Dear Rabbi Chrysler,
Thanks again for the terrific response! I feel I have gained a lot of knowledge from your responses, overall, which I greatly appreciate.
On 13b, there is something else that I'm a little confused about.
By the little aleph (from eyin mishpat ner mitzvah) 4 lines down from the top we learn about rice, millet, poppy and sesame getting their tithes separated by year, depending on whether they took root before Rosh Hashanah or after.
The same concept is expressed 15 lines down by the little hei: "pul hamitzri ..." Here we learn that the pul hamitzri where some of it can take root before Rosh Hashanah and some it can take root after is tithed in a special way.
Regardless of the way in which we tithe, I am wondering how we are supposed to know when kitnios take root. Do we estimate when they take root and when the time that we estimated passes R"H we tithe them with the new year's produce? Or do we frequently dig around the plant to see if the roots have developed? Or is there another way?
Kol Tuv and may you have an Adar Malei Simcha!
Andrew
We learned a Gemara on Daf 10b, which cites a Machlokes regarding the time-period of Hashrashah, whether it takes three days, two weeks or thirty days, to take root. The Rambam rules two weeks.
I am not sure whether the Kitnis (legumes) mentioned here are subject to the same P'sak or whether three days will suffice. But in any event, we see that there is a fixed time for Hashrashah, in which case one need neither make one's own assessment nor dig around the plant, to arrive at the time of Hashrashah.
Be'Virchas Kol Tuv
Eliezer Chrysler