Daf Yomi Arcade, Bekhorot 10, 28 September 2026
וְאִם לֹא תִפְדֶּה וַעֲרַפְתּוֹ
A firstborn donkey is holy until its owner hands a kohen a lamb. If he won't, the Torah says to break its neck (Exodus 13:13). Today's daf asks what you may do with that donkey, alive and dead, and what it takes for meat nobody plans to eat to count as food.
Meat only picks up food impurity if it counts as food. If people nearby would normally eat it, it already does. If not, someone has to intend to eat it (מַחְשָׁבָה). The mishna in Okatzin 3:3 sorts carcasses by where they're found: in the villages, where gentiles are pickier, or in the big market towns, where someone eats almost anything. Each carcass lands on the map. Rule it.
Rabbi Yehuda forbids any benefit from an unredeemed firstborn donkey. Rabbi Shimon permits it. What happens after the neck is broken splits the amoraim: Rabba, Rav Naḥman in the name of Rabba bar Avuh, and Reish Lakish say Rabbi Shimon concedes it's forbidden then. Rabbi Yoḥanan (some say Rabbi Elazar) says he still permits it. Drag the timeline to each stop and rule for all three.
The mishna in Kiddushin 56b says a man who betroths a woman with a firstborn donkey hasn't betrothed her. Whose view is that? Under Rabbi Shimon she'd get the donkey's whole value. Under Rabbi Yehuda she'd get what's left after the lamb: the donkey's value once redeemed, minus the lamb. Rav finds a case where that's zero. Find it too.
Bekhorot 10 finishes Rabbi Shimon's list of forbidden-for-benefit foods that can still become impure (meat cooked in milk, since it once was permitted) and tests Rava's claim that nobody holds "its prohibition is its intent." It then goes through the firstborn donkey's legal life: the baraita of the cleaver and the forbidden killing methods, Rav Naḥman's two proofs, and the Kiddushin mishna. It ends with the doubled tifdeh and Rava's shekel of the Sanctuary.
Part of the Daf Yomi Arcade, a new game from every daf. Texts and links via the Sefaria API.