For the source text click/tap here: Bava Metzia 87
To download, click/tap here: PDF
We look in greater detail at the laws regarding a worker who labors in the field surrounded by food. What is this person permitted to eat?
A new Mishna teaches us that one is permitted to eat from food that is ready to be harvested and attached to the ground; food that will not be tithed. Food that is not yet ripe or food that is detached from the ground and food that is to be tithed may not be eaten.
When walking through your friend’s orchard, would it be appropriate to pick fruits and eat them? Although our immediate reaction is that it would be forbidden to do so, the simple reading of the passages in the Torah that discuss this would seem to permit such behavior.
The passages in Sefer Devarim (23:25-26) speak simply about someone who finds himself walking in his friend’s field or in his friend’s vineyard, and clearly permit him to sample the grapes or the grain. Nevertheless, the Mishna on our daf teaches that it is only a field worker who is allowed to eat.