Chullin, Chapter 11, Mishnah 2. Our chapter is devoted to reishit hagez, the first of the fleece that an owner of sheep gives to the kohen. At the close of the previous mishnah we learned that this mitzvah takes effect only when a substantial number of sheep are being sheared together. That left an obvious question hanging in the air, and this mishnah picks it up: what counts as a substantial number?
How many sheep make a flock?
"Vechama hu merubeh?" What is the smallest flock that already carries an obligation of reishit hagez?
"Beit Shammai omrim," the school of Shammai rules, "shetei rechelot," a mere pair of ewes suffices. Their support comes from a verse in Yeshaya describing a future time: "Yechayeh ish eglat bakar," a person will keep alive a heifer of the herd, "ushtei tzon," along with two of the flock. Observe that the navi is prepared to apply the word tzon to nothing more than a duo of animals. And if two qualify as a tzon there, then the tzon of which the Torah says that its first shearing belongs to the kohen likewise begins at two.
"Uveit Hillel omrim, chamesh." Beit Hillel set the threshold at five. Five sheep, and not fewer, are what the Torah regards as a flock large enough to generate this obligation. Their verse comes from Shmuel Alef: "chamesh tzon asuyot," five prepared sheep. From here we learn that five animals are what render their owner obligated, and one who shears fewer than five is not bound by reishit hagez.
Five sheep, but how much wool from each?
The two opinions that follow both accept Beit Hillel's minimum of five. What they argue about is whether each of those five must yield a certain quantity of wool.
"Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas omer," and his position runs like this: "chamesh rechelot gozezot," five ewes whose shearing yields, "maneh maneh ufras," one and a half maneh from each of them, "chayavot bereishit hagez," and those are the ones bound by the gift to the kohen. Were even a single animal of the five to produce less than that weight, none of the fleece becomes obligated, since so slight a yield does not earn the name gez, the fleece of an animal. Rabbi Dosa thus sets two conditions: no fewer than five animals, and no less than one and a half maneh from every one of them.
"Vachachamim omrim," the Chachamim rule otherwise: "chamesh rechelot gozezot kol shehen," five ewes, however little wool comes off them. Once the count of five is met, any quantity at all is drawn into the obligation of reishit hagez. No minimum weight per animal is demanded.
How much goes to each kohen?
Now picture an owner who has met the threshold, both in the number of sheep and in the wool they produced, and who wishes to distribute the gift among several kohanim rather than to one. How much must each kohen receive?
"Vechama notnin lo? Mishkal chamesh sela'im biYehuda, shehem eser sela'im baGalil, meluban velo tzo'i." Each kohen receives the weight of five sela by the standard of Yehuda, which is the equivalent of ten sela in the Galil. And the wool must be "meluban velo tzo'i," cleaned and not filthy. Soiled wool does not count toward the five sela; the owner must hand over an amount that will still weigh the minimum once it has been fully cleansed of every bit of dirt and debris clinging to it.
Why should the figure be five sela? "Kedei la'asot mimenu beged katan," so that there be material for fashioning one small garment, the kind a kohen wears while serving in the Beit Hamikdash. The mishnah grounds this in the Torah's own language: "titen lo," you are to give it to him, "sheyehe bo kedei matanah," and the quantity must amount to a genuine present. To call something a gift implies that the recipient can actually make use of it. Among the bigdei kehunah the smallest item is the avnet, the sash, and five sela of wool is exactly what it takes to produce one. So an owner who spreads his reishit hagez among several kohanim must make certain that no one's portion falls beneath that measure.
When the owner alters the wool first
"Lo hispik liten lo," if the owner did not get around to handing the kohen his share, "ad shetzeva'o," and in the interim he dyed the whole fleece, "patur," he is released. Dyeing works a change in the material, and by that change he has taken title to every bit of it, so nothing is owed any longer. It should be stated openly that he has behaved badly. He is in practice robbing the kohanim, seizing what was theirs by reworking the wool into his own property. Still, the legal outcome is that the wool now belongs to him and he need not give it up.
"Libeno velo tzeva'o, chayav." If he only cleaned the wool and did not dye it, he remains obligated to give reishit hagez, because laundering is not a meaningful transformation and does not serve as an act of acquisition.
Buying the fleece without buying the sheep
The mishnah turns to one who purchased wool while it was still on someone else's animals, without buying the animals themselves.
"Halokei'ach gez tzono shel nochri, patur mireishit hagez." A person who acquires the fleece of a gentile's flock while it is still growing on the animals, and afterward shears it, bears no obligation. This mitzvah falls upon whoever possesses the flock itself; a man whose title extends only to wool is not the party the Torah is addressing.
"Halokei'ach gez tzono shel chavero," one who bought the fleece of a fellow Jew's flock while attached and then sheared it: here the ruling depends on what the seller did.
"Im shiyer hamocheir, hamocheir chayav." Should the seller have kept back part of the wool instead of selling every bit of it, the duty rests on him, and not merely with respect to what stayed in his hands. He must present reishit hagez covering the fleece of those animals in its entirety, since we work with the assumption that the kohen's portion lay within the wool he reserved for himself. He shears what he retained and delivers the required measure to the kohen.
"Lo shiyer," where the seller held nothing back, "halokei'ach chayav," the purchaser bears the duty, for the kohen's portion must now be somewhere inside the wool that changed hands. The flock belonged to a Jew, so the mitzvah is in force, and we presume that together with the fleece the buyer took possession of the share designated for the kohanim. Since he acquired the fleece down to the last strand and left nothing over, his purchase inevitably included whatever was due as reishit hagez.
Two distinct lots
We have just seen that when a seller keeps some wool back, he shoulders the obligation for the whole fleece, even for the part he no longer owns. The mishnah now records an exception.
"Hayu lo shenei minim," suppose an owner had two varieties in his flock, "shechufot ulvanot," some dusky gray, some white. "Machar lo shechufot," he sold off the fleece of the gray animals, "aval lo levanot," while retaining that of the white ones. Or consider the parallel case, "zecharim aval lo nekeivot," where the flock contained rams and ewes and only the fleece of the rams was sold. In such circumstances, "zeh notein le'atzmo," this party discharges reishit hagez from his own wool, "vezeh notein le'atzmo," and the other party does the same from his.
Each one gives from his own portion. Because the sale was drawn along the line of a category, selling one class of wool and retaining another, only that class is under consideration in the sale. Whatever falls within your category is yours to give; whatever falls outside it is in the hands of the other party, seller or buyer, and he gives for it. When the wool is sorted into categories and only one category changes hands, that category is assessed on its own. The gray and the white, the males and the females, are two mutually exclusive lots, and each lot carries its own obligation of reishit hagez. We do not treat the fleece as a single mass whose kohen's share can be assumed to have gone entirely to the seller or entirely to the buyer; here it is genuinely divided in two.