Ki Tisa (5764)

From the book Mida Tova: Articles on the Hermeneutical Principles by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

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With God’s help.

Mida Tovah — Sabbath Eve of Parashat Ki Tisa, 5765

Questions

1. Why are the firstborn of horses and camels not redeemed?
2. Must the general clause and the particular clause be adjacent to one another, and if so, how adjacent?
3. In which hermeneutical principles is this requirement found?
4. Where does the rule operate that “there is no earlier and later in the Torah”?
5. What is the practical implication for halakha (Jewish law) of the rule “there is no earlier and later in the Torah”?
6. Is directionality textual or historical?
7. What considerations guided the determination of the Torah’s written order?
8. Are the principles of general and particular textual principles?

The principles

General and particular. Particular and general. Inclusion and exclusion. “There is no earlier and later in the Torah.” A matter that was included in a general rule and then singled out to teach. Binyan av (derivation from a paradigm case).

Preface

The original essay for Parashat Ki Tisa mistakenly assumed that ox and sheep are examples of clean domesticated animals. However, as several readers pointed out to us, in biblical language ox and sheep actually represent all clean domesticated animals. In light of this correction, several of the questions we raised fall away immediately, and the course of the essay has therefore been revised.

We thank Rabbi Itai Elitzur for the correction on this point, and especially Rabbi Yehiel Hayim Freiman, who sent us a detailed and penetrating response to this page. With his permission, we have made use of his comments in the revised essay presented here.

A. The general-and-particular derivation: must we redeem the firstborn of a horse or camel?

“Every first issue of the womb is Mine, and every male among your livestock, the firstling of ox and sheep. And the firstling of a donkey you shall redeem with a sheep; and if you do not redeem it, you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall appear before Me empty-handed.”

(Exodus 34:19-20)

“Every first issue of the womb of all flesh, which they offer to the Lord, whether of man or beast, shall be yours; but you shall surely redeem the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of an unclean beast you shall redeem. And their redemption price, from a month old, you shall redeem according to your valuation, five shekels of silver, by the sanctuary shekel of twenty gerahs. But the firstborn of an ox, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall dash their blood upon the altar, and burn their fat as an offering by fire, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.”

(Numbers 18:15-17)

“…And from where does the tanna of our mishnah derive the exclusion of horses and camels? Rav Pappa said: ‘Every male among your livestock’—this is a general clause; ‘ox and sheep and donkey’—this is a particular clause. In a case of general followed by particular, the general includes only what is in the particular: ox, sheep, and donkey, yes; anything else, no. And Rabbi Yosei HaGelili? The word ‘firstling’ interrupts the subject. And the Rabbis? The vav returns and blends the verse. And Rabbi Yosei HaGelili? Scripture should have written neither the vav nor ‘firstling.’ And the Rabbis? Since this one involves monetary sanctity and that one bodily sanctity, Scripture separated them and then blended them again.”

(Babylonian Talmud, Bekhorot 5b-6a)

Introduction: the sanctity of the firstborn and their redemption

The commandments concerning the sanctity of the firstborn, that is, the first issue of the womb, are of three kinds:

1. The human firstborn is redeemed from the priest for five sela’im. The Levites serve God in place of the firstborns.
2. The firstborn of a clean domesticated animal has the status of an offering of lesser sanctity. It is offered to God and eaten by the priests.
3. The firstborn of an unclean domesticated animal: only in the case of a donkey’s firstling is there redemption; otherwise its neck is broken.

In this essay we will discuss the general-and-particular derivation through which Jewish law learns that, among unclean domesticated animals, only the firstling of a donkey is redeemed, and not that of a horse or a camel.

The derivation and the dispute

As background, let us note that the Gemara quoted above discusses the commandment of redeeming the firstling of a donkey, and rules that only the firstling of a donkey is redeemed, not that of a horse or a camel. A close look at the flow of the argument shows rather clearly that these derivations are supportive rather than primary.¹

In the end, the Gemara brings a derivation based on the principle of general and particular, applied to verses 19-20 in our portion: “every male among your livestock” is the general clause, and “ox and sheep and donkey” is the particular clause. The rule is that the general includes only what is found in the particular: specifically ox, sheep, and donkey, and nothing else. At this point the Gemara asks why the dissenting tanna, Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, does not derive the law from this derivation.² It explains that he does not do so because the word “firstling” stands between the general and the particular. Finally, it notes that according to the Rabbis, who do derive the law by general and particular, the vav reconnects and reblends the verses, that is, it neutralizes the separation created by the word “firstling,” and therefore the verses can indeed be expounded as general and particular. In any case, everyone appears to agree that without this renewed blending, the verses could not be expounded as general and particular because of the intervening word “firstling.”

