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Bechorot 31 for kids: Who Gets the Benefit?

בכורות ל״א

⚖️ This daf asks when someone who left the practices of a ḥaver can return. It also asks who may judge a firstborn animal’s blemish and how blemished sacred animals may be sold.

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Stories from Bechorot 31

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Rashi and Tosafot on Bechorot 31 in simple English

Rashi on Bechorot 31a, in English Tab translation (32)
  1. And all of them who retracted — This continues the earlier baraita: Someone who accepts the practices of a ḥaver except for one rule is not accepted; the same applies to a priest who accepts the priestly rules except for one, or a Levite who accepts the Levitical rules except for one. The baraita cites “the one who offers the blood of the peace offerings”: When the priests do God’s will, it says, “I have given them their portion from My offerings by fire”; when they do not, it says, “Who among you will shut the doors?” It then says that those who retract are never accepted again. This appears in the Tosefta to Demai.
  2. Acted in private — They did not publicly desecrate God’s name, so they are accepted.
  3. In accordance with that pair — Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa.
  4. Tax collector — An official appointed by the king to collect taxes from Jews.
  5. Resigned — He left tax collection.
  6. They needed him at that time — The Sages needed to ask him questions of Jewish law.
  7. He tied for them — He tied together and prepared four hundred of them.
  8. Takhtekei — Chairs.
  9. Go to his important position — Let him enjoy the status he chose by becoming a tax collector; we will not go to him.
  10. I have repented — I have left tax collection.
  11. He may inspect his own consecrated animals — If a peace offering he owns develops a blemish, he may determine whether the blemish is permanent, then redeem the animal and release it from consecration.
  12. His animal tithes — Animals set aside as tithes that developed blemishes.
  13. And he may decide about his own ritually pure foods — If he knows the laws and a question arises about their purity, he may decide it himself without consulting another sage.
  14. Except his own — A priest may not inspect a blemish on his own firstborn animal and permit it.
  15. Can one person be trusted? — Can one person permit a firstborn animal, even someone else’s? A mishna teaches that a firstborn animal whose eye was blinded or whose hand was severed may be slaughtered only on the ruling of three synagogue members.
  16. Rather, with three — And the priest who owns the firstborn animal is one of them.
  17. Are they all suspect? — Would all the judges be suspected of ruling improperly for his sake?
  18. But didn’t we learn in a mishna? — In tractate Yevamot.
  19. Before whom a woman performed refusal or ḥalitza — The sage may marry her afterward. He is not suspected of having ruled in her favor so that he could marry her.
  20. Because he was part of a court — He was not alone; the court had three members.
  21. As Rav Ḥisda said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: by a single expert — He said this concerning the dissolution of vows in tractate Nedarim.
  22. He may inspect his own consecrated animals — He is not suspected of calling a temporary blemish permanent. If he wanted to release the animal from consecration, he could lawfully ask a sage to annul his consecration, explaining that he made it by mistake. That option does not apply to a firstborn animal, which is holy from birth without his consecrating it.
  23. And his animal tithes — He is not suspected of calling a temporary blemish permanent, because he could have acted lawfully before tithing his flock.
  24. He could blemish them all — Before tithing, the animals are not yet consecrated, so blemishing them is not forbidden as blemishing consecrated animals is. He could then tithe them, since animal tithing applies even to blemished animals, as it says, “He shall not distinguish between good and bad.” Therefore he is not suspected.
  25. And he may decide about his own ritually pure foods — He is not suspected of calling impure food pure: even if it is impure, he can eat it when he himself is impure. This refers to ordinary food, not terumah, which he may not eat when impure.
  26. Mishna: All disqualified consecrated animals — Consecrated animals that developed a blemish.
  27. Their benefit goes to the Temple — If they are sold for a higher price, the Temple benefits. The Gemara explains the details.
  28. In the market — Many people buy there, so the animals sell for a higher price.
  29. Weighed by the litra — As butchers sell ordinary meat, using a standard weight.
  30. Firstborn animals and animal tithes — If they are sold for a higher price.
