One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
בְּכוֹרוֹת
Firstlings 2-4
Sefer Korbanot · A holiness nobody conferred, a wound nobody may arrange, and a threshold at the opening of the womb that decides everything
67
Permanent blemishes that can apply to a male firstborn
3
Synagogue members who may permit where no expert is present
1000
A gentile's thousandth share is enough to exempt the animal
30
Days before an animal that discharged a tinuf carries again
BE 2The blemish, and whose hand was in it
- Sixty seven blemishes open the door. Any permanent blemish from the list in Hilchot Issurei Mizbeiach permits a firstborn to be slaughtered anywhere; those applicable to a male animal number 67. A temporary blemish permits nothing, and the animal pastures until something permanent arrives. (2:1, 2:2)
- Blemish it yourself and the door shuts. One who imparts a blemish to his own firstborn is penalized and may never slaughter it on that blemish until the animal contracts another on its own. If he dies, his son may slaughter it on the father's blemish, since the son was not penalized. (2:7)
- Knowledge is the whole test. A fig placed on the ear for a dog to take, a passage lined with jagged iron, a word to a gentile: whenever a blemish was brought about with a person's knowledge it is forbidden to him, and whenever it came about without his knowledge it is permitted. (2:8)
- Doubt is resolved against the owner. Barley set among thorns, the lip split, and no way to tell whether he intended it: he may not slaughter, even if the owner was a Torah sage. But a kick that fends off a pursuing firstborn, or children blemishing it at play, does permit it. (2:10, 2:11, 2:12)
- No priest testifies for himself. All priests are suspected of blemishing a firstborn in order to eat it outside the Courtyard, so a priest's own word is not accepted; a fellow priest may testify, and his children and household may, but his wife may not, because she is considered as his own person. (2:17)
RememberThe wound stays valid while the man is disqualified, which is why his son may use the blemish he made.
BE 3The mouth that is allowed to say so
- Only an authorized expert may permit. Even a large and obvious blemish gives no license until an expert authorized by the nasi rules on it, and that expert may inspect every firstborn except his own. (3:1)
- Three of the synagogue, in the absence of an expert. Where no expert is in the locale and the blemish is one of the distinct ones, an eye blinded, a foreleg cut off, a hindfoot broken, three members of the synagogue may permit; the same applies to a firstborn taken to the diaspora. (3:2)
- Bring a priest to the inspection. In Eretz Yisrael the expert inspects accompanied by a priest, lest the owner slaughter for himself; he is not suspected of slaughtering consecrated animals outside the Courtyard, which carries karet, but he is suspected of withholding priestly gifts. (3:3)
- An unqualified ruling costs the ruler. A non expert who inspects and has a firstborn slaughtered must bury it and pay from his own resources, a quarter of the worth of a small animal and half of a large one, the owner bearing the rest as his own penalty for delay. A fee may be taken only once per animal, and only by an expert without peer. (3:6, 3:7)
- Wool shed in life is forbidden forever. Hide and shearings of a lawfully eaten firstborn are permitted, but wool cut or shed while the animal lived stays forbidden after the blemish, after the slaughter and after its death, and a sit's length woven into a garment condemns the garment to burning. (3:11, 3:13)
RememberBeing right about the blemish is not the same as being permitted to act on it.
BE 4Whose animal, and what counts as opening
- A thousandth share exempts. Partnership between Jews changes nothing, but a gentile's share in the mother or the fetus, even one part in a thousand, exempts the animal; a gentile owning a specific limb exempts it only where severing that limb would render the animal blemished. (4:1)
- Shared arrangements and shared offspring. A Jew who receives an animal from a gentile, or a gentile from a Jew, on terms that the offspring be shared produces offspring exempt from the firstborn, since the verse requires that everything belong to a Jew. (4:3)
- The greater portion decides. A fetus removed limb by limb leaves the next birth a firstborn, but once the greater portion has emerged, whole or in pieces, the animal is consecrated retroactively and the next birth is exempt; a third sold to a gentile before the second third emerged does not change that. (4:14, 4:15)
- The doubts are left standing. Emerging wrapped in fiber without touching the womb, wound together with a sister, passing from one opened womb into another, or with the walls of the womb hanging at its neck: the Rambam records these as unresolved and the offspring is a firstborn of doubtful status. (4:17, 4:18, 4:20, 4:21)
RememberHoliness attaches at an instant nobody chose, which is why the doubts about that instant are written down rather than solved.