What are “ox and sheep”?

The Gemara explains that the particular clause in the derivation is “ox and sheep and donkey.” These are the three particulars to which the general-and-particular derivation is applied. Yet their status does not seem identical. A donkey is one of the unclean domesticated animals, but ox and sheep are not merely examples of clean domesticated animals. In biblical language, ox and sheep stand for all clean domesticated animals.

The Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 80a, states that Scripture contains three clean domesticated animals: ox, sheep, and goat. Every other clean species is either a wild animal, or else is included under one of these categories, as emerges from the discussion there. The word “sheep” includes both sheep and goats, as is clear from the section dealing with the Paschal offering and elsewhere. Thus, the words “ox and sheep” in biblical language include all species of clean domesticated animals.

The structure of the derivation

As noted, the wording of the Gemara indicates that the general clause is “every male among your livestock,” and the particular clause is “ox and sheep and donkey.”³ The hermeneutical principle of general and particular instructs us to apply the law only to what is found in the particular clause. As we saw on the page for Parashat Va’era, the initial general clause serves only to prevent expansion of the particular by means of a binyan av.

The conclusion of the derivation is that the sanctity of the firstborn applies only to ox and sheep, which comprise all clean domesticated animals, and among the unclean animals only to the donkey.

A first difficulty

If so, we have seen that there is a difference among the particulars that make up the particular clause in the derivation. Ox and sheep are in fact all clean domesticated animals, whereas donkey is truly a specific example, that is, an actual particular. At first glance this is difficult. Why are ox and sheep, which represent the entire class of clean domesticated animals, nevertheless treated here as a particular? This can be understood in one of two ways:

1. What determines the status of general and particular is the terminology used in the Torah, not its legal meaning. The terms “ox” and “sheep” are particular terms, even if their legal meaning in Scripture is the whole class of clean domesticated animals.
2. In truth, the legal meaning is what matters. Even so, the whole group of clean domesticated animals is still considered a particular relative to the general category of all firstborns. A species within a genus, that is, a distinct subgroup, is also considered a particular. After all, donkey too is really a species and not an individual particular. There are many donkeys in the world. Indeed, in most cases the “particular” in a general-and-particular derivation is a species in relation to a genus, not an individual item.

Another difficulty in the discussion

Later in the discussion it is explained that, were it not for the vav, the Rabbis too could not apply general and particular because of the word “firstling,” which intervenes between the general and the particular. Presumably the superfluous word is the word “firstling” in the second verse, since the first occurrence is part of the description of the particular clause, “the firstling of ox and sheep.” The redundancy lies in the fact that the Torah could have sufficed with the first occurrence of the word “firstling” and allowed it to apply to the donkey in the next verse as well. Therefore the second occurrence is the one that creates the interruption, and Rashi indeed writes this explicitly.

It is not clear why the presence of an intervening word should prevent the use of the general-and-particular derivation, even according to the Rabbis, were it not for the vav. To understand this, we must first discuss the principle that “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.”

B. “There is no earlier and later in the Torah”: between text and chronology

“There is no earlier and later in the Torah”

At first glance, the principle that an intervening word obstructs the derivation of general and particular is connected to the question whether one may expound a general and particular that are not adjacent. This question is disputed in the Talmudic discussion in Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 6b, and parallel passages, where it is tied to the rule that “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.” This is a rule familiar to all of us from Rashi’s commentary to the Torah, and it is the subject of disagreement among Torah commentators, at least regarding the frequency and scope of its application.⁴ For example, Ramban, in his commentary to Numbers 16:1, states that unless there is a special reason, the Torah certainly preserves the correct order. A reversal of order is not done casually.⁵

We are accustomed to thinking of this rule as an interpretive principle that pertains to the narrative portions of the Torah and to the relative dating of the events described there. Indeed, the rule appears as principle 32 in the list of principles found in the baraita of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, and we have already seen in the past, on the page for Parashat Vayeshev, the common assumption that the principles in that baraita belong to non-legal homiletical interpretation.

Nevertheless, there are times when legal considerations lead us to conclude that certain sections were not stated in order. For example, Tosafot on the lemma “ke-Eliezer,” in Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 95b, concludes that Eliezer gave the bracelets to Rebecca only after she told him whose daughter she was, for otherwise there would be a prohibition of divination. This is an interpretation of historical events on the basis of a legal consideration.

Another exceptional example appears in Tosafot on the lemma “minayin,” in Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 45a. There Tosafot states that despite the order of the verse, Exodus 19:13, “it shall surely be stoned or shot,” the pushing down from the height, that is, the “shooting,” must precede the stoning, by force of another derivation.

