שקר charismatic lunatic and run around trying to convert the whole world to their particular schizo manic leader. I don't know why this is, but I think it is because they find learning real Torah too hard and so look for some diversion.

כל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה. All Torah that is not coupled with work is a waste of time and brings sin. [Pirkei Avot]. See the Rambam in his commentary to the Mishna on Pirkei Avot chaper 4 where on the mishna דאשתמש בתגא חלף. Don't get mixed up when trying to find the Rambam. His long comment is  not in chapter one where the original statement of Hillel is found. And not in chapter two where you would expect to find it. Instead he put it in a later chapter.

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Catch 22.  There is an absurdity in the the insane religious world . One needs Torah but as soon as one enters the frum world, the basic insanity of that world becomes apparent. And that insanity is catching--it is infectious. And you can't find a nice balance because that balance means in practical terms to be incompetent in both Torah and in secular things.[I can only write decent ideas in Torah though because I am writing down conversations between my learning partner and myself in Torah. And he is totally involved in Torah]

The Talmud mentions this concept as the idea of pulling the donkey from both ends. But the modern way of putting it is catch 22.

It is not just the frum world. Dostoevsky wrote, "If the world would be rational, then nothing would happen." And according to Schopenhauer the "Will" the true reality of this world is essentially irrational--or insane.

The only solution is to learn Torah and keep it the best you can. Joining any organization, not only will not help but will hurt. Not only that but support of organizations that are claiming to be learning Torah is just throwing away money to support private county clubs. They are not helping the poor, nor people that want to learn Torah, but just their buddies. As the Rambam said, there is no mitzvah to give charity to a person that could work if he wanted to.

That got me to be thinking about the pros and cons of yeshivas. They can be misused. Many are made for the personal benefit of the people in charge. And though they claim to be for the benefit of the community they are actually geared towards the benefit of the leaders.
Sometimes however they are made for the sake of the holy Torah. And everything depends on what the original intentions are.
Torah is not happy when people use it for personal benefit.

And the main benefit that people seek from Torah is power. It gives people a tremendous ego trip and a power trip,  The ability to control others and tell them what to do --all supposedly for the sake of heaven. This is why I am cautious about which particular Litvak yeshiva I recommend and which ones I disparage and which yeshivas I saw are evil idolatrous cults. It is impossible to put a stamp of approval on all or even most.

The best thing is to get yourself the Horev of Shimshon Refael Hirsh  as an introduction and after that the whole Talmud and spend about two hours a day on your own learning Torah.

There are people that know God is hidden from them and they can search for him. But there are other people that don't know God is hidden. The hidden-ness is hidden. They think they are already close to God. Or they think everything is allowed. The world is not God and is not godliness, but that it can't exist without God.

 But any kind of rulership is a responsibility that is dangerous.  המלכות מקברת את בעליה. So you have to draw life into it. That is by Torah. And this happens in a few ways. One is  by Torah people learn themselves what they are doing wrong and correct themselves. So you don't have to rebuke anyone. You just teach Torah, and the Torah itself corrects everyone. The other way is the Torah is the representative of God. It is his name. And with God is life. So by Torah you are calling to God and that brings life into the rulership.

The hidden-ness is this. There are people that know God is hidden from them and they can search for him. But there are other people that don't know God is hidden. The hidden-ness is hidden. They think they are already close to God. Or they think everything is allowed. They don't recognize that some things are forbidden.  But when one knows that without God, nothing can exist, and that he is even in the darkest of places that one has fallen to, by that the hiddeness is revealed. [Note this is not the same thing as pantheism. The faith of Torah is Monotheism. The world is not God and is not godliness, but that it can't exist without God. Saadia Gaon and the Rambam go into this in great detail in order to clarify the basic belief structure of the Torah.

And God made sure that only the highest level of Torah was contained in the hidden-ness in the hidden-ness. Because if open Torah was contained there, the kelipot would be able to receive nourishment from it.

So what I am suggesting is that this Torah lesson is connected in this way, that the Torah one needs to draw into the hidden rulership is the hidden Torah. That means in English to learn the writings of Isaac Luria.
But to learn Luria's stuff you need  also to learn the Talmud. Or at least to have finished the Talmud once with Rashi and Tosphot. [Not every Rashi is an obligation, but every Tosphot is.]

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 Rav Elazar Menachem Shach heard an idea from Isaac Zev Soloveitchik that I wanted to present here

The preliminaries are these: A mishna  says land conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt  but not settled by Jews returning to Israel from Babylonia is נאכל ואינו נעבד eaten but not worked on the seventh year. Another Mishna says עבר הירדן is obligated in ביעור. Fruits from lands beyond the Jordan river is not allowed to be eaten if there is nothing left of it in the fields. The Gemara in Yevamot 16b says אמון ומואב מעשרין מעשר עני בשביעית. Amon and Moav give tithes to the poor in the seventh year.
A few lines later the Talmud explains the reason: דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים והינחום עולי בבל שקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא קדשה לעתיד לבא כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית



Those are three facts from the Talmud.





