Terumot

Terumot (Hebrew: תְּרוּמוֹת, lit. "Priestly dues" and often, "heave-offering") is the sixth tractate of Seder Zeraim ("Order of Seeds") of the Mishnah and of the Jerusalem Talmud. This tractate discusses the laws of teruma, a gift of produce that an Israelite farmer was required to set aside and give to a kohen (priest). There were two kinds of terumot given to the priest: the regular heave-offering, known also as the terumah gedolah ("great heave-offering"), which the Israelites were required to give to the priest from the produce of their fields; the other was the terumat ma'aser ("tithe of the heave-offering"), namely, the gift that the Levites were required to put aside for the priests from the tithe which ordinary Israelites had been required to give to them.

The laws detailed in this tractate are derived from the Torah in Numbers 18:8, 11–12 and Deut 18:4–5, and for terumat ma'aser from Numbers 18:25–32.

The mitzvah (commandment) applies only to produce grown in the Land of Israel and continues to be observed in the modern state of Israel.

This tractate comprises eleven chapters in the Mishna and ten in the Tosefta and has fifty-nine folio pages of Gemara in the Jerusalem Talmud. Like most tractates in the order of Zeraim, there is no Babylonian Talmud for this tractate. Laws concerning terumah are also mentioned in the tractates Demai and Ma'aserot.