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Bechorot 33 for kids: The Firstborn’s Care

בכורות ל״ג

🐑 This daf asks who may eat a blemished firstborn animal and how its hide may be removed. It also asks whether blood may be let from a sick firstborn animal if the cut might leave a blemish.

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Rashi and Tosafot on Bechorot 33 in simple English

Rashi on Bechorot 33a, in English Tab translation (23)
  1. This applies only to an unblemished firstborn — It is compared to the breast and thigh, for the verse concerns an unblemished offering: just before it says, “You shall dash their blood.” But of a blemished firstborn, Deuteronomy 15:22 says, “The impure and the pure may eat it alike.”
  2. A non-priest who may eat offerings of lesser sanctity — These include peace offerings, animal tithes, and Paschal offerings.
  3. In the communal service — If no ritually pure priest is available from that priestly watch, an impure priest may perform the communal service. Scripture says it must be performed “at its appointed time,” even on Shabbat and even in impurity.
  4. The eating of a non-priest — That is what the argument concerns. In eating, a non-priest has an advantage over an impure priest: as stated, a non-priest may eat offerings of lesser sanctity. There is no offering that an impure priest may eat but a non-priest may not.
  5. And the other — The first tanna, explaining Beit Hillel, would say: “Gazelle and deer” appears three times in Deuteronomy. One occurrence supports the teaching of Rabbi Yitzhak and Rabbi Oshaya; where that teaching is found has not been explained to us.
  6. For the teaching of Rabbi Elazar HaKappar — It appears in the second chapter of tractate Hullin, page 28a.
  7. Just as there — Menstruating women may not eat the breast and thigh, because an impure person who eats consecrated food is liable to excision.
  8. A Paschal offering brought in impurity — When most of the community became impure through contact with the dead and brought the Paschal offering in impurity, people with bodily discharges may not eat it, even though those impure through contact with the dead may. Thus, we distinguish impurity arising from one’s body from impurity acquired externally.
  9. Only there — People with bodily discharges may not eat the Paschal offering because Scripture explicitly permits those “impure by reason of a dead body,” and no others. From “If any man is impure by reason of a dead body,” we infer that an individual is deferred to the second Passover, but a community is not. Scripture makes this distinction only for impurity from a dead body; the rules for bodily discharges remain unchanged. Here, however, Scripture says of the firstborn without qualification, “The impure and the pure may eat it alike.”
  10. One may not strip a firstborn from the legs — Even a blemished firstborn may not be skinned in a way that leaves its hide whole. Such a hide can be made into a blacksmith’s bellows or used by sellers of honey and oil, who store them in whole sheepskins.
  11. Nor disqualified consecrated animals — Even if they have been redeemed and slaughtered for food.
  12. Because it is not fit for him — On a Festival.
  13. This is Beit Shammai’s view — They hold that a blemished firstborn retains its sanctity even after slaughter, like an unblemished firstborn. Just as stripping an unblemished firstborn’s hide whole is forbidden because it disrespects consecrated meat—one may cut the meat to avoid cutting the hide—so too for a blemished firstborn.
  14. Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon — He is stringent about disqualified consecrated animals, holding that they retain their sanctity even after slaughter.
  15. Two sin offerings — A person set aside two as a precaution, so that if one was lost, the other could bring atonement; then one developed a blemish.
  16. The unblemished one is offered — As his sin offering.
  17. The blemished one is redeemed — Its value goes toward voluntary offerings collected in the Temple chests.
  18. The blemished one was slaughtered — After its redemption.
  19. If it was slaughtered before the blood of the unblemished one was dashed — This is when the blemished animal was slaughtered.
  20. It is permitted — It may be eaten even if the unblemished offering’s blood was dashed before its meat was eaten. Once the blemished animal became permitted for slaughter, no sanctity remained in it.
  21. If it was slaughtered after the blood of the unblemished one was dashed — It is forbidden even to derive benefit from it. It is a sin offering whose owner has already gained atonement, one of the five sin offerings that must be left to die.
  22. Even meat already in a pot is forbidden — That is, meat of the blemished animal. He holds that such animals remain consecrated even after slaughter, so it counts as a sin offering whose owner has already gained atonement.
  23. Let us attribute the entire baraita to Beit Shammai — The question assumes that just as Beit Shammai are stringent about a firstborn, they are stringent about other disqualified consecrated animals.
Tosafot on Bechorot 33a, in English Tab translation (4)
