First Fruits (Yom Habikkurim) |
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From Khouse |
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| Original Source By Tzippe Barrow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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During biblical times, in obedience to God's commandment in the Torah (Law), the ancient Israelites came up to Jerusalem to present the first fruits of the wheat harvest in the Temple. Beginning on the second day of Passover, Jews begin the counting of the omar for seven full weeks or 49 days, hence the name Shavuot, which means "weeks." "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD." (Leviticus 23:15-16) While Passover commemorates physical deliverance -- the exodus from Egyptian slavery -- Shavuot represents redemption by the giving of God's Law on Mt. Sinai. The Torah is central to Jewish life. Every Shabbat (Sabbath) in synagogues throughout the world, the same weekly Torah portion is read. The cycle of reading through the first five books of the Tenach (Hebrew Scriptures) begins anew every Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year). On Shavuot, it's traditional to gather in groups and stay up all night studying the Torah. |
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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| First Fruits are a religious offering of the first agricultural produce of the harvest. In classical Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Christian religions, the first fruits were offered to the temple or church. First Fruits were often a primary source of income to maintain the religious leaders and the facility. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Ancient Israel |
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In Ancient Israel, First Fruits were tithed as heave offerings; the tithe was allocated throughout the year, but for accounting purposes traditionally began each year at Tu Bishvat, which was thus the occasion of a festival. In later times this tithe was limited to the traditional seven agricultural products (wheat, barley, grapes in the form of wine, figs, pomegranates, olives in the form of oil, and dates) grown in Israel, but eventually onions, cucumbers, melons, a traditional cheese (known as tiltan), the herb fenugreek, and certain other vegetables were permitted as well. This tithe, and the associated harvest festival, is legislated by the Torah, though textual critics believe that these regulations were imposed long after the offerings and festival had developed. By the time of classical antiquity, more extensive regulations had developed and were subsequently recorded in the classical rabbinical literature. According to the these, the corners of fields, wild areas, left-overs after harvesting (gleanings), and unowned crops were not subjected to (and could not be used as) the tithe of First Fruits (they were intended to be left as charity for the poor, and other mendicants); plants from outside Palestine were also prohibited from inclusion in the tithe, as was anything belonging to non-Jews. The rules also specify that that each type of product had to be individually tithed, even if the numbers were balanced so that there was no difference in amount between this situation and using just some types of First Fruit as the tithe, and retaining others in their entirety. Fruit which was allocated to the tithe could not be swapped for fruit which wasn't, to the extent that wine couldn't be swapped for vinegar, and olive oil couldn't be replaced by olives; furthermore, Fruits were not allowed to be individually divided if only part went to the tithe (small whole onions had to be used rather than fractions of large onions, for example). The separation of tithed produce from untithed produce was also subject to regulatation. The individual(s) separating one from the other had to be ritually clean, and had to include the best produce in the tithe if a kohen (priest) lived nearby. During the act of separation, the produce was not permitted to be counted out to determine which fell under the tithe, nor to be weighed for that purpose, nor to be measured for the same reason, but instead the proportion that was to become the tithe had to be guessed at. In certain situations, such as when tithed produce became mixed with non-tithed produce (or there was uncertainty as to whether it had), the tithed produce had to be destroyed. Anyone who made mistakes in the separation of tithed produce, and anyone who consumed any of the tithe, was required to pay compensation as a guilt offering. |
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