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Maaseros 3:3-4

Maasros 3:3

If a person hires a worker to work with olives and the employee stipulates a condition that he may eat olives, he need not take tithes when he eats them individually but he must take tithes when he eats them together. If he is hired to weed onions and he stipulates that he may eat greens, he may pluck a leaf at a time and eat them without tithing but if he combines them, he must take tithes first.

Maasros 3:4

If a person found cut figs on the road – even next to a field of cut figs – or if he found figs under a fig tree that hangs over the road, he may eat these figs, they are not considered stolen, and they are exempt from tithes. Olives and carobs found in such circumstances must be tithed (and would be considered stolen. This difference is because the figs are damaged from the fall, so their owners give up on them, but the olives and carobs are more resilient). If he found dried figs at a time when most people have already pressed their figs into cakes, they must be tithed, otherwise they are exempt. If he found pieces of fig cake, they must be tithed because they clearly came from a finished item (which would definitely require tithing at that stage). If carobs have not yet been brought to the roof to dry, he may bring some down to use as animal fodder; these are exempt from tithes because he will bring the rest back.

Author: Rabbi Jack Abramowitz