Sheviis 1:8 — When a sapling becomes a tree

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Mesechta Sheviis
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SheviisMesechtaמסכתשביעית
1Perekפרקא׳
8Mishnahמשנהח׳
נושא · Topicעַד אֵימָתַי נִקְרְאוּ נְטִיעוֹתWhen a sapling becomes a tree
This Mishnah is:drawing the boundary · with a machlokeswhat does that mean?
Mishnah שביעית א׳:ח׳ · Sheviis 1:8
עַד אֵימָתַי נִקְרְאוּ נְטִיעוֹת.
רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה אוֹמֵר, עַד שֶׁיָּחֹלּוּ.
רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אוֹמֵר, בַּת שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים.
רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמֵר, נְטִיעָה כִשְׁמָהּ.
אִילָן שֶׁנִּגְמַם וְהוֹצִיא חֲלִיפִין,
מִטֶּפַח וּלְמַטָּה כִּנְטִיעָה,
מִטֶּפַח וּלְמַעְלָה, כְּאִילָן,
דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן:
Until when are they called saplings?
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says: until they become permitted [for use].
Rabbi Yehoshua says: [until they are] seven years old.
Rabbi Akiva says: a sapling is as its name [implies].
A tree that was cut down and put out fresh shoots -
from a tefach and below, [it is] like a sapling;
from a tefach and above, [it is] like a tree;
the words of Rabbi Shimon:
A reading aid, not an exact translation.

This English is a clause-by-clause rendering to help you follow the Hebrew. It is not word-for-word literal, and it is not a transcript of the recorded shiur — the audio carries explanation and context the translation deliberately leaves out.

case/objectrestrictive rulingpermissive rulingTanna
Structure
The Mishnah's Structure▾
עַד אֵימָתַי נִקְרְאוּ נְטִיעוֹת
The dispute is not only where the line falls, but what the line is made of.
נְטִיעָהplantedעַד שֶׁיָּחֹלּוּR' Elazar b. Azaryah — until the fruit is chullin: past orlah and neta revaiבַּת שֶׁבַע שָׁנִיםR' Yehoshua — the seventh year
…and one that is not a year at all
off the axis
רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמֵר, נְטִיעָה כִשְׁמָהּ
Not a number of years at all — a sapling for as long as people still call it one.
אִילָן שֶׁנִּגְמַם וְהוֹצִיא חֲלִיפִין טֶפַח מִטֶּפַח וּלְמַטָּה — כִּנְטִיעָה מִטֶּפַח וּלְמַעְלָה — כְּאִילָן a felled trunk sprouts again — where the new growth emerges decides what it is
Summary Chart
When a sapling becomes a tree▾
CaseRulingReason
Until when is a tree called a sapling?Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah: Until it becomes chullin—
Rabbi Yehoshua: Seven years—
Rabbi Akiva: As long as the name still fits—
And how do we treat a tree cut down that sprouts anew (chalifin) from the stump?Rabbi Shimon: Within a tefach of the ground — a sapling; above a tefach — a tree—
Transcript
A machine transcript of the recorded shiur.

This is the shiur as spoken, transcribed automatically and left unedited — the wording is Ephraim's, and occasional transcription errors remain. It follows the audio word by word.

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Mishnah Insights
An amalgam of commentaries, including original insights.

These insights draw on the commentaries to this Mishnah and on the recorded shiur. Those commentaries often rest on earlier sources — the Gemara, the Yerushalmi, the Rishonim, and one another — without always saying so; where they do, we generally cite the one we read. Every commentary consulted is kept, verbatim, with this card.

When a sapling stops being one▾
עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב
R' Akiva · Dor 3 — רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא

R' Akiva began as an unlettered shepherd and did not open a sefer until he was forty, and rose to be the greatest of his generation, the master from whom much of the Mishnah descends. His ruling here, that a sapling is whatever people call a sapling, is a method and not a one-off. Mishnat Eretz Yisrael points to Yadayim 4:1, where he holds a foot-basin is judged by the name people give it and not by its size. R' Yehoshua and R' Elazar ben Azaryah give a number of years; R' Akiva goes by the name people use.

בַּת שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים — seven years old

R' Yehoshua gives one number for every tree. The Tosefta records him giving three, five years, six years and seven, and Rebbi explains which is which: vines at five, figs at six, olives at seven. Melechet Shlomo notes that on the Tosefta's version R' Yehoshua said seven only about olives, and that our mishnah has compressed the three into one.

שְׁאֵלַת חָכָם

Fruit of a tree's first three years is orlah; the fourth year's fruit is neta revai, which must be redeemed or eaten in Yerushalayim; only in the fifth year is the fruit ordinary chullin. So which does ad sheyacholu mean, until the fruit is redeemed, which can happen in the fourth year, or until it becomes chullin of itself in the fifth? And if it is redemption, why should an act of the owner be what turns a sapling into a tree? (See the Yerushalmi here, Rambam's Peirush, and Shenos Eliyahu.)

— Yerushalmi Sheviis 1:8, brought by Rash MiShantz; Rambam (Peirush); Shenos Eliyahu

מִטֶּפַח וּלְמַטָּה כִּנְטִיעָה — from a tefach and below, like a sapling

A tree cut down to a stump sends out new shoots. R' Shimon rules that shoots growing from below a tefach are treated as a sapling, and Bartenura adds that this holds for orlah as well as for plowing. The Yerushalmi gives R' Shimon's source: R' Eliezer ben Yaakov, a separate tanna who holds the same, rules that one who cuts his vineyard back to less than a tefach is obligated in orlah because of how it looks. The chachamim disagree with them both, and hold he is obligated in orlah only if he cuts the tree level with the ground.

דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן — the words of Rabbi Shimon

Hon Ashir reads the word divrei as carrying information. When the mishnah signs a ruling with a named tanna's words and nobody disputes him on the spot, someone disputes him elsewhere. He contrasts the previous mishnah's Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel omer, which introduces a speaker without marking his ruling as contested. Here the dispute is recorded in the Yerushalmi.

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