דף נושא: הפרשת חלה

יהוה spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land to which I am taking you and you eat of the bread of the land, you shall set some aside as a gift to יהוה: as the first yield of your baking, you shall set aside a loaf as a gift; you shall set it aside as a gift like the gift from the threshing floor. You shall make a gift to יהוה from the first yield of your baking, throughout the ages.

It is a positive commandment to separate a portion that is raised up from the dough [and given] to a priest, as [Numbers 15:20] states: "Raise up the first of your dough, the challah, as an offering...." According to Scriptural Law, this first portion does not have a minimum measure. Instead, even if one set aside a portion the size of a barley corn, he has absolved the entire dough. When a person designates his entire dough as challah, his deeds are of no consequence unless he leaves a portion of it [for himself]. According to Rabbinic Law, one should separate one twenty-fourth of the dough, so that there will be a [significant] present for the priest. [This is derived from Deuteronomy 14:4 which] states: "Give him," i.e., give him something that is fit to be called a gift.
A baker who makes a dough to be sold in the market place should separate one forty-eighth. [The rationale is that] since his dough is larger, this measure contains [enough] to be a [significant] present.

Five species [of grains] are subject to [the law of] hallah: wheat, barley, spelt, oats and rye. These are subject to hallah, and [dough made from different types of these grains] are accounted together one with another [as one quantity]. And their “new” [harvest] is prohibited prior to Pesah, and [they are subject] to [the prohibition of] reaping prior to the Omer. If they took root prior to the Omer, the omer permits them. If not, they are prohibited until the next Omer has come.

(7) The [minimum] measure of hallah is one twenty-fourth [part of the dough]. If he makes dough for himself, or if he makes it for his son’s [wedding] banquet, it is one twenty-fourth. If a baker makes to sell in the market, and so [also] if a woman makes to sell in the market, it is one forty-eighth. If dough is made unclean either unwittingly or by an unforeseeable circumstance, it is one forty-eighth. If it was made unclean intentionally, it is one twenty-fourth, in order that a sinner should not profit.

Blessed are You, L·rd, our G·d, King of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments & commanded us to separate h'allah [Terumah]."

This mishna concludes the aggadic treatment of the topic of kindling the Shabbat lights. For three transgressions women are punished and die during childbirth: For the fact that they are not careful in observing the laws of a menstruating woman, and in separating ḥalla from the dough, and in lighting the Shabbat lamp.

It is from the roots of the commandment [that it is that] since the sustenance of a person is through food and most of the world will be sustained with bread, the Omnipresent desired to give us merit with a constant commandment in our bread, so that blessing should rest upon it through the commandment; and through it, we will receive merit for our souls. And [hence] it turns out that the dough is food for our body and food for our soul. Additionally, [it is] in order that the servants of God, those that are constantly involved in His service — and these are the priests — should be sustained without any toil at all. Whereas with the tithe of the threshing floor there is labor for them, to pass the grain through the sieve and to grind it; here, their ration will come to them without any pain whatsoever.

(30) All the choice first fruits of every kind, and all the gifts of every kind—of all your contributions—shall go to the priests. You shall further give the first of the yield of your baking to the priest, that a blessing may rest upon your home.

Why were women assigned the commandment to remove the levy of dough? It was because she (Eve) defiled the sanctified dough of His world, namely, Adam. R. Yosé the son of R. Kazrata declared: Just as a housewife slaps her dough with water and then takes off its levy, so the Holy One, blessed be He, did with Adam, as it is written: And there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen. 2:6), and Then the Lord God formed man of the dust (ibid., v. 7).

חלה תרימו תרומה; after the sin of the spies also the tithe (heaving) known as challah became a necessity in order for the individual homes of the Israelites to enjoy G’d’s blessing. The prophet Ezekiel spells this out (Ezekiel 44,30) when speaking about the temple etc. in the future, when he writes: עריסותיכם תתנו לכהן להניח ברכה אל ביתך, “you are to give from your kneading bowl to the priest so that a blessing will rest on your house.” This practice had already been displayed when Elijah, assisting the impoverished widow, commanded her to first give to him a small cake of the little flour she had left, as G’d had said that in such a case the jar of flour in her house would not become empty during the remainder of the famine. (Kings I 17,13-14)