Editing Terumot (section)

==== Nullification of Terumah in One Hundred and One ====
Regarding the laws of nullification of terumah in one hundred and one, a law dealing with how terumah is nullified in one hundred and one, we learned in tractate Terumot:

Rabbi Yehoshua says black figs elevate the white ones, white ones elevate the black ones [5500/1740]. Rabbi Eliezer forbids this [5500/1740], and Rabbi Akiva says if it is known what fell (black or white), they do not elevate each other, but when it is not known what fell, they elevate each other [5500/1740].

The reasoning of Rabbi Eliezer who forbids this law is simply understood, because in reality the terumah was only mixed with fifty, and either way there aren't one hundred of the type that fell. Commentators wrote that Rabbi Yehoshua holds that since if one wanted, he could crush and mix them all together, therefore they all combine to nullify it.

Regarding Rabbi Akiva's reasoning for distinguishing between when it is known what fell and when it is not known, they wrote that when it is known which fig fell, black or white, "they do not elevate because one can eat the others, and since they are permitted, they do not help to nullify. But if it is not known whether a black one fell or a white one fell, since all are in doubt of prohibition, they elevate each other."

This reasoning of Rabbi Yehoshua is difficult: what does it matter "that if one wanted, he could crush and mix them all together"? In reality, he did not grind and crush them, so how do they elevate each other?

Rabbi Akiva's opinion also requires explanation: what does it matter if no one knows whether it was black or white and "all are in doubt of prohibition"? This doubt is only in a person's knowledge, but in reality - the terumah was not mixed with one hundred (since a white fig does not mix with a black fig (and vice versa), and in the language of Tosafot "the black ones cannot be in doubt of mixture because black ones are always recognizable among white ones"); so there is no mixture of one in one hundred here.