The Mishna משנה in Truma (ch 4)

The general way of taking תרומה, the part of the crop that goes to the כהן, is by physically removing that percentage of the crop. The same goes for מעשר the עשירית that is given to the Levi.  This is what I think made the רמב''ם explains the  משנה in מסכת תרומה in a kind of forced way that does not seem to be in accord with its simple explanation. The  משנה in תרומה (ch 4) says simply, המפריש מקצת תו''ם מוציא ממנו תרומה עליו אבל לא למקום  אחר ר''מ אומר אף מוציא ממנו תרומה על מקום אחר
ר''ת תו''ם היינו תרומות ומעשרות  "When one separates a part of תרומה and מעשר from a stack of grain, one can not take from it ,"it" masculine gender, תרומה and מעשר to another place but only to itself.  ר. מאיר says: Also to another place.
The simple explanation is like the ראב''ד  that since the part he separated is not the full amount percentage, thus the entire stack is still mixed with טבל .  The reason is the general rule held by the sages "אין ברירה".  That means he can not take from this stack of grain one סאה, and then say, "This סאה is מעשר for nine סאה in this other stack." The reason? We can not say that in reverse there is choice to say what he now holds is טבל. This is certainly what the משנה sounds like and it goes well with the fact that ר. מאיר says he can do so because ר. מאיר  holds יש ברירה. But then the obvious question is then the same problem exists for that very same stack of grain. Why can he take a סאה and say "This סאה is מעשר for nine סאה in the stack?" If אין ברירה then אין ברירה. If there is no choice then there is no choice. So the רמב''ם in  תרומה says when one separates a partial amount of תרומה, he has to take תרומה from it, --from the grain he separated.  It does not have the category of תרומה at all. The question then the אחרונים  ask is: then what about the previous law in the רמב''ם תרומה פרק ג:ו  where it says if he separates 1/61 what he has separated is תרומה and he then goes and take the remaining amount that is needed to complete the right percentage? The ר''ש רבינו שמשון  brings the ירושלמי  that  says the משנה in תרונה  פרק רביעי case he intends to separate more. This the ר''ש says means when he does not intend to separate more, the part he has separated is straight טבל and does not have the category of תרומה at all. My question here is this. Is it possible the רמב''ם holds with ר''ש? 
I mean הלכה ז would be when he does not intend to separate any more; and הלכה ו   is when he intended to separate a complete percentage, but missed by a drop?
I saw that רב שך explains the רמב''ם exactly the opposite from the ר'ש and I am wondering why this is necessary?  רב שך says the רמב''ם holds when he does not intend to separate any more it has the full category of תרומה and מעשר; and when he does intend to separate more, it does not because תרומה and מעשר do not work in reverse. Then הלכה ו is simply not a case of working in reverse, but of simply then and there not separating enough at one time.

 Perhaps the question should be just the opposite. Why does the ר''ש say what he says? Maybe the most simple explanation is like רב שך?
 To answer for רב שך you might say here that the ר''ש was forced into his position because of  the משנה תרומה פרק ד is where he intended to separate more, and he did not see any difference between this and the case of separating 1/61 instead of 1/60? But the רמב''ם held there is a simple difference, and so his explanation is the most simple.




