Q&A: Redemption of the Firstborn in Yoreh De’ah
Redemption of the Firstborn in Yoreh De’ah
Question
You explained that the foundation of Choshen Mishpat is the right of the other person, whereas Yoreh De’ah is about my obligation. Therefore charity, interest, redemption of the firstborn, and so on appear in Yoreh De’ah and not in Choshen Mishpat.
And yet, Rabbi Shimon Shkop in Sha’arei Yosher 5:2 writes something like this: “Likewise, a monetary obligation and lien is a legal obligation incurred through the mechanisms of acquisition, or one imposed by the Torah, such as damages and redemption of the firstborn, and the like.”
And it is difficult for me why/how the author includes the law of redemption of the firstborn among legal laws, even though apparently (at least according to my intuition, and in light of the fact that it appears in Yoreh De’ah) it belongs to the religious-ritual realm?
Answer
I think redemption of the firstborn appears in Yoreh De’ah because the basis of the obligation belongs to Yoreh De’ah (since it is not created through an act of acquisition). But this obligation also has legal ramifications. Separating terumah also appears in Yoreh De’ah, even though it has legal ramifications toward the priests.
Discussion on Answer
I understand (and also agree with) what you’re writing, but first, it’s a bit trivial (it’s obvious that there are halakhot that have all kinds of ramifications on different planes; charity, interest, tithes, the Sabbatical year, and so on all have legal ramifications in particular and normative ones in general), and second, it’s crystal clear that at least this was not Rabbi Shkop’s intent. He explicitly wrote: “a legal obligation incurred through the mechanisms of acquisition, or one imposed by the Torah … and redemption of the firstborn, and the like.” Clearly he doesn’t mean to argue that redemption of the firstborn has legal ramifications; rather, he is arguing that the foundation of redemption of the firstborn is legal in nature (and that’s what I didn’t understand).
And the second question, in other words and briefly: in your opinion, can there be a purely legal obligation that stems from a command of the Torah? Maybe there’s an example I don’t know.
Exactly the opposite. Either from the laws of acquisition or because the Torah imposed it. Redemption of the firstborn belongs to the second category.
Definitely yes. Rabbi Shkop does not write otherwise, and I certainly didn’t say otherwise either. What he says is that the laws of acquisition precede the Torah, but he does not say that there are no legal obligations that did not precede it. On the contrary, here he says that there are.
The remission of debts in the Sabbatical year, for example, is such a law. The laws of overcharging. All of these were originated by the Torah itself. Even repayment of a debt probably belongs here (though that point is debatable).
EA continued:
I forgot to ask one more question. I emphasized there the words “or one imposed by the Torah.” That means that in his view there is a legal obligation whose source is the Holy One, blessed be He, and not jurists. And I didn’t understand that, since law by definition is human legislation and not divine. True, there are legal laws in the Torah, but they are religious laws that give sanction to an already existing legal norm, not legal laws in and of themselves. But that seemingly contradicts what Rabbi Shkop wrote, doesn’t it?
I answered that above. There are legal ramifications to determinations made by the Torah. Specifically, the prohibition of “do not steal” is a sanction for a meta-halakhic determination. See examples like terumah.