Blemishes, Sanctity, and Scriptural Derivations in Bekhorot

How Tosafot harmonizes biblical analogies with logical inferences and explains the residual sanctity of blemished offerings.

Overriding a Biblical Analogy

The Gemara investigates who is permitted to eat a blemished firstborn animal. Beit Shammai rules that only priests may consume it, comparing it to the priestly gift of the wave breast and thigh. Beit Hillel counters that non-priests may also partake of a blemished firstborn, deriving this through a קל וחומר (an a fortiori inference) from an impure priest. Rashi notes that the scriptural comparison to the breast and thigh speaks directly of an unblemished animal offered on the altar.

Tosafot is troubled by Beit Hillel's deduction. Multiple talmudic passages indicate that the comparison to priestly portions includes both unblemished and blemished firstborns. How, then, can a logical inference contradict an explicit היקש (biblical analogy)? Tosafot answers that a קל וחומר has the authority to remove a case from an analogy, provided the analogy is still upheld for the primary case of the unblemished offering.

מ"מ אתי קל וחומר ומפיק מהיקשא ונאכל לזרים מאחר דמתוקמא היקשא דכחזה התנופה בתם

Nevertheless, an a fortiori inference comes and removes it from the analogy, so that it may be eaten by non-priests, since the analogy to 'as the wave breast' is maintained regarding an unblemished animal. (Tosafot on Bekhorot 33a:1:1)

Redeeming the Disqualified Sin Offering

The Gemara discusses the rule that one may not skin פסולי המוקדשין (disqualified consecrated animals) from their feet to preserve the hide whole. Rav Chisda attributes this prohibition to Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, citing a baraita of two sin offerings designated for security,. One animal became blemished while the other remained unblemished. The unblemished animal is sacrificed, and the blemished animal is redeemed,,. In the baraita, if the blemished animal was slaughtered after the blood of the unblemished sacrifice was sprinkled, the Rabbis prohibit eating it.

Tosafot raises a sharp contradiction: in the Mishnah in Tractate Temurah, the Rabbis explicitly permit eating the blemished animal in that circumstance. The Ri resolves the difficulty by distinguishing between two modes of redemption. The Mishnah discusses a person who transferred the sanctity of the blemished animal directly onto the unblemished replacement, stripping the first animal of all sacred association. Our baraita, by contrast, addresses an animal redeemed onto money, which leaves residual sanctity upon the animal and causes it to resemble a sin offering whose owners already achieved atonement.

Animals Blemished from Birth

The Gemara turns to a congested firstborn that requires bloodletting to survive. The Sages debate whether one may make an incision that creates a permanent blemish. In analyzing the prohibition against inflicting a blemish on an already-blemished animal, Rabbi Meir suggests that the verse excluding an unblemished animal applies to an animal blemished from birth. The Gemara rejects this, arguing that an animal born with a blemish is obviously excluded because it is merely like a palm tree.

Tosafot questions this dismissal. A firstborn possesses קדושת הגוף (bodily sanctity) from the womb and cannot be redeemed, so one might easily think the prohibition applies to it. Tosafot answers that the Gemara sought a verse that applies universally to all consecrated animals rather than one limited to a firstborn. Furthermore, Tosafot clarifies that while inflicting a blemish on an already-blemished animal incurs no biblical lashes, it is biblically permitted but rabbinically forbidden, and the Sages waived this restriction only to save the animal's life through bloodletting.

תימה לימא דלבכור איצטריך שיש בו קדושת הגוף ואין לו פדיון וי"ל דניחא לאשכוחי דאיצטריך לכל הקדשים

It is astonishing: let him say that it was necessary for a firstborn, which possesses bodily sanctity and cannot be redeemed! And one can answer that the Gemara preferred to find a case that was necessary for all consecrated animals. (Tosafot on Bekhorot 33b:19:1)

Logical deductions can limit biblical analogies, while the method of redemption determines how much sanctity remains attached to a consecrated animal.

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