Yet we also find a highly interesting and very unusual legal implication of this rule, working in precisely the opposite direction, and that is what concerns us here. As we have seen, ordinarily this principle serves as a way of resolving difficulties, whether legal or historical, that arose for some secondary reason. In our case, however, the Gemara assumes the principle that there is no earlier and later in the Torah and derives from it conclusions about the general-and-particular derivation.

“There is no earlier and later in the Torah” with respect to general and particular

The Gemara in Pesachim 6b states:

Rav Menashya bar Tahlifa said in the name of Rav: This teaches that there is no earlier and later in the Torah. Rav Pappa said: We said this only with respect to two separate subjects, but within one subject whatever is earlier is earlier and whatever is later is later. For if you do not say so, then in a case of general and particular, where the rule is that the general includes only what is in the particular, perhaps it is really particular and general? And furthermore, in a case of particular and general, where the general becomes an addition to the particular, perhaps it is really general and particular? If so, then even with respect to two separate subjects as well? This works out according to the one who says that a general and particular that are distant from one another are not treated as general and particular. But according to the one who says they are treated as such, what can be said? Even according to the one who says they are treated as such, that is only within one subject; with two separate subjects they are not treated as such.

The Gemara rules that according to the principle “there is no earlier and later in the Torah,” one cannot derive by means of general and particular, because perhaps we should really expound the passage as particular and general. As is well known, the legal conclusion of a particular-and-general derivation is not the same as that of general-and-particular. In general and particular we conclude that the general includes only what is found in the particular, whereas in particular and general the general extends beyond the particular.

This is an example of the directionality of interpretive methods. We have previously encountered questions of directionality with respect to verbal analogy and juxtaposition. Those were questions concerning two separate sources that are compared in a derivation: should one compare A to B, or the reverse, or in both directions?⁶ The biblical data themselves are not directional, and the question of directionality concerns the conclusions one may draw from those data. Here, by contrast, we encounter a demand for directionality in the biblical data themselves, even before the derivation is carried out: the order in which the general and the particular appear in Scripture matters for the legal conclusion.

As noted, this application of the principle “there is no earlier and later in the Torah” is highly unusual. But it is not merely unusual. In fact, it seems quite puzzling, almost absurd.

First, how do we know that the derivation of general and particular is based on historical order? At first glance, this is a textual principle, grounded in the written order of the biblical text. If so, then even if the historical events occurred in a different order, the very fact that the Torah wrote them in this order should direct us to expound them as general and particular. It is not clear why the principle “there is no earlier and later in the Torah” should interfere with general-and-particular derivations. In other words: does the directionality of the principles of general and particular relate to historical unfolding, or to the order of writing?

“There is no earlier and later in the Torah” with respect to command verses

In sections that describe historical events, the rule “there is no earlier and later in the Torah” is easy to understand: sometimes the Torah chooses not to write the events in the order in which they occurred. The Holy One dictated the Torah to Moses not according to the historical order of the events it describes. But in sections consisting of commands, it is not clear what order could even be relevant. What is the “real” order, if not the order in which the commands are written in the Torah? In what sense can a command be “in the correct order” or “not in the correct order”? In the example of “it shall surely be stoned,” one can understand that the order is the legal order: according to the law, stoning comes after the initial pushing. But in our case there is no such order. What could be the “correct” order for writing the verses about redeeming the firstling of a donkey, if not the order in which they are actually written?

At first glance, this is another reason to assume that this principle indeed belongs to non-legal homiletical interpretation. Yet we have already seen that the Sages and the early commentators apply it also to legal derivation, both in the examples cited above and certainly in the discussion in Pesachim about general and particular.

A close examination of the language of the Gemara and the early commentators suggests, see for example the Gemara in Pesachim quoted above and Rashi there, that the “correct” order with respect to commands is the order in which God spoke them. When we say that “there is no earlier and later in the Torah” with respect to command verses, we mean that God commanded these commandments in an order different from the order in which they were written in the Torah.

But this does not solve the difficulty. It only pushes it one step further. Was the order in which the material appears before us a decision of Moses on his own initiative, as discussed on the page for Parashat Yitro? Did God tell him to write in a certain order, namely the order of the original commands, while Moses himself chose to write them in another order? At first glance, only Deuteronomy was written by Moses on his own initiative; the rest was written by direct divine command.

