Lesson # 277 (part ten - final) • Labor Law More on Employee may consume produce of
field If the produce is still attached to the soil, he may eat the produce only during the limited time that he does the final act for which he was hired in relation to the attached produce. If the produce has been detached from the ground, his right to eat the produce on which he works thereon extends only until the time that it has been sufficiently processed so that the farmer has liability for tithes. These laws appear in Maimonides, Laws
Dealing with Tithes, chapter 3: 1. Grain when the pile has been smoothed down. What constitutes smoothing down? Leveling the surface of the pile with the winnowing shovel at the end of the processing. If one does not smooth the pile down, it becomes liable for tithing when the employee has heaped it in a pile. 2. Pulse once it is sifted; if it is not sifted, then when the employee has smoothed down the pile. 3. Melons, pumpkins, and watermelons when the employee rubs them with his hands to remove the hairlike fuzz that makes them shine. If he does not rub them, the preparation is completed when he piles them in a heap or in the case of watermelon, when he arranges them in their assigned place one alongside the other. 4. Vegetables usually tied into bundles, when they are so tied. If they are not usually tied, when they fill the vessel. 5. Wine, when the employee has poured it into jars and has skimmed the skins and the grape skins off the mouths of the jars. 6. Olive oil when it drops into the pressing trough. 7. A round fig cake when its surface has been smoothed down; loose dried figs when they have been stamped down; if they are gathered in a bin, when the employee rounds them off with his hand at the mouth of the bin. 8. Figs and grapes lying on the drying pad, when they are taken up. Generally speaking the farmer must give to a Kohen and to a Levite. Once the produce has reached the stage of processing at which there is an obligation to give tithes from the produce to the Levite, the Torah right of the farm employee to eat thereof terminates. In addition to the tithes, there is also an obligation for a person who uses certain grains such as wheat to make dough also to give a certain portion of the dough to a kohen. In these situations the right of the employee to eat of the produce extends beyond the time of tithing until the time that the obligation to give dough to the kohen is present, that is, until the water has been added to the flour in order to be able to knead the dough. If the employee is working with wheat, the presumption is that the wheat will be used for flour to make dough; if he is working with other grains, the presumption is that they will be used for flour. Thus, the test of when the employee may eat from the owner’s produce is determined by the aforementioned window in time. The Talmud and the codes give examples of such times: Generally the act of cutting or harvesting the produce is the final act and the employee may eat at such time. It the case of olives or grapes, it is the intent of the owner that is controlling. If he wants the grapes for wine or olives for oil, then the termination of the eating time is when the grapes or olives are put into the wine press or olive press. The employee may not eat them prior to such time nor after such time. If he is hired to pluck grapes, putting the grapes into a basket until it is full shaking the grapes out of the basket into some other place, returning to the vineyard, plucking more grapes, and again filling the basket and so forth he may not eat the grapes until he has filled the basket. Nor may he thereafter carry off the grapes in his hands or take more than he requires for eating or give it to others. While the employee is engaged in placing the grapes in the vat for pressing he may eat of the grapes but may not drink the wine. When he has the right to eat the produce, he may not pause to eat the produce. Rather he must eat it while continuing in his work. An employee may not overeat of that which he is permitted to eat from the owner’s produce. However, he may refrain from eating until he reaches the best produce and then eat. He may eat more than he earns but should not be gluttonous otherwise he will not be rehired. Under those circumstances where a guard is permitted to eat if he is guarding five stacks he must not eat his fill from one of them but must eat proportionately from each stack. The employee may not take grapes and squeeze out the juice and throw away the husks since this will result in his taking larger number of his employer’s grapes. For the same reason, a worker may not eat grapes together with bread or salt since this may increase the number of grapes he will eat. The employee may not without informing his day employer have another job at night since this will leave him too tired to work effectively in the daytime on his main job. The employee must concentrate on his work and diligently perform his work to the best of his ability. Current practice Does a tractor driver or a driver of a gigantic harvesters have the same rights as did the farmer who harvested by hand? I assume that there are answers given to these questions since most farms organized by observant Jews who want to abide by halachah did so on what are known as religious kibbutzim collective settlements or cooperative settlements and there were rules promulgated by the settlements to cover the relationship of the workers toward the settlement and vise versa. Should the question arise as a practical question I would hope that the tractor driver who harvests grain and other products will be granted, within the limits set above, the same right as the harvester who harvested by hand. As for detached produce there is no reason why the rules set out should not apply. The subject matter of this lesson is more fully discussed in volume IX chapters 337 of A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law by E. Quint. Copies of all volumes can be purchased via email: orders@gefenpublishing.com and via website: www.israelbooks.com and at local Judaica bookstores. Questions to quint@inter.net.il [The Parshat Tzav Homepage]
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