The next three facts you need are these. Three Rambams. הלכות שביעית ויובל ד:כו. Land up until Kaziv is עולי בבל. After Kaziv is עולי מצרים. And is נאכל ואינו נעבד eaten but not worked on the seventh year.
The Rambam models his law here on the Mishna but adds ספיחים are eaten. [Not like ר' שמשון].
In the first chapter of Trumah the Rambam decides the law קדושה ראשונה the first sanctification did not sanctify the land permanently. Only the second sanctification did that.
In הלכות ביכורים ו:ה The Rambam says Amon and Moav and Egypt give tithes to the poor in the seventh year and Babylon gives the second tithe.

These are the six facts you need. Three from the Rambam and three from the Talmud.

Zev Soloveitchik told Rav Shach that land conquered by Jews coming from Egypt is obligated in all obligations that the land of Israel is obligated in.
One idea explains and clarifies everything in one simple sentence. I do have I think a very good question on this idea but I will save that for desert.

The shock value here lies starts when you notice the Gemara in Yevamot never said anything about land conquered by Jews returning from Egypt as being obligated in tithes to the poor. All it says is so that the poor will depend on them in the seventh year. That means it has all the obligations of the land of Israel. Seventh year, Truma, the forgotten sheaf etc., and etc.

The question I have is the fact that the Talmud says "they left them so the poor can depend on them in the seventh year." But all the more so if they had not left them then the land would have the holiness of the land of Israel and the poor would depend on them in the seventh year. My learning partner answered it is referring to ספיחים. But I think that is not a good answer because they left those lands before there was an decree against  ספיחים

 Clearly עולי מצרים is considered the land of Israel to the Rambam. And just like  Isaac Soloveitchik suggested it is obligated in all obligated of the land of Israel

A key fact here is הלכות תרומות א:כו that even the second sanctification did not sanctify any part of Israel until all Israel returns. Until then all obligations are by rabbinical decree.



 This explains the Rambam in laws of Trumot ch. 1 halacha 5, ולא פטרום כדי שיסמו כו עליהם עניים בשביעית. Logically that means if they had not left them poor people could not depend on them. At first glance this sounds senseless. But what I suggest it means is this : if they had not left them they would be obligated in the seventh year laws.


Still  what is hard to understand here is this way the Rambam puts it. He could have written that  עולי מצרים have an obligation of Trumah but not the seventh year and that is from the sages.

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To me this seems like a very good thing--as long as one does not break his ties to the Litvak world and become officially "Breslov." When that line is crossed something changes and the person loses something I cant exactly place my finger on how to call it.
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Yevamot 16b

What it looks like to me is that the Rambam is like the second answer in Tosphot.
I am still in the middle of Rav Elazar Menachem Shach's essay on this Rambam.
[In laws of the seventh year in the Rambam.]  But just off hand it looks to me that the area of Amon and Moav that the Gemara says is obligated in tithes to the poor on the seventh year is talking about the areas that were not conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt.

That seems fine. But what that would mean for some city in side of Israel proper that was conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt but not by the Jews coming back from Babylonia is that a city like Beit Shan in the Galil  would have to give tithes to the poor on the seventh year and also be obligated in the laws of the seventh year. And that seems contradictory.


I mean to say that the laws of the seventh year  would be obligatory from the Torah   just by the fact of it being the land of Israel even though it was not sanctified in  by the Jews coming back from Babylonia. But on top of that it would have a rabbinical obligation to give מעשר עני tithes to the poor. What is wrong with this is tithes to the poor is dependent on the order of the years. It is given on the third and sixth year. And even if there would be some rabbinical decree to give on the seventh year but the fruits are open for all to take anyway!


Appendix: Land that was conquered by Jews coming  from Egypt but not by Jews coming back from Babylonian is not worked but the fruits growing by themselves can be eaten after the ביעור. That seems to imply it is obligated in the seventh year laws from the Torah itself.--Even though it was not sanctified! OK that is unexpected, but reasonable. But what makes it hard to understand it that the very same land would be obligated in tithes to the poor! What could that mean? The fruit is anyway open for anyone to take.


That is land that is עולי מצרים but not עולי בבל is נאכל but not נעבד. The Rambam might have explained that like the Rabainu Shimshon. But he did not. He said it means ספיחים. So we have שביעית from the Torah even though קדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא קידשה לעתיד לבא. And in spite of that, it still in obligated in מעשר עני! How does this fit?
I think  Rav Shach might be asking the same thing. For what I remember when learning this with my learning partner is the Rav Shach focuses on the fact the land is not worked so how is מעשר עני applicable?  Maybe that is the same thing I am asking?