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Bekhorot בכורות

a tractate of the order of Kodashim

The firstborn of clean cattle is holy from birth and is offered; if it has a blemish it stays with the priest and is eaten as ordinary meat. Hence the long lists of blemishes—in animals and, separately, in priests, whom a blemish bars from service.

A chapter of its own deals with the redemption of a firstborn son: five shekels to a priest on the thirtieth day. It is the one commandment of the tractate still performed, and the rite of pidyon ha-ben comes straight from here. At the end is the tithe of cattle, counted out by passing the animals under the rod.

Order: Kodashim. There is Gemara in the Babylonian Talmud.

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Sources

Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar

  • Exodus 13:2 — sanctify to Me every firstborn
  • Mishnah Bekhorot 8:1 — the redemption of a firstborn son

Basis: Talmud and midrash.

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