We learned about retroactive designation of an eruv, which changed the past depending on future events. Investigating this further, the Talmud quotes the rule about a barrel of wine.
If one buys a barrel of wine in Samaria, where many residents did not separate tithes, on Friday afternoon, so that he does not have the time to tithe, he can nevertheless prepare his wine for drinking with the following declaration. He says, “The two percent that I will separate in the future are hereby designated as 'terumah,' the Kohen's portion. The ten percent are Levites' tithe, and the other ten percent are for the poor.”
He then drinks the wine on Shabbat and leaves over the necessary amounts. Every drop that is left now was present somewhere in the barrel on Friday, so we can say that this same drop was designated as tithe on Friday. Thus the future event of leaving some wine over determines the past designation of this wine as tithe. This principle is called “bereirah,” or “clarification”, and it is the opinion of Rabbi Meir. However, the other Sages did not agree with Rabbi Meir, asking him “What if the barrel breaks? He will have drunk untithed wine!” Rabbi Meir answered, “When it breaks, then we will worry about it.” What he really meant is that one can appoint a guardian to protect it. And the Sages? They say that the guardian himself may fall asleep, thus he needs another guardian, and so on, without end.
Art: Jan-Anton Garemyn - Canal scene with wine merchant unloading barrels
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