  1. And Beit Hillel say: That applies to an unblemished firstborn — Although the verse comparing the firstborn’s meat to the breast of the wave offering also includes a blemished firstborn, whether through “their flesh” or through the teaching that a blemished firstborn must be given to a priest, the a fortiori inference permits non-priests to eat it. This does not leave the comparison unused: it still applies to an unblemished firstborn. Elsewhere, too, an a fortiori inference can prevail over a textual comparison when that comparison retains another application. But later, the comparison between animal tithe and grain tithe excludes tithing animals born in one year together with those born in another, despite an a fortiori argument for permitting it. There the comparison’s main application—to the distinction between years—would be lost if that argument prevailed. The disagreement in Ḥullin over whether meat cooked in milk may be used for benefit likewise poses no difficulty, as we explained in Kiddushin.
  2. One is needed for the teaching of Rabbi Yitzḥak and Rabbi Oshaya — Rashi says that teaching is not explained here. Rabbeinu Ḥananel identifies it with the ruling that one who crossbreeds or drives a disqualified consecrated ox receives lashes: the ox is one animal, but Scripture treats it as two species, like a gazelle and a deer. This is not because it is partly consecrated and partly ordinary, as some explain there; the rule is derived from the comparison to the gazelle and deer.
  3. One may not give it to menstruating women to eat — The same applies to a man who has had a seminal emission. Only the type of impurity permitted in connection with the Paschal offering is permitted here, as the following discussion shows.
  4. As it was taught: If he had two sin offerings before him — This baraita in Temurah concerns two sin offerings designated as alternatives, one now unblemished and the other blemished. It seems to conflict with the mishnah: the Rabbis in the baraita prohibit the blemished animal if it was slaughtered after the unblemished offering’s blood was sprinkled, while the mishnah permits it; Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon prohibits it in the baraita regardless of when it was slaughtered, while the mishnah permits it if slaughtered earlier. Rabbi explains that the mishnah concerns someone who transferred the sanctity of a blemished cow to an unblemished one. All its sanctity passed to the unblemished animal, so the Rabbis permit the blemished animal in either case, since it is not like a sin offering whose owner has already gained atonement. Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon distinguishes between slaughter before and after the sprinkling. In the baraita, by contrast, the unblemished offering has its own sanctity; the blemished animal’s sanctity was transferred only to money. Its sanctity therefore does not appear to have departed through the unblemished offering. The Rabbis prohibit it if the blood was sprinkled before it was slaughtered, and Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon prohibits it in either case, treating it like a sin offering whose owner has already gained atonement.
Rashi on Bechorot 33b, in English Tab translation (28)
  1. Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon — He is strict about disqualified consecrated animals even after slaughter. Yet he agrees that they may be sold in a butchers’ market: the higher sale price benefits the Temple treasury because it leads owners to pay more to redeem them. Why, then, does he not permit skinning the animal whole, which would likewise raise the hide’s price and the redemption payment?
  2. Damage to the meat — Skinning the hide whole does not bring as much profit, because some meat is cut away with the hide.
  3. In the West they say — This refers back to the earlier question: everyone agrees that skinning the hide whole is forbidden. Selling the hide for use as a bellows while it is still on the consecrated animal looks like using a consecrated animal for work, which is a serious indignity.
  4. Lest he raise herd after herd — Everyone agrees that skinning the hide whole is forbidden. If it were permitted, an owner might delay slaughter until he found buyers for whole hides. Meanwhile, he might raise herds of disqualified consecrated animals and come to shear or work them unlawfully.
  5. A firstborn animal congested with blood — This condition is called afindor.
  6. Even if it dies — If its blood is not let.
  7. One may not let its blood — Not even at a place where the wound will heal without leaving a blemish. Because a person is anxious about his property, permitting that might lead him to cut where it would leave a blemish.
  8. One may let its blood, provided he does not cause a blemish — He must not cut or damage its ear or the edge of its lip, where the wound will not heal. The Rabbis hold that forbidding bloodletting even where it causes no blemish would make a person more likely to cut where it does.
  9. He may not slaughter it on account of that blemish — Because he caused it, he must wait until the animal develops another blemish.
  10. One may let its blood even where it causes a blemish — Rabbi Shimon holds that an unintended result is permitted.
  11. And the Rabbis say: One may let its blood even where it causes a blemish — If blood must be let from that part of its body, one need not leave the animal to die.
  12. A vulnerable location — An exposed place where the barrel is not protected.
