Pidyon HaBen
| Halakhic texts relating to this article | |
|---|---|
| Torah: |
Exodus 13:12-15 Exodus 22:29 Exodus 34:20 Numbers 3:45 Numbers 8:17 Numbers 18:16 Leviticus 12:2-4 |
| Shulchan Aruch: | Yoreh De'ah 305 |
The pidyon haben (Hebrew: פדיון הבן) or redemption of the first-born son is a mitzvah in Judaism whereby a Jewish firstborn son is "redeemed" by use of silver coins from his birth-state of sanctity, i.e. from being predestined