In the mishnah on Bava Batra 68, we learned that when one sells a field without specification, certain features are not included, among them a grafted carob tree and a sycamore trunk. These are considered to be of sufficient importance that they aren’t automatically subsumed in a sale. However, in the mishnah three pages later, Rabbi Shimon notes that when someone consecrates a field, they haven’t consecrated any of the features excluded in an unspecified sale except for a grafted carob tree and a sycamore trunk. On today’s daf, Rav Huna further explores the dual status of these trees:
Rav Huna says: A grafted carob and a sycamore trunk have both the status of a tree and the status of land. Each has the status of a tree, so if one consecrates or buys two trees and this carob or sycamore, he has (consecrated or bought) the land between them. And each has the status of land, as it is not sold along with land.
Rav Huna notes that in some ways, the grafted carob and sycamore trunk are treated like any other tree. There’s a law that when one sells or consecrates three or more trees in an area of a certain size, unless the person explicitly states that they’re only selling or only consecrating the trees, the land between the trees is also sold or consecrated. According to Rav Huna, the grafted carob or sycamore trunk can combine with two other trees to form the necessary minimum for this law to apply. In this context, at least, they are treated like any other trees.
On the other hand, as we saw in the mishnah on Bava Batra 68, when the land on which these trees grow is sold, the trees are not automatically sold with it. Rather than being treated as auxiliary to the land being sold, the grafted carob and the sycamore trunk are viewed as if they are their own plots of land, independently significant enough to require specification.
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Rav Huna then brings another teaching in which one object can occupy two different legal categories depending on the context.
And Rav Huna says: A sheaf that contains two se’a has both the status of a sheaf and the status of a heap. It has the status of a sheaf, as two sheaves left in the field are forgotten, but two sheaves and this sheaf are not forgotten. And it has the status of a heap, as we learned: A sheaf that contains two se’a, if one forgets it, it is not forgotten.
Rav Huna is dealing here with the laws of shikh’cha, which state that if one or two sheaves are left behind in the field at harvest time, they must be left for the poor to collect. But if three or more sheaves are left behind, the owner can return to collect them. According to Rav Huna, a single two-se’a sheaf is large enough to be considered a heap, not a sheaf. And since only sheaves are included in the laws of shikh’cha, this two-se’a sheaf itself will always be exempt and can be collected by the owner. But one might have thought that one large sheaf alongside two smaller sheaves should be treated like one heap and two sheaves: Since the heap is exempt, the two sheaves still have the status of forgotten produce that must be left for the poor. But Rav Huna teaches that even though the large sheaf is independently exempt due to its size, it can still count as a sheaf for the purpose of combining with other lost produce.
In both these cases, Rav Huna teaches us a principle that’s not entirely intuitive. Often, we like to stick things entirely within one legal category; this can be simpler, both conceptually and jurisprudentially. But sometimes to do so would be to ignore the nature of Jewish law as a case-based system, one in which the same category can have different significance and boundaries depending on the context.
Read all of Bava Batra 72 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 5, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