  13. Rabbi Yehoshua says — The oil can no longer be eaten, since it may be impure, or sprinkled, since it may be pure and must not be destroyed. Therefore, one may expose it so that it becomes impure and can be used for sprinkling.
  14. Rabbi Meir — He forbids damaging the animal but permits treating it, if that can be done without causing a blemish, so that it will not die. This accords with Rabbi Eliezer, who forbids exposing the oil to impurity and requires putting it somewhere protected.
  15. And the Rabbis — They permit causing a blemish before the animal dies so that it can become fit to eat. This accords with Rabbi Yehoshua, who permits exposing the oil to impurity so that it can be used for sprinkling. Rabbi Yehuda, who forbids both treatment and damage even though the animal will die, accords with Rabban Gamliel, who says to do neither to the barrel.
  16. Because he acts directly — He directly causes the blemish. Therefore, he should let the animal die on its own rather than cause one.
  17. Because it is an indirect cause — He merely leaves the barrel in an exposed place, thereby causing it to become impure.
  18. He holds like Rabbi Yehoshua — Rabbi Yehoshua permits indirectly causing the oil to become impure and usable for sprinkling, rather than leaving it unusable for any purpose.
  19. But perhaps Elijah will come — And say that the oil never came into contact with impurity.
  20. Everyone agrees — Even the Rabbis, who dispute the case of a blood-congested firstborn because it is already as good as blemished—it will die—agree about meal offerings: if one person makes the dough leavened and another bakes it, both are liable. Scripture separately forbids baking it leavened and making it leavened, teaching that each distinct act incurs liability.
  21. One who castrates after another — Even with an unconsecrated animal, if one person cuts off the testicles but leaves them in the sac, and another removes and discards them, both are liable.
  22. If one who cuts them off is liable — As the verse continues, ‘You shall not do this in your land.’
  23. One who removes them — If the person who cuts them off is liable, surely one who removes and discards them is liable.
  24. An already blemished animal — Such as this blood-congested firstborn.
  25. No blemish shall be in it — The verse is read as a prohibition against causing a blemish. Its word ‘any’ includes even an animal already blemished: one may not cause another blemish in it.
  26. And the Rabbis hold — We interpret the entire verse, “It shall be unblemished to be accepted; no blemish shall be in it,” to mean that one may not cause a blemish in an animal that is unblemished and fit to be accepted, but the prohibition does not apply to one already blemished. Rabbi Yehuda agrees with Rabbi Meir, but he forbids cutting even where it will not cause a blemish, lest one cut where it will.
  27. From the outset — It had a blemish before it was consecrated.
  28. Even when it is blemished, it should be forbidden — It should still be forbidden to cause another blemish in it.
Tosafot on Bechorot 33b, in English Tab translation (3)
  1. A firstborn animal congested with blood, etc. — We must determine what the sages disagree about.
  2. To include one who detaches after another has severed — Rashi explains that if one person cut off the testicles but left them in the scrotum, and another removed and discarded them, both are liable. My teacher finds this difficult: later, in the discussion of damaged outer cords, the Gemara says that detachment and severing are not blemishes because the testicles are still there. There Rashi explains that detachment means pulling them loose by hand while they still hang in the scrotum, and severing means cutting them with a knife while they remain partly attached there. Severing is less complete than detachment, as the earlier chapter says: ‘To include one who detaches after another has severed.’
  3. Blemished from the outset—obviously, it is merely like a palm tree — Why not say that the teaching is needed for a firstborn, which has inherent sanctity and cannot be redeemed? It is preferable to find a case in which it is needed for all consecrated animals. One could likewise have said that it is needed nowadays, when causing a blemish violates no prohibition even for an unblemished animal: even according to one who holds a person liable for blemishing an already blemished animal, consecration nowadays is less stringent, as tractate Avodah Zarah says, ‘It is not even fit for its monetary value.’ Instead, the Gemara finds a case where the teaching is needed even when the Temple stands. Although I have explained that consecration nowadays is less stringent than that of an already blemished animal, there is no contradiction between the later ruling that the law follows Rabbi Shimon of the baraita, who permits causing a blemish in an already blemished animal, and Rava’s prohibition in tractate Avodah Zarah against cutting off the hooves of a consecrated animal nowadays because it looks like causing a blemish. Though causing a blemish in an already blemished animal is permitted by Torah law, it remains forbidden by rabbinic law; here it is permitted only because the animal needs bloodletting.

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 33.