Cohn, Jacob. The Royal Table - VWC: Faculty/Staff Web

AGRICULTURAL PROHIBITIONS 113
thank-offering is made.11 Nowadays when grain is definitely
known to be new it is not used; but ordinarily we
do not know whether the flour which we use is made of
new gram or not, and we are permitted to use it because
of a double doubt (Kp'BD PBD) First, it might be made
of last year's gram; and second, even if it be this year's
grain it may have taken root before the date of the omer
and become permitted with the passage of that date insomuch
as since the destruction of the Temple not the actual
sacrifice of the omer, but the day upon which it should
have been sacrificed permits the use of the new grain. 12
The law of the new grain applies only to wheat, barley,
rye, oats, and millet, and to no other species. 13
During the harvest the poor must not be forgotten, and
a corner of the field is left for them. 14 They must also be
permitted to gather gleanings; and a sheaf forgotten in the
field must be abandoned for
15
the poor and the stranger.
Even after the produce of the fields is gathered in it may
not be put to use until God's ministers, the priests and the
Levites, who possess no hereditary estates, but devote them-
selves entirely to divine pursuits, are satisfied. The terumah
and the tithe must be separated and delivered to them.
The laws of terumah and tithes are operative only in Pal-
estine and a few surrounding districts. 16
The obligations of priestly or levitical gifts are not in-
curred until the harvest is gathered. Terumah consists
11 Kiddushin 37a; Y. D. 293, 2.
M Y. D. 293, 3 Ramah. Despite some objection this seems to be
the norm of practice. That the date and not the actual sacrifice
suffices to permit the grain to be eaten is clearly brought out by
Ibn Ezra to Lev. VII, who aptly remarks that by the other views
bread should nowadays be forbidden.
11 Mishnah Challah I; Y. D. ibid. 1.
* Leviticus XXni 22.
M Ibid.
w Y. D. 331, 1, 2.