  31. Their benefit goes to the owners — The priest benefits from a firstborn animal: he may sell its meat to anyone, since anyone may eat it, and keep the proceeds. Here the priest is called its owner. A higher price for animal tithe benefits its Israelite owner. We do not treat sacred animals like ordinary meat by selling them in the market for a private person's benefit. Instead, they are sold at home, even though fewer buyers come, and their weight is estimated rather than measured by the litra. We are not concerned if the owner loses money.
  32. Weigh one portion against another for a firstborn animal — If he has a piece of ordinary meat already weighed by the litra, he may weigh the firstborn animal’s meat against it.
Tosafot on Bechorot 31a, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. And all of them who reverted, etc. — Rashi explains that this refers to robbers and ordinary people who abandon their wrongdoing. But why would their repentance not be accepted? That would imply that an ordinary person can never become a ḥaver by accepting its obligations. Also, “never” implies that they had been accepted before. And if Rabbi Yehuda means that they repented privately but not publicly, why reject someone who fears God in private? Rabbeinu Tam explains that this refers back to the Tosefta’s list: an ordinary person who accepted the obligations of a ḥaver, a non-Jew who did so, a convert who accepted the Torah, a priest who accepted priestly duties, and a Levite who accepted Levitical service. If they then returned to their former ways, they are never accepted again, because they could not maintain their commitments. Rabbi Yehuda means that if they reverted in private while observing those obligations in public, they are not accepted: they mislead people and merely keep up appearances. But if they openly abandoned the obligations, they are accepted when they fully return.
  2. Some say: They practiced their obligations in private — If, before they reverted, we knew that they observed the obligations of a ḥaver even in private, they are accepted when they return. But if we knew them to observe those obligations only in public, without taking proper care in private, they are not accepted, because they mislead people.
  3. For it is fit for him during his days of impurity — But impure terumah is not fit for him to eat. Would he then not be trusted to rule on it? The same question applies to other rulings about what is permitted or forbidden. Indeed, the Gemara in Eruvin explicitly says that a Torah scholar may rule for himself.
  4. Mishna: Except for the firstborn and the animal tithe, whose benefit goes to their owners — Although the stated reason for the exception is that their owners receive the benefit, the rule must have a biblical basis. As the Gemara explains concerning an idolatrous city, “your animals” means animals eaten as one’s ordinary property; it excludes firstborn animals and animal tithes, which are not eaten on those terms. Accordingly, the mishna says that disqualified consecrated animals may be sold in the marketplace, except for firstborn animals and animal tithes. Perhaps the verse teaches that one must not treat an animal disrespectfully when its sale brings no benefit to the Temple.
Rashi on Bechorot 31b, in English Tab translation (28)
  1. Rather, before its redemption — the payment goes to the Temple treasury.
  2. May they be slaughtered? — This is a question: How could one sell the animal after slaughter to remove its sanctity?
  3. It requires standing and valuation — A consecrated animal can be redeemed only while alive, as it says, “He shall set the animal before the priest, and the priest shall value it” (Leviticus 27:11–12).
  4. This works according to the one who says — As discussed in the last chapter of Temura, animals consecrated for the altar were not subject to standing and valuation. On that view, they can be redeemed and sold after slaughter.
  5. At the outset — When the owners first redeem the animals from the Temple treasury, the treasury benefits if they are allowed to sell them later in the butchers’ market: they will redeem them for more.
  6. Their benefit belongs to the owners — No payment is made to the Temple treasury for a firstborn animal or an animal tithe.
  7. You shall not redeem — The verse says of a firstborn ox or goat, “You shall not redeem it” (Numbers 18:17). This means its owners cannot redeem it, but it may be sold to others once it comes into a priest’s possession.
  8. It shall not be redeemed — The verse says, “It and its substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.” It also cannot be sold, as the Gemara derives from the wording “it shall not be redeemed” later in this discussion.
  9. And he resolved it early from a baraita — He found the answer in a baraita at daybreak. The Gemara later identifies that baraita. His answer is that the mishna concerns an animal tithe belonging to young orphans.
  10. Returning a lost item — The orphans cannot eat all the meat before it spoils. The case concerns a blemished animal tithe.
  11. They touched upon it — They permitted it.
  12. His attendant — His servant.