Perhaps we must conclude from here that there was one command from God to Moses concerning the content of the commandments, and in addition another command to Moses concerning the order in which they were to be written in the Torah. The conclusion would then be that the command concerning the law itself was not identical with the command to record it in the Torah. For that, there was a separate command.⁷

Indeed, we find in Ravan, section 34, cited in the glosses of Maharb of Rensburg to Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 4a, that in Deuteronomy there is earlier and later, since Moses wrote it himself and arranged it section by section. Apparently, then, in the rest of the Torah, where there is no earlier and later, God Himself arranged the material. And if God Himself arranged matters not according to the order that governs derivation, this proves that more than one command was involved here, exactly as we suggested above.⁸

Textual or historical directionality?

We can now return to the question we raised about directionality. Why does the Gemara assume that the directionality of the principles of general and particular is based on the historical order of occurrence rather than on the order of writing? We have seen that the two planes involved here are not a textual plane and a historical plane, but rather two planes of command. There were two divine commands to Moses: one commanded the law itself, and the second commanded the order of writing. The Gemara assumes that the directionality of general and particular belongs to the chronology of the commands themselves, not to the plane of written arrangement.

This now raises a further question. Why, then, was an additional command about writing needed at all? In other words, why was it necessary to alter the written order from the chronological order? Clearly, this was not done in order to enable general-and-particular derivations, since those are determined by chronological-historical order, not by textual order. And indeed, the early commentators give various reasons, basically plain-sense reasons, to explain why it was necessary to change the order of writing.⁹

It should be noted that this conclusion runs contrary to simple intuition. One would have thought that the substantive commands were stated according to subject matter, while the written arrangement was designed to produce a text that could also be expounded. Here exactly the opposite picture emerges: the derivations are based on chronological-historical order, while the textual order serves other purposes, whose nature we do not yet know.

Thus, the principles of general and particular, which we would normally classify as textual principles, are not entirely textual. They do indeed have a textual dimension, since they are built on the Torah’s modes of formulation, whether in the language of generality or of particularity. But their directionality is not located on the textual plane; it lies on the chronological plane. This is a novelty whose implications deserve further investigation.

C. The rule of “general and particular that are distant from one another”

What emerges from the discussion in Pesachim

The discussion in Pesachim indicates that one does not expound a general and particular that are distant from one another, because there is concern that they were not stated in order. It also emerges there that, for this reason, derivations by the principles of general and particular are made only in situations where the chronological order is evident from the textual order, for example, within one section and one subject.

The conclusion of that discussion is that when the general and the particular are close to one another, everyone agrees that they are treated as general and particular. When they are distant but still appear within the same subject, there is a dispute whether they are treated that way or not, and Sefer Keritut cites from Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 45b, that even when they occur in an adjacent verse they are not treated that way. And when they occur in two separate subjects, everyone agrees that they are not treated as general and particular, since between separate sections there is certainly no earlier and later in the Torah.¹⁰

The reason for the rule concerning distant general and particular

At first glance, the discussion in Pesachim suggests that the reason one needs the general and the particular to be adjacent in order to expound by general and particular is the principle “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.” But this is not necessary. Perhaps that principle is only a problem that prevents us from expounding non-adjacent general and particular, while the very requirement of adjacency does not itself derive from it. One should note that in the discussion in Pesachim the rule “there is no earlier and later in the Torah” functions as proof that one cannot expound distant general and particular. There is no claim there that the reason adjacency is required is this rule itself. It is evidence, or an indication, but not necessarily the cause.¹¹

From several early commentators it seems that they understood the requirement of adjacency as based on the principle “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.” For example, in both Tosafot comments beginning with the lemma “aval” in the discussion in Pesachim, it is clear that if there is some external reason for the natural order to be reversed, that is what determines the direction of the derivation by general and particular, namely chronological direction rather than textual direction. Thus, if two distant sections were uttered in a single divine statement, they can be treated as general and particular. Likewise, if within the very same subject there is good reason to conclude that the order is reversed, then one treats them as particular and general rather than general and particular.

If so, according to Tosafot, the entire problem in requiring adjacency between the general and the particular stems from the rule “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.” This also seems to emerge, at least somewhat, from the fact that other interpretive principles, in which the order of appearance of general and particular does not matter, are indeed expounded even when the general is far from the particular. For example, the principle of “a matter that was included in a general rule and then singled out to teach” is expounded even when the general is distant from the particular, as stated in Sefer Keritut, Part I, House 7, section 5.¹²

To be sure, another approach can also be found among the commentators. See, for example, the careful remarks of the author of Yefeh Mar’eh cited in Yavin Shemu’ah, rule 162, on Halikhot Olam, fourth gate, and elsewhere.

