If an animal is a Peter Chamor (first born donkey), you’re not allowed to benefit from it before it’s redeemed. Even if it’s a Safek de’oraita lechumra, even if it’s a Safek (a doubt) whether it’s a Peter Chamor, you’re not allowed to benefit from it because we have a Safek de’oraita lechumra. We treat this case in terms of biblical doubt with a strict halakha (Jewish law).
It will talk about where there are two more donkeys that were born together and we don't know which one of them was born first. We don’t know which one is the Peter Chamor. We’ll talk about a donkey that gives birth to twins in the first case. Somebody has a donkey that hasn’t given birth yet, and now it gives birth to two males, and he doesn’t know which one was born first. You give one lamb to the Kohen (priest) to redeem the firstborn donkey. The idea of redeeming the Peter Chamor applies even when the owner doesn’t know which donkey is the Peter Chamor. We know with certainty that one of these two is the Peter Chamor, is the firstborn. So what the owner does is, he’s obligated to redeem the Peter Chamor with a lamb and give that lamb to a Kohen.
But if the donkey hadn’t previously given birth and then had twins, one male and one female, and he doesn’t know which one was born first, he designates one lamb and keeps it for himself. At that point, he doesn’t have to give it to the Kohen. We’re dealing with a Safek case. If the female donkey was born first, there’s no issue of the Peter Chamor whatsoever. At the same time, if the male was born first, he’s obligated to redeem it with a lamb. So he has to go through with the redemption of the lamb in the case that the male was born first. But once he does that, there’s no obligation to give it over to the Kohen. He did the redemption, and therefore the donkey becomes permitted for him to benefit from. But he doesn’t have to hand it over to the Kohen, because you only have to hand it over to the Kohen when there’s definite certainty that it’s the Kohen’s property.
We have the idea that the burden of proof is on the one who wants to take the money from somebody else. Right now, the possession is in the hands of the Kohen. Right now, the possession is in the hands of the Kohen. And right now, the possession is in the hands of this individual who did the Peter Chamor. So in order for the Kohen to prove that it’s really his, he has to bring proof. We’re dealing with a Safek, so the individual isn’t obligated to give the lamb to the Kohen.
Somebody has two female donkeys that haven’t given birth yet, and they both give birth to two males, one male each. But we don’t know which donkey gave birth to which offspring. He has to give two lambs to the Kohen. In both events, both of these baby males that were born are automatically firstborns.
The donkeys here, two of them that had never given birth before, each gave birth to one baby. One of them was a male donkey; the other one was a female donkey. Or, between the two of them, they gave birth to two males and one female. One donkey gave birth to one offspring, and the other donkey gave birth to two offspring. We don’t know which offspring belongs to which mother, and we don’t know the order of the births. So we don’t even know if there’s one Bechor (firstborn) or two Bechor in this case. Maybe you have a situation where you have two Bechor. Let’s go with that second case: one of them gave birth to one male, and the other one gave birth to a male and then a female. So it’s possible you have two Bechor in this scenario. But it’s also possible that you have one Bechor. Maybe one of the donkeys gave birth to a Bechor male, and the other one gave birth to a Bechor male and then the female. So you don’t really know what’s happening here, but you definitely know that there’s one definite firstborn. In the second case, it’s possible that there are two.
So we say that you give one lamb to the Kohen. Again, in both of these cases, there was definitely one male firstborn. In the second case, where there were two males and one female born, the second male is possibly the firstborn, because maybe the mother gave birth to the male. And the other mother, who had already given birth to a previous male, maybe also gave birth to the male and then the female. So we don’t know what’s happening over here. But maybe, at the same time, the female was born first. So the owner isn’t obligated to give the Kohen the second lamb. But, like the previous case of the Mishnah we had earlier, he still has to be Mafrish (set aside). He still has to do the redemption, but he gets to keep it. He’s allowed to benefit from it. He doesn’t have to hand it over to the Kohen.
Together, you have two newborn females and a male as well. Or they gave birth to two males and two females. We don’t know which offspring was born to which mother or the order of the births. So it’s possible that you have two males and then two females. It’s possible you have two cases of a Bechor. Or it’s possible that you have no cases of a Bechor. Let’s say both of these donkeys gave birth to a female first, and then the male. Or maybe one and one. You have every possible permutation in this scenario. We say there’s nothing for the Kohen. It’s possible that each donkey, like we said, gave birth to the female first. Therefore, the owner isn’t obligated to hand over the redemption lambs to the Kohen. But likewise over here, since it’s possible that the male donkey in both cases, from both mothers, was the firstborn, the owner is obligated to designate one each as a redemption for each of the males that were born. But he doesn’t have to hand it off to the Kohen.