A heave offering, or terumah, plural terumot, is a kind of offering. The word is generally used in the positive sense of an offering to God, although sometimes it is also used in a negative sense, such as the ish teramot, a " judge who loves gifts". In Chazalic literature it is listed as one of the twenty-four priestly gifts. The consumption of terumah is restricted by numerous Torah-based rules and could be eaten by priests, their families, and their servants. The terumah may be consumed only in a state of ritual purity. This is also called the "great offering" which is, usually, a food item given to the Jewish priest, as a gift. The thirteenth-century French rabbi Hezekiah ben Manoah explains the adjective "great" to be because this terumah is the first of all tithes given on produce and thus is given from the "greatest quantity of produce" before any other gift is given.
Etymology
The feminine nounterumah, comes from the verb stem, rum, "high" or "to lift up." The formation of terumah is parallel to the formation of the feminine noun "wave offering" from the verb stem nuf, "to wave," and both nouns, and both verbs, are found together in the third occurrence in the Hebrew Bible. Consequently, versions such as the King James Version have in a few verses translated "heave offering," by analogy with "wave offering":
The term occurs seventy-six times in the masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; in the Septuagint it was rendered afieroma, in JPS Tanakh it is generally translated "offering"; while in the King James Version it is also generally translated "offering" but also sometimes "oblation" and four times "heave offering". The word is used in various contexts throughout the Hebrew Bible, including one use in Proverbs denoting haughtiness or graft, as in the gifts offered by the Children of Israel for the inauguration of the Mishkan. In the Bible, there are numerous different varieties of gifts for which the term terumah was applied. In Jewish law, the wordterumah by itself was associated with "great offering", the first portion of produce that was required to be separated and kept pure for consumption by a kohen. There was no direct connection with the Jerusalem Temple or the Temple service. There were two groups of terumot:
*The general offering or the "great offering" was a portion of the finished grain, wine and oil separated for the Jewish priest prior to the "first tithe" separated for a Levite. Unlike the "first tithe", the Torah did not specify any minimum measure for a terumah offering; hence, even one grain of barley could satisfy the requirement to separate terumah. A passage in the Book of Ezekiel suggests that the "great offering" should consist of 1/50 of the owner's grain, wine or oil.
*The Mitzvah of Challah Contemporary practice is to burn rather than give to the priest.
The Mishnah, Tosefta, and Gemara, include a tract entitled Terumot, which deals with the laws regulating "heave offerings". The rabbis of the late Second Temple period added certain strictures to its consumption, requiring that the terumah be burnt if a priest or Israelite who touched the terumah suspected that he had passed in close proximity to a grave, and was uncertain if he had contracted corpse uncleanness. According to Jewish Law, the "great offering" could only be separated from the non-tithed produce, and "tithe offering" only be separated from "first tithe", by its owner, or an authorized, legally permissible agent; minors, deaf-mutes, the mentally ill and non-Jews were not obligated to perform such separation. However, while non-Jews could not act as agents for Jews to separate terumah, the terumah owned by and separated by non-Jews was considered valid and had the status and sanctity of terumah. Based in part on the measures described by the prophet Ezekiel, Jewish Law set the minimum amounts of the "great offering" at 1/60 of the finished produce for a poor person, 1/50 for the average person, and 1/40 for the generous. The "tithe offering" was always 10% of the "first tithe". The Talmud opens with a discussion of when the Shema Yisrael prayer should be recited. The Mishnah states that it should be recited when priests who were "unclean" are able to enter the Temple to eat their terumah raised-offering. This passage is one of many which intimately connect the daily rites of Rabbinic Judaism with details of the rhythm of the life of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The heave offering of the tithe, though mentioned by the Priestly code is not mentioned in the Deuteronomic code; critical scholars believe that this is because the Deuteronomist regarded all Levites as being able to become priests, and not just Aaron's descendants, hence this tithe of a tithe would be meaningless. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia article this assumes that the Book of Deuteronomy was written before the books of Leviticus and Numbers, and also requires the assumption of an unrecorded and previously unknown revolution in the Jewish world.
