Plucking, Shearing, and Shed Wool in Bekhorot

Tosafot clarifies the boundaries between shearing and plucking, analyzing the laws of Festivals, Shabbat, and consecrated animals.

Clearing Hair Before Slaughter

Before slaughtering an animal, one may wish to clear hair from the neck to reveal the place of slaughter. On a Festival, doing so risks violating the prohibited labor of shearing or uprooting growth.

The Gemara explains that clearing animal hair with a cleaver is permitted because plucking is not the standard way to shear. Therefore, it constitutes an uprooting in an unusual manner (כלאחר יד).

וּבְיוֹם טוֹב הַיְינוּ טַעְמָא דִּשְׁרֵי — דְּהָוֵה לֵיהּ עוֹקֵר דָּבָר מִגִּידּוּלוֹ כִּלְאַחַר יָד.

And on a Festival this is the reason that it is permitted: because it is considered uprooting an item from its place of growth in an unusual manner. (Bekhorot 25a:5)

Feathers Differ From Animal Hair

One might assume this leniency permits a person to pluck feathers from the neck of a bird before slaughter on a Festival. Tosafot cautions that plucking feathers before slaughtering a bird is entirely different.

Removing feathers by plucking is the regular method and is therefore not an unusual manner. Furthermore, even though one does not need the feather, one cannot permit a labor not needed for its own sake (מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה) based on this leniency.

אין ללמוד מכאן שיהא מותר לתלוש נוצה מצואר של עוף כדי לשחוט בי"ט

One should not deduce from here that it is permitted to pluck a feather from the neck of a bird in order to slaughter it on a Festival. (Tosafot on Bekhorot 25a:5:1)

Derivatives of Shearing on Shabbat

The Gemara challenges the claim that plucking is distinct from shearing by citing a baraita where plucking a feather on Shabbat incurs liability for shearing. Reish Lakish explicitly defines plucking a feather as shearing.

Tosafot is astonished by this comparison between Shabbat and consecrated animals. On Shabbat, liability extends to any תולדה of shearing (derivative labor) whenever growth is uprooted from a creature.

By contrast, the biblical prohibition of shearing a firstborn applies only to shearing proper. Tosafot resolves that the Gemara merely cites Shabbat to prove that plucking feathers is not an unusual manner.

Shed Wool of a Blemished Firstborn

A Mishnah discusses wool from a blemished firstborn (שער בכור בעל מום) that detached naturally while the animal was alive. Akavya ben Mahalalel permits deriving benefit from this shed hair after slaughter.

Tosafot establishes that shed wool from disqualified consecrated animals is biblically permitted. The dispute among the Sages is purely rabbinic, enacted lest one intentionally delay the slaughter.

כולה הך שמעתא מוכחא דגיזת פסולי המוקדשין שרי מדאורייתא

This entire sugya proves that shearing disqualified consecrated animals is permitted by biblical law. (Tosafot on Bekhorot 25a:17:1)

Deriving Benefit From Blood and Milk

Tosafot raises a difficulty from Tractate Chullin, where the Gemara uses a verse to permit benefit from blood of disqualified offerings. Chullin suggests that because shearing and work are forbidden, the animal's blood might require burial.

Why would one suspect blood is forbidden if shed wool is biblically permitted? Tosafot answers that the Torah punishes the act of shearing a living consecrated animal with lashes.

Because the Torah treated the living animal so strictly, one might have expounded "meat" exclusively, prohibiting milk and blood. A special scriptural phrase was therefore required to permit benefit from the blood.

While Shabbat prohibits any derivative form of shearing, the prohibition on consecrated animals targets the formal act of shearing itself.

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