daf yomi arcade · bekhorot 6 · 2026-09-27
כְּשֵׁם שֶׁקִּבַּלְתִּי שָׂכָר עַל הַדְּרִישָׁה, כָּךְ אֲנִי מְקַבֵּל שָׂכָר עַל הַפְּרִישָׁה
Shimon HaAmasoni took every little אֵת in the Torah — the untranslatable word that marks a direct object — as a hint to add one more law. Then he reached a verse where there was nothing left to add. Hunt the particles the way he did, then stack the Gemara's proofs that milk is even kosher and see which ones hold, and finally climb a ladder of strange-calf questions from 6a.
The page opens on why only a donkey's firstborn is holy, not a horse's or camel's. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili pointed to "firstborn of a donkey" appearing twice. Rav Aḥai pushes back: the second mention might only mean horses and camels aren't redeemed with a lamb, while still needing redemption with something else. The answer: then the Torah would have phrased it differently the second time. Repeating the exact same words means only donkeys count.
The mishna's tanna already uses that repetition for another rule, so Rav Pappa gets there by a different route: "all your livestock… ox and lamb… and the firstborn of a donkey" is a generalization followed by details (כְּלָל וּפְרָט), and a generalization covers only the details listed. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili answers that the word "firstborn" breaks the donkey off from that list. The Rabbis answer that the letter vav ("and") joins it back on, and that "firstborn" has to stand between them anyway, because an ox or lamb goes on the altar while a donkey is redeemed for its value.
part i · 6b:3–5
״שִׁמְעוֹן הָעַמְסוֹנִי הָיָה דּוֹרֵשׁ כׇּל ״אֵת״ וָ״אֵת״ שֶׁבַּתּוֹרָה״. Tap every אֶת in each verse to expound it. A wrong tap costs you a coin. The last verse is where he stopped.
part ii · 6b:6–18
Rav Ashi explains why a camel's milk needed its own prohibition: milk being allowed at all is a surprise. One view is that milk is blood that has turned, since a nursing mother doesn't menstruate. The other is that it comes from a living animal, and nothing else from a living animal is allowed. So how do we know even a cow's milk is allowed? The Gemara proposes six proofs. For each one, decide: does it hold, or does it crack? If it cracks, pick the Gemara's objection. Proofs that hold go on the tower.
the tower
part iii · 6a:10–19
A ewe that bears a goat-like kid is a firstborn if the kid shares some features with its mother. But ewe and goat are both kosher and both go on the altar. The Gemara asks whether that rule reaches further, one case at a time, each question starting "and if you say yes…" (אִם תִּמְצֵי לוֹמַר). Two baraitot are brought as proof. The Gemara reads each one as narrowly as it can. Tap the rungs a baraita must cover, and nothing more.
Bekhorot 6 moves from which species have firstborn sanctity at all (Rav Pappa's generalization-and-detail reading) to the offspring whose species doesn't match its mother's. For eating, the rule is simple: go by the mother. "What comes from the impure is impure." The one exception is Rabbi Shimon, who reads "camel, camel" to forbid even a camel born to a cow. That leads into Shimon HaAmasoni's et, the proofs that milk is kosher, and the Torah's second list of forbidden animals, repeated only for the shesu'a (an animal with two backs and two spines) and the bird called ra'a. The daf ends with Rabbi Shimon's stricter test for firstborn status: the head and most of the body must look like the mother.
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