הדרך הכללית של לקיחת תרומה, (החלק של היבול שהולך כהן), היא על ידי הסרה פיזית של אחוז מהיבול. כן לגבי מעשר  שניתן ללוי. זה מה שאני חושב גרם לרמב''ם להסביר את המשנה במסכת תרומה בדרך שלא נראית להיות בקנה אחד עם ההסבר הפשוט שלה. המשנה בתרומה אומרת בפשטות,המפריש מקצת תו''ם מוציא ממנו תרומה עליו אבל לא למקום איר אחר. ר''מ אומר אף מוציא ממנו תרומה על מקום אחר. ר''ת תו''ם היינו תרומות ומעשרות.  (כאשר אחד מפריד חלק התרומה ומעשר מתוך ערימה של תבואה, הוא לא יכול לקחת ממנו תרומה והמעשר למקום אחר אבל רק לעצמו. ר מאיר אומר: גם למקום אחר. ההסבר הפשוט הוא כמו ראב''ד כי מאז החלק שנפרד אינו אחוז מלוא הסכום ולכן הערימה כולה עדיין מעורבב עם טבל. הסיבה לכך היא הכלל שבידי החכמים אין ברירה. כלומר, הוא לא יכול לקחת מהערימה של תבואה  סאה אחת ואז לומר סאה זה מעשר לתשע סאה בערימה אחרת. הסיבה? אנחנו לא יכולים לומר כי בכיוון ההפוך למפרע יש בחירה להגיד מה שהוא מחזיק כעת הוא טבל. זהו בהחלט איך המשנה נשמעת וזה הולך טוב עם העובדה שר. מאיר אומר שהוא יכול לעשות זאת משום שר. מאיר מחזיק יש ברירה. אבל אז השאלה המתבקשת היא אז אותה הבעיה קיימת באותה ערימה של תבואה. למה הוא יכול לקחת סאה ולומר "סאה זו מעשר  לתשע סאה בערימה?" אם אין ברירה, אז אין ברירה. אז רמב''ם בתרומות פרק ג' הלכה ז' אומר כאשר אחד מפריד כמות חלקית של התרומה הוא צריך לקחת תרומה ממנה, מן התבואה שהיא מופרדת. (זו לא  בקטגוריה של תרומה בכלל.) השאלה אז האחרונים לשאול אז מה לגבי החוק הקודם רמב''ם תרומות פרק ג'  ה''ו שבה כתוב אם הוא מפריד 1/61 מה שהוא הפריד הוא תרומה, ואז הוא הולך לקחת את הסכום הנותר כי הוא צריך להשלים את האחוז הנכון. ר''ש (רבינו שמשון) מביא את הירושלמי שאומר משנה בתרומה הפרק הרביעי  היא מקרה שבכוונתו להפריד יותר. ר''ש אומר כשהוא אינו מתכוון להפריד יותר, החלק שהוא הפריד הוא  טבל ואינו משויך לקטגוריה של תרומה בכלל. השאלה שלי כאן היא זו. האם זה אפשרי שרמב''ם מחזיק עם ר"ש? אני מתכוון הלכה ז' תהיה כאשר אין בכוונתו להפריד עוד, והלכה ו' היא כשאר הוא מתכוון להפריד אחוז שלם אבל חיסר מקצת? ראיתי כי רב שך מסביר את רמב''ם בדיוק ההיפך מן ר'ש ואני שואל למה זה הכרחי? רב שך אומר רמב''ם מחזיק כאשר אין בכוונתו להפריד עוד יש לו את הקטגוריה מלאה של תרומה, ומתי שהוא מתכוון להפריד יותר זה לא תרומה ומעשר בגלל שתרומה ומעשר לא חלים למפרע. ואז הלכה ו' הוא פשוט לא מקרה של למפרע אלא שבו במקום הוא לא מפריד מספיק בבת אחת. 

Music for the glory of God.

t78 B flat major

To me Northern and Southern heroes all were great men. I am not against the North, but certainly not against the South. So in my opinion, if the South does not want them,  R. E. Lee statues ought to be placed in Washington DC, preferably next to the Lincoln and the Washington Monument. Both sides were fighting for the preservation of the Constitution as they understood it.

You can ask from a Torah point of view if the war was justified at all? A possible argument could be made from Herodotus and Thucydides about the need to preserve the State.  Cyrus and Darius could walk over just about anyone they wanted to because of the sheer vastness of their state. The Magi or anyone else simply and to give up and join in. The alternative was annihilation.The only thing that could and did stand in the way of the Persian empire was the combined power  of Hellenas, Athens and 300 Spartans. Since  שלום המדינה peace n prosperity of the State is one of the major goals of Torah as the Rambam makes abundantly clear in the Guide, the preservation of the Union does become a valid Torah Principle.

"To be involved in words of Torah" is not the same thing as to say lots of words of Torah.

