Q&A: Vegetables and Kashrut
Vegetables and Kashrut
Question
Rabbi Michael Abraham, hello.
1. Is it permitted to eat hot peppers immediately after picking them?
2. To drink tea with leaves that I picked and grew in my yard?
In other words: what are the criteria for eating plants?
Answer
First of all, with any type of plant one must check for the issue of worms/insects.
Beyond that, there is the issue of terumot and ma’asrot. Casual eating before bringing the produce into the house does not obligate terumot and ma’asrot. But if you eat an amount that is not usually eaten casually at one time, it is obligated in terumot and ma’asrot even in the garden. See Rabbi Azriel Ariel’s article, Emunat Itecha 8, p. 20; Sifrei HaTorah VeHaAretz, vol. 4, p. 202. And if you brought it into the house, you are obligated in any case to separate terumot and tithes.
Discussion on Answer
No. Literally as stated: bringing it from the garden into the house.
If the garden is fenced all around, is that considered as though it is already inside the house?
I don’t think so. A house is the place where people live. An “eruv” doesn’t help here.
And what about a courtyard, which establishes the obligation on a rabbinic level? (Isn’t that a fenced garden?)
Maimonides writes that this is only if he combined two fruits (ch. 4, halakha 7).
I mentioned above Rabbi Azriel Ariel’s article on this matter. Here it is: http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/kitveyet/emunat/08/00806.htm
What does it mean to “bring it into the house”? Does that mean putting the plants in the refrigerator permanently?