Q&A: Perforated Flowerpot
Perforated Flowerpot
Question
Hello Rabbi,
What is the plain meaning of the idea that a perforated flowerpot is considered like land even when it is raised above the ground, and even when it is inside a building? There is lengthy discussion among the halakhic authorities that sometimes it is considered like land even when it is placed on a shelf in a cabinet on the tenth floor.
What is being claimed here? Does it really draw nourishment?
Thank you very much in advance.
Answer
That was the assumption of the Talmud and the halakhic authorities. I once heard about an experiment Rabbi Wosner did in order to test a thesis of the Chazon Ish about a perforated flowerpot on a high floor of a house. He placed such a pot on the ground, and after some time lifted it and saw underneath it a circle of dampness, and enthusiastically declared, “Blessed is He who chose them and their teaching.” I do not know what the details were, but personally I am very skeptical about this.
Discussion on Answer
Apparently the water dripped from the hole and made a little reddish-greenish depression in the tile.
That is of course the obvious interpretation. But I assume Rabbi Wosner was not an idiot.
I assume that too. And back then, when foxes prowled about this and cheered in their usual way, I was astonished for a good hour. Still, I will bring what is written, and perhaps saviors will ascend Mount Zion.
The Chazon Ish wrote that a non-perforated flowerpot standing inside a house is not subject to the laws of the Sabbatical year, and all the more so if there is a stone floor beneath it, for then it does not draw nourishment from the ground. Rabbi Wosner testified that the Chazon Ish meant specifically an actual stone floor, but through ordinary floor tiles it does draw nourishment. And he added an incident showing that it indeed draws nourishment through a tile:
And this is his wording: “I lifted such a flowerpot and the floor tile from the ground, and I clearly saw that opposite the hole of the flowerpot there was a cavity like a hole in the floor tile on the upper layer, and it was visible to the eye that this was due to the flowerpot soil pulling through its hole, and the stone does not interpose.”
Chazon Ish, Shevi’it 22:1, starting from “and whether of wood.” https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14335&st=&pgnum=293&hilite=
Shevet HaLevi 6:167, starting from “And know.” https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1416&st=&pgnum=168
Why he also lifted the floor tile, I did not understand.
There is a responsum of the Rosh on this matter.
There is a responsum of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan on some topic connected to an agunah, and there is also a commentary of Rashi on Sukkah 9b.
The question was about the reasoning, not about the halakhic status of a perforated flowerpot.
By the way, the most comprehensive discussion I know of regarding perforated flowerpots from all aspects is found in Divrei Yechezkel, if I remember correctly in the first two sections.
Of course one can discuss how much drawing of nourishment is needed for it to be considered as drawing nourishment. A tiny amount of drawing always exists.