I think the mitzvah of learning Torah is a time thing, not a verbal thing. The reason I say this is that we already know from the Yerushalmi (One of two Talmuds. That is the Jerusalem Talmud) that learning Torah has no שיעור למטה (no minimum size.)  So it is like making a scratch on one's skin because of sorrow on losing a loved one. That is a prohibition from the Torah. And it also has no minimum size. So if two witnesses tell a person, "Do not make a scratch from sorrow, because if you do, you will transgress the prohibition of שריטה and get 39 lashes,"  and he does so anyway and does it a lot, he still gets only one set of 39 lashes. The reason? Because there is no minimum size.
This is directly opposite to the prohibition of קרחה pulling out one's hair from sorrow and/or not from sorrow. The reason is that the five places of the beard have a minimum size in five different places. (I.e. 40 hairs that have a minimum length of being able to be held between two fingers.) So if warning is given--that is only one warning- and the person goes on to pull out the hair of his beard, then he gets 5 sets of 39 lashes. The reason is קרחה (puling out the beard) has a minimum size.
So clearly since  learning Torah has no minimum size, there is nothing to separate one word of Torah from another except the time factor, not how many words of Torah he says.

Practically speaking-when I was learning with David Bronson, he was usually the learning partner that did the saying of the words, for the simple reason that he was the one that had done the homework--the pre shiur (pre session) preparation. I just sat and listened. But listening is also being involved in words of Torah.

To some great degree I feel vindicated in not learning much as much Torah as  I would like to because of being in any yeshiva I think is not good nowadays since they have all been taken over by the Sitra Achra.. Since I have to do it on my own I figure I have a good excuse for not learning as much as I would be doing in a yeshiva situation. {There are only a few places left that are still learning authentic Torah like Ponovitch an the NY Litvak yeshivas. But the genuine Torah places are so rare you can count them on one hand.}

(1) There are a few concepts I picked up in yeshiva which are valuable and even though I have fallen away from them, they are still important to explain to those that might benefit.
One is the idea of Bitul Torah. [Not learning Torah when you can be learning.]] In other words you might be a working guy. That is great. But if you do not actually need the money then you are in fact not allowed to work because that is time that could be spent learning Torah.

The does not mean one is required to be learning Torah all the time. Rather it means when time is available then one is in fact required to be learning Torah.

You see this in all the obvious places in the Yerushalmi and the Rambam but somehow or other the idea rarely gets across to people--including me.
(The Rambam considers Physics to be in the category of learning the Oral Law as you can see in his discussion of dividing the day into three parts.))




(2) הכרת הטוב gratitude was another concept I was introduced to right away. The most clear expression of this is the Musar book חובות לבבות Obligations of the Hearts. This you also see in Rashi when aaron struck the Nile River and it became blood.  Rashi says there that Moses refused to strike the river because it had once done  a favor for him.

(3) דיני ממונות [laws about money] was obviously learned well at the Mir, but this also translated into deed as well as learning.

(4) Speaking the truth-the absolute truth at all times with utter total disregard for one's own advantage was another concept I picked up. I could tell lots of personal stories how that concept helped me in miraculous ways during the years.

t77 music files

 T-77 D major  {I am assuming this  still needs a good deal of editing.}

t77 midi file

I thought that it might be a good idea to mention the events surrounding R. Yohanan and Ilfa. There is a lot to learn from that event but it seems to me that I was more in the shoes of Ilfa than R. Yohanan.
Nowadays the kind of test that Ilfa faced seems to have morphed . Certainly "parnasa" [livelihood] is a test and always has been, but today there are more kinds of things which draw one away from Torah. Mainly they are along the lines of, "Sure learning Torah is a good thing, but come and do this more important mitzvah that is even greater than learning Torah." Or "Come do this mitzvah so that your Torah will be more real and authentic and even better." There are countless of ways for the evil inclination to seduce one away from Torah. After all all the Satan has to do all day is think up new ways to draw people from Torah and make up deep sounding teachings that seem to imply how other things are better than Torah and then inspire his agents with these deep lessons.

