Temurah 11 – Sanctifying A Fetus Of An Animal

Earlier we discussed substituting a sacrifice that is yet unborn – a fetus – for another animal. But can a fetus be sanctified as a sacrifice? Bar Padda holds that it cannot, and Rabbi Yochanan says that it can. They asked Bar Padda about multiple rules of sanctifying a fetus, and he answered that all these rules dealt with sanctifying the value of the fetus, donating money to the needs of the Temple, but not the animal itself. Finally, they challenged him from our previous ruling about substituting a fetus which was a sacrifice. In this case he answered that we are dealing with their mother who already was a sacrifice, thus the offspring became sacrifice automatically.

What happens when one sanctifies a limb of a live animal as a sacrifice? If this limb is so important that the animal could not survive without it, all agree that the sanctification spreads throughout  the body of the animal. If the animal can survive, some say that the sanctification still spreads, while others say that it doesn't. They asked about a leg of a bird, is it the same? On the one hand, a bird is not an animal, so the law may be different, but on the other hand, it is also a sacrifice? – and did not find an answer.

Art: Adriaen van Utrecht - Still-Life with Birds on a Ring