Study Bekhorot folio 2A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
מתני׳ הלוקח עובר חמורו של נכרי, והמוכר לו, אף על פי שאינו רשאי, המשתתף לו, והמקבל הימנו, והנותן לו בקבלה — פטור מן הבכורה, שנאמר: ״בישראל״, אבל לא באחרים.
Mishnah: With regard to one who purchases the fetus of a donkey that belongs to a non-Jew, and one who sells the fetus of his donkey to a non-Jew although he is not permitted to sell a large animal to a non-Jew, and one who enters into a partnership with a non-Jew in ownership of a donkey or its fetus, and one who receives a donkey from a non-Jew in order to care for it in exchange for partnership in its offspring, and one who gives his donkey to a non-Jew in receivership, in all of these cases the donkeys are exempt from the obligations of firstborn status, i.e., they do not have firstborn status and are not redeemed, as it is stated: “I sanctified to Me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and animal” (Numbers 3:13), indicating that the mitzva is incumbent upon the Jewish people, but not upon others. If the firstborn belongs even partially to a non-Jew, it does not have firstborn status.
גמ׳ כל הני למה לי?
Talmud: The Talmud asks: Why do I need all these examples in the Mishnah to demonstrate the principle that a firstborn donkey must belong exclusively to a Jew for the obligations of firstborn status to apply?
צריכי, דאי תנא לוקח — הוה אמינא משום דקא מייתי לה לקדושה, אבל מוכר דקא מפקע לה מקדושה — אימא ליקנסיה, קא משמע לן.
The Talmud explains: All of these examples are necessary. As, had the tanna taught that a donkey is exempt from the obligations of firstborn status only in the case where a Jew purchases a fetus from a non-Jew, I would say that this is because the Jew brings it to a state of sanctity in that it will not be worked on Shabbat. But in the case where a Jew sells the fetus of his donkey to a non-Jew, where he abrogates its state of sanctity, I would say that the rabbis should penalize him [likneseih] for his actions by rendering the fetus subject to the obligations of firstborn status. Therefore, the Mishnah teaches us that it is exempt from these obligations.