Commentary for Rosh Hashanah 27:11

Otherwise they are forbidden in the Sabbatical year and are tithed for the current year.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Rashi gives two views as to what is implied in this. According to one opinion, if these vegetables have been kept without water for the last thirty days of the outgoing year, then R. Jose would hold that they must have been nurtured by the rain water of that year, and so are to be tithed for that year; whereas R. Akiba would hold that their growth is due in part to irrigation. and so they would be tithed for the next year; and the Mishnah quoted follows R. Jose. The other opinion is that as they have not been irrigated for thirty days, it is R. Akiba and not R. Jose who would hold that they have been nurtured by the rain of the outgoing year, and the Mishnah therefore follows R. Akiba. It was customary to withhold water from these two species for thirty days before plucking them so as to harden them.');">¹²</span> ON THE FIRST OF SHEBAT IS NEW YEAR FOR TREES. What is the reason? - R'Eleazar said in the name of R'Oshaia: Because [by then] the greater part of the year's rain has fallen<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' And the trees now begin to blossom.');">¹³</span> and the greater part of the cycle<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The cycle of Tebeth; i.e., the winter season beginning at the winter solstice. V. supra p. 30, n. 5.');">¹⁴</span> is still to come. What is the sense of this? What it means is this: 'Although the greater part of the c is still to come, yet since the greater part of the year's rain has fallen, [therefore etc.]'. Our Rabbis taught: 'It is recorded of R'Akiba that he once plucked a citron tree on the first of Shebat and gave two tithes from

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