The difference between the approaches apparently depends on how this requirement is understood. According to Tosafot, who tie it to the principle “there is no earlier and later in the Torah,” the issue is a technical one: a conflict with another rule. According to those who adopt the second approach, the requirement of adjacency is simply a formal rule that applies only to the principle of general and particular.

A conclusion for our case

When words appear within a single command verse, it is difficult to suppose that they do not appear in the order in which they were spoken. The example of “it shall surely be stoned” is different, since there the order within the list has no independent significance, and one can easily see how the order might change between speech and writing without changing the content. But in our verses it is implausible that the written text changed the spoken order and placed the general before the particular. Reversing the order of the general and the particular yields an implausible result. More than that: the entire arrangement there seems designed to display a structure of general clause and its specification, namely the general clause, “every male among your livestock,” followed by its detail, ox, sheep, and donkey.

Thus, where words are distant within the same verse, or where two verses in the same section form one natural continuum, it is implausible to invoke the rule “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.”

D. Application to our discussion

Returning to our discussion

In our case, the derivation of general and particular stretches across two verses in the same section and on the same subject. At first glance, this is precisely the case over which the discussions in Pesachim and Sanhedrin dispute. As we have seen, Rabbi Yosei HaGelili and the Rabbis in our discussion both agree that, in principle, one does not expound general and particular in such a case; the Rabbis nonetheless do so here because of the connecting vav.

Yet the reasoning in our discussion is not made to depend on the fact that this is a case of distant general and particular, but on the fact that there is an intervening word. That seems to be a different rationale. It should also be noted that the dispute concerning distant general and particular, which appears in several places in the Talmud, is not mentioned in our discussion. More than that: the verses under discussion are adjacent, and one follows the other conceptually, so it is difficult to suppose that we would refuse to expound them as general and particular merely because they are “distant,” unless we adopt the understanding of the author of Yefeh Mar’eh. Let us now examine the matter as it appears in Rashi’s commentary on our discussion.

Rashi’s view — first direction

Rashi on the Bekhorot passage, on the words “firstling of a donkey,” explains the problem, according to Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, by noting that the second word “firstling” is superfluous. If the donkey truly belonged to the list above, there would have been no need to repeat the word “firstling,” since the donkey would simply continue the preceding list, in which “firstling” had already been stated. At first glance, Rashi’s explanation of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili does not appear formal. It is not based on the principle that the general and particular are distant, but on a local interpretive consideration.

As stated above, the reason the principle of distant general and particular is apparently not invoked here is that in our case it is difficult to suppose that the second verse actually precedes the first, since it is its natural continuation. If so, Rashi seems to adopt the approach of Tosafot, according to which the basis for the requirement of adjacency is the rule “there is no earlier and later in the Torah.” According to the author of Yefeh Mar’eh, by contrast, there would be room to apply the formal requirement of adjacency even here.

Rashi’s view — second direction

It is also possible to understand Rashi differently, in a way that accords with the approach of the author of Yefeh Mar’eh. Precisely because of the second word “firstling,” the second verse can be read as an independent verse, as Rashi’s explanation suggests. If so, that very consideration creates the possibility that the order between these verses cannot serve as the basis of a derivation, since they count as two separate subjects rather than as one continuous subject.

An example of this is the appearance of these same commands in the section in Numbers cited above. There the opening is not a general declaration about the sanctity of the firstborn, but specifically a command about redemption. If so, it is certainly possible to raise such a possibility in our own portion as well and argue that the order of writing does not match the order of speech. The section on the firstborn in Numbers thus seems to accord with the logic that does not expound general and particular here, namely the view of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili. By contrast, the sections in Exodus, including Exodus 13:12-15, fit the Rabbis better. This also allows us to understand why in the section in Numbers there is no mention of the firstling of a donkey, but only of an unclean animal in general. That section is not focused specifically on the firstling of a donkey; that detail is learned from the derivations in our portion.

According to this, Rashi’s explanation is precisely an application of the requirement that the general and the particular be adjacent. The second occurrence of the “particular” word makes the two verses independent of one another, and therefore the order between them is no longer binding. Consequently, one cannot expound them as general and particular. This may also be implied by Rashi’s wording on the phrase “every male among your livestock,” where he was careful to write that the general and the particular are “together.” This suggests that here too the requirement of adjacency between general and particular is in force. Rashi’s point is that according to the Rabbis, even though we are dealing with two verses, the particular is still adjacent to the general, and therefore one may expound them as general and particular. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili then disagrees precisely on this point: he maintains that the word “firstling” makes the second verse independent, and once that is so, the particular is no longer adjacent to the general, and the derivation cannot be made.

Footnotes