3,223. Selling Produce To/Buying Produce From a Non-Jew

Terumos 1:12

Let’s say that a non-Jew sells produce to a Jew while it’s still connected to the ground. If it’s before the produce reaches the stage where he must separate tithes and the work is completed under the ownership of the Jew, then the Jew is obligated and must give proportionate terumos and tithes from it. If the produce is sold after it reaches the stage where one must separate tithes, the Jew must separate terumas maaser and tithes and give them to the appropriate recipients. Therefore, if a Jew buys from a non-Jew grain that had been planted after it reached a third of its growth and the work of its completion was performed under the ownership of the Jew, he must separate terumos and tithes, giving two-thirds of the tithes to a Levi. (He keeps one third for himself, corresponding to the third that the grain grew while in the non-Jew’s possession.) He must give two-thirds of the terumas maaser to a kohein, but he may sell him the final third.

Terumos 1:13

Let’s say that a Jew sold produce to a non-Jew before it reached the stage where he would have to separate tithes and the work was completed by the non-Jewish buyer. In such a case, the produce is exempt from terumos and tithes. If he sold it after it reached the stage where it was obligated in tithes, then even if the non-Jew completed the work, the produce is obligated by rabbinic enactment. Similarly, if a non-Jew completed the work of a Jew’s produce, since the work was completed by a non-Jew, the produce is obligated in terumah and maaser, albeit by rabbinic enactment.