  13. He stated it in the study hall — He stated this explanation there.
  14. The one who stung me — Who hurt me by failing to say it in my name? May the scorpion of excommunication sting him.
  15. Mouth the words — His lips move, and he takes pleasure in it, as though he were alive.
  16. A heap of grapes — Grapes gathered in one vessel for seven or eight days, so that they are pressed together and ripen.
  17. Which baraita? — Which is the baraita mentioned earlier as the source of his answer?
  18. He includes its price in the fat — Selling the meat itself is forbidden. Instead, he sells the fat, hide, and sinews for an inflated price that covers the meat as well, and gives the meat as a gift.
  19. What is it saying? — First it teaches that the animal may be sold, which implies an ordinary sale; then it teaches that the meat’s price must be included in other items.
  20. An adult — Someone who is not an orphan.
  21. One who buys a lulav — A person may buy a lulav from an unlearned person in the Sabbatical year, since it belongs to the sixth year entering the seventh: trees generally follow the time their fruit buds. An etrog is different; even if it budded in the sixth year, it follows the time it is picked and is therefore Sabbatical-year produce. One may not give an unlearned person payment for such produce, because he trades with the money and does not dispose of it when the produce is no longer available to wild animals in the field.
  22. There, the matter is not evident — The etrog’s price is small, so it is not apparent that its cost was included in the lulav’s price. Here, even if the meat’s price is included in the hide’s price, the sale is obvious: a hide is not worth so much.
  23. If so — If the entire passage is teaching one point.
  24. Twice — Why does the baraita mention the animal tithe twice?
  25. It and its substitute — This is written about the animal tithe, and from the same verse’s “it shall not be redeemed” we learn that it may not be sold. Therefore, the Torah prohibits selling it only in a case like the making of a substitute.
  26. When does it make a substitute? While alive — Likewise, the Torah’s rule that the animal tithe cannot be redeemed applies only while it is alive; after slaughter, it may be sold.
  27. And the Sages decreed after slaughter because of before slaughter — As taught above, it may be sold neither alive nor slaughtered.
  28. Something appraised — Meat has value even while the animal is alive, since an animal’s value lies in its meat. The Sages therefore prohibited selling it even after slaughter.
Tosafot on Bechorot 31b, in English Tab translation (3)
  1. With an animal tithe belonging to orphans — Even according to Rava, who permits an adult to sell one by including the meat’s price in the price of other parts, Rav Sheshet had to explain the mishna as referring to orphans. He understood it to permit a sale without that device, like the sale of disqualified consecrated animals in the butchers’ market.
  2. He includes its price in that of its fat — The meat itself may not be sold, but the fat, hide, and sinews may be. This suggests that even the opinion that forbids allowing a gentile to share in a firstborn animal permits selling its fat: because Jews may not eat it, it is treated like the hide. The fat around the sciatic sinew, however, may be different, since its prohibition is not from the Torah. In practice, the law follows Rabbi Akiva, who permits selling even the meat to a gentile, as explained below.
  3. If so, why say ‘animal tithe’ twice? — The Gemara raises similar questions about repeated wording elsewhere: ‘this one says, “I found it”’ and ‘this one and this one’ (Bava Metzia 2a); ‘forbidden’ twice (Nedarim 4b); and ‘three’ twice (Sanhedrin 3a). It also asks why separate statements mention both ‘invitation’ and ‘blessing over the invitation’ (Sanhedrin 8a), both a joyous gathering and a gathering of friends for thirty days (Moed Katan 22b), or ‘I am selling you’ twice (Bava Batra 104a). Yet elsewhere the Gemara accepts that the second statement simply explains the first, without asking why a ruling is repeated: a valid slaughter with a knife fixed in a wall (Chullin 16b); forbidden eggs boiled with nonkosher eggs (Chullin 98a); permitted kosher fish salted with nonkosher fish (Chullin 113a); craftsmen liable for damage (Bava Kamma 98b); and a slave who did not acquire property (Gittin 42b). The distinction is that, in the passages where the Gemara asks about repetition, the second statement does not fit as naturally as an explanation of the first.

Sources

Kid summary and story cards written by Tab from the William Davidson Edition English (Sefaria, CC BY-NC 4.0).

Tab translation (machine-assisted) of Rashi and Tosafot, from the Vilna Edition Hebrew (public domain) on Sefaria. May contain mistakes.

In the app, the Gemara text comes from Sefaria (William Davidson Edition, CC BY-NC 4.0; Hebrew/Aramaic Vilna Edition). Rashi and Tosafot Hebrew: Vilna Edition (public domain) via Sefaria.

Also spelled: Bekhorot, Bechoros, Bekhoroth 31.