How the Patriarchs Set Aside the Tithes and Rabbi Meir Answers the Samaritan

"I have lifted up my hand to the LORD" (Genesis 14:22). This is what the verse says: "Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and forsake not the teaching of your mother" (Proverbs 1:8). The early fathers set aside heave-offerings and tithes. Abraham set aside the great heave-offering, "I have lifted up my hand to the LORD," and "lifting up" means nothing other than heave-offering, as you say, "and you shall set apart from it a heave-offering of the LORD" (Numbers 18:26). Isaac set aside the second tithe: "And Isaac sowed in that land and found in that year a hundredfold" (Genesis 26:12). But blessing does not rest upon what is measured, nor upon what is weighed, nor upon what is counted, so why did he measure it? In order to tithe it. This is what is written: "and the LORD blessed him" (Genesis 26:12). Jacob set aside the first tithe, as it is written: "and of all that you give me I will surely tithe to you" (Genesis 28:22). A certain Samaritan asked Rabbi Meir, saying to him: "Do you not say that your father Jacob spoke truth?" He said to him: "Yes, as it is written, 'You will give truth to Jacob' (Micah 7:20)." The Samaritan said to him: "He set apart the tribe of Levi, one out of ten tribes; should he not have set apart two more?" He said to him: "You say they are twelve, but I say they are fourteen, for 'Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine like Reuben and Simeon' (Genesis 48:5)." The Samaritan said: "That makes it worse for me; you are not helping me, you have added flour [made my problem bigger]." Rabbi Meir said to him: "Do you not concede to me that there are four matriarchs?" He said: "Yes." He said: "Then subtract from them four firstborn of the four matriarchs, for the firstborn is not tithed. Why? Because it is already holy, and one holy thing does not bring forth [the obligation of] another holy thing." The Samaritan said to him: "Happy is your nation, that you are within it."