The basic events were as follows. R Yohanan and Ilfa were sitting and learning Torah. דחק להם שעתא. The hour pressed upon them. (That is: they were starving yeshiva students.) They discussed going out for סחורה (to work). They were sitting near a stone wall. R. Yohanan heard two angels discussing whether to topple and push down the wall on top of them. One angel said "Let's push this wall down on them since they are thinking of leaving learning Torah to do business." The other angel answered "No. Let's leave them alone because for one of them עומדת שעתא the hour stands. (i.e. one of them will still continue to sit and learn)." Ilfa went out and became a business man. In the meantime R Yohanan continued to learn Torah and eventually became the Rosh Yeshiva (head of the yeshiva).
When Ilfa returned from one business trip he encountered R Yohanan and tried to show that he was still learning Torah even while doing business. He said, "Show me anything in the Tosephta  and  I will show you were it is hinted at in the Mishna."  Then the Gemara brings that legal discussion.

The implications of these events are vast and few people are willing to heed the lessons. There is not question that what Ilfa did was perfectly justified. Still we see there is some level of appreciation of Torah that R Yohanan must had had. That is sometimes the real test is not whether you are sitting and learning. It is rather, "Do you appreciate the Torah enough? Or are you willing to give it up for a few bucks?"

My own appreciation of Torah was reinforced by a small book בניין עולם  which brings the Gra on the Mishna in Peah who brings the Yerushalmi. A very important aspect of that discussion is the question "What is the minimum amount of a mitzvah or a sin?" This comes up concerning  לא ירבה לו סוס and שריטה and קרחה.(note 1)




There is a lot to go into about this but the basic idea is that the Yerushalmi says even one word of learning Torah is worth more than all the other mitzvot.

But the Mishna not not say that learning Torah has an infinitesimal measure. Rather "No measure." Thus it is like שריטה that one would get one set lashes for lots of שריטות because it has no שיעור. This is different from things that have  a שיעור  like קרחה. Thus for קרחה one gets five sets of lashes even though there was only one התראה issued--because it has a שיעור.
There is much to think about here but in short it is not as if every word of Torah is a separate mitzvah. Rather is one sits an learns for example a whole day in the Mir Yeshiva in NY or Chaim Berlin, then he gets a  big mitzvah. That is the same as if he did lots of שריטות. He gets one big sin. It is not as if he did lots of little sins. So with Torah that has no minimum measure, sitting and learning a whole day is a big mitzvah, not lots of small mitzvot.

I should mention that people that use Torah to make money are generally enemies of those that learn Torah for its own sake. So the fact that people are sitting and learning does not make them friends to Authentic Torah. For all we know they might be doing it for the money and ease of life style and to get out of the IDF  and the prestige. In fact to get out of the IDF was the one main motivating factor is the formation of 99% of all Israel yeshivas.
This is the trouble with the religious system. It is a breeding ground for anti Torah and anti Israel zealots. The fact that people learn Torah all day says nothing about their integrity or true purpose. if fact 99% are in it for the ease and comfort of lifestyle of sitting and chatting all day and getting paid to do so.

With the exception of Ponovitch and its off shoots most yeshivas there have no interest in Torah at all.

No lower measure  also means as it does for peah--that one fulfills it with an infinitesimal amount.that one fulfills the mitzvah by saying one word of Torah.

(note 1) If one does many scratches  שריטות there is one set of lashes. But for קרחה even with just one warning there are five sets. The reason שריטה has no שיעור.

the idea of minimum measure comes up in truma and maaser. if one gives less than 10% it has not the legal category of maaser. the rambam writes the same about truma in laws of truma ch 3 halach 6 and 7. the trouble is halacha 6 where it is truma and it is unclear what the difference is--unless you go to the Yerushalmi. there it is clear the difference is if one intend to take more truma or not. Rav Shach explains the Rambam thus: If his intention is to take more then it does not have the category of truma at all. If not it is truma. That is the opposite of how the Rash [rabainu Shimshon explains the yerushalmi.]