One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
חֲגִיגָה · בְּכוֹרוֹת
Festival Offering 2-3 · Firstlings 1
Sefer Korbanot · Who is summoned and who is excused, the gathering once in seven years where nearly every exemption collapses, and a firstborn that is holy before anyone consecrates it
11
Categories of people exempt from appearing before God
7
Blessings the king adds after the Hakhel reading
50
Days a large firstborn is tended before it goes to a priest
5
Pairs of hands the scroll passes through to reach the king
CG 2Who must appear, and whose table it is
- Eleven are exempt from appearing. Deaf, mute, one who cannot govern himself, minor, blind, limp, impure, uncircumcised, old, sick, and one too delicate to ascend on foot; deafness or blindness or lameness in a single organ is enough to exempt. (2:1)
- A repellent trade is not an exemption. The scraper who gathers dog excrement, the copper miner, and the leatherworker purify their bodies and their garments and ascend with all Israel. (2:2)
- A child who can climb is brought. Once a child can hold his father's hand and ascend from Jerusalem to the Temple Mount, the father must bring him, to train him in the mitzvot. (2:3)
- Ordinary funds for the burnt offering, mixed funds for the peace offering. The burnt offering of appearance comes only from ordinary funds; the festive peace offerings may be bought with second tithe money intermingled with ordinary money, provided the minimum measure one must eat could be bought with the ordinary coins alone. (2:8)
- A closed table is not the mitzvah. One may not eat his offerings secluded with his wife and children and call it a whole mitzvah; he must gladden the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, and the Levite takes precedence. (2:14)
RememberThe chapter that excuses eleven kinds of people ends by ruling that a table with only your own family at it is not the mitzvah.
CG 3Hakhel, and the exemptions that fall away
- Once after every Sabbatical year. It is a positive commandment to gather the entire people, men, women, children, and the stranger in your gates, when they ascend for the festival, and to read to them from the Torah. (3:1)
- The exemptions collapse. Those exempt from appearing are exempt from Hakhel with the exception of women, minors, and the uncircumcised, who are obligated; only the ritually impure remains exempt, since he may not come to the Temple. (3:2)
- The day, the reader, the place. On the day after the first day of Sukkot, the first day of chol hamoed of the eighth year, the king reads aloud in the Women's Courtyard, seated, though standing is praiseworthy. (3:3)
- Respect spread across many hands. Trumpets gather the city, a wooden platform is set in the Courtyard, and the scroll travels from the synagogue attendant to its head, to the segen, to the High Priest, to the king; he then adds seven blessings of his own. (3:4)
- Not held for information. Converts who understand nothing must direct their hearing with awe and trembling as at Sinai, and even sages who know the whole Torah must concentrate intensely; the reading exists solely to strengthen the true faith. (3:6)
RememberAlmost everyone excused from the pilgrimage is summoned to the gathering, and nobody there is meant to learn anything new.
BE 1A firstborn nobody had to consecrate
- Holy of itself. It is a mitzvah to consecrate a firstborn kosher animal and say, behold, this is holy; and even if the owner never consecrated it, it is sanctified as a matter of course from the moment it emerges from the womb. (1:4)
- A blemish makes it the priest's own property. Whether born blemished or blemished later, it is given to a priest who may eat it anywhere, sell it, or feed it to anyone, since it is ordinary property. (1:3)
- In every land and every era. The mitzvah applies in Eretz Yisrael and in the diaspora, whether the Temple is standing or not, and binds priests, Levites, and Israelites alike. (1:5, 1:6, 1:7)
- Thirty days, or fifty. It is not handed to the priest at birth, which would not be respectful to him; the owner tends it 30 days for a small animal and 50 for a large one, and may not comply if the priest asks to take it earlier and tend it himself. (1:14)
- The one opening in that interval. If it is blemished and the priest asks for it in order to eat it now, or unblemished and he asks in order to offer it now, the owner may give it to him; and one may give the firstborn to whichever priest he wishes. (1:15)
RememberIt was holy before you said a word over it, and you still may not hand it on until you have fed it for fifty days.