אמר רבי אסי אמר ר' יוחנן ערלה בח"ל הלכה למשה מסיני א"ל ר' זירא לרבי אסי והתניא ספק ערלה בארץ אסור בסוריא מותר (בחוצה לארץ יורד ולוקט) אישתומם כשעה חדא א"ל אימא כך נאמר ספיקא מותר ודאה אסור
But we learnt: R'ELEAZAR SAID, HADASH TOO?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Since he adds hadash, he.evidently agrees with the first Tanna that 'orlah is forbidden.');"><sup>10</sup></span> - Read, HADASH.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' I.e., only hadash, but not 'orlah.');"><sup>11</sup></span> R'Assi said in R'Johanan's name: [The prohibition of] 'orlah in the Diaspora is a halachah of Moses from Sinai.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Various views are held as to the exact meaning of this phrase. Some take it in its literal sense as indicating that the law in question was actually handed down from Moses. Others understand it more figuratively in the sense of a traditional law, whilst its alleged Mosaic origin is not to be taken literally'. V. Weiss, Dor., I. [For a full discussion of this phrase as well as of all the passages where it occurs, v. Bacher, W., Kohler-Festschrift pp. 56ff.]');"><sup>12</sup></span>
Sefer HaChinukh
And [it] is practiced in every place and at all times by males and females. And Rambam, may his memory be blessed, wrote (Sefer HaMitzvot LaRambam, Mitzvot Lo Taaseh 192) and this is his language: "As the prohibition of orlah outside of the Land is a law of Moshe from Sinai. However the language of the Torah is that it is only in the Land." To here [are his words]. Since in the Torah it is stated explicitly, "And when you come to the land and plant" - which implies specifically in the Land. And explicitly did they, may their memory be blessed, say (Kiddushin 39a) that so was it said about it [that] the law of Moshe from Sinai [is that] its definite is forbidden, but its doubt is permitted - meaning to say that its prohibition is not like the other prohibitions in the Torah, such that any time we encounter a doubt in a thing that is of Torah writ, we should forbid it from the doubt; since it is established for us that [in a case of] doubt about a Torah law, it is forbidden. And likewise have we elucidated with the good commentaries that [a case of] doubt about a law of Moshe from Sinai [should be decided] towards stringency. But about the prohibition of orlah, we have received [from the tradition] that it was specifically said to Moshe that its doubt is permitted. And since this is so, that the prohibition of orlah does not rest at all [upon it] in a doubt, an Israelite that has a tree that is orlah in his garden is not at all required to inform his fellow that comes to eat from it, that it is orlah. And regarding this, we have found in the Gemara that they said (Kiddushin 39a), "It is a doubt to me and I will eat" - meaning to say that any time that a person does not know with certainty that it is orlah, it is permitted for him to eat from it. And one who transgresses it and eats a kazayit from fruits of a tree in its years of orlah - or even from that which protects the fruit, [in the case] that it was known as that which was forbidden with it - is liable for lashes.
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