Chanukah: Terumot & ma'aserot from olives of varying levels of obligation
Question
Hello Rabbi, Happy Chanukah!
I would appreciate guidance on a somewhat complex halachic question.
I harvested 100 kg of olives for oil production:
80 kg of them were hefker (ownerless),
20 kg belonged to someone who gave me permission to harvest them.
When I arrived at the olive press, I was told this was too small a quantity to process alone, so I waited for someone to join me. Another person arrived with 50 kg of olives, and oil was produced from a total of 150 kg. We then divided the oil according to the percentage each of us contributed.
A. Of the oil that I received, from how many kilograms must I separate terumot and ma'aserot — from 150, 100, or 20?
B. Do I need to coordinate with the other person whose oil was mixed with mine? I understand there may be an issue of bilah belach, that liquids mix.
Answer
In my response, I am treating the case as though, after the oil production, you received X liters of oil (since you did not receive kilograms, but rather liters of oil).
The mixture consisted of 80 kg exempt olives (54%) and 70 kg of obligated olives (46%). It follows that approximately half of the oil is obligated in terumot and ma'aserot.
However, since every gram separated contains approximately half that is exempt, one must separate terumot and ma'aserot as though the entire mixture were obligated. Accordingly, one must separate tithes from X liters of oil.
Since terumah gedolah has no fixed measure, the quantity of oil is not significant.
For terumat ma’aser (1%), one must separate 2% of X liters, because only half of the oil is obligated. By giving 2%, it turns out that 1% is taken from the obligated portion.
Regarding ma’aser rishon, one should declare: עשירית מהטבל שבמיכל, “A tenth of the untithed produce in the container.”
Likewise, ma’aser ani must be separated from the untithed produce, and one must give double the usual amount.
I did not address the laws of orlah, specifically whether the second batch of olives was free of orlah concerns.
With blessings of Torah and the Land,
Yehuda HaLevy Amichay
Torah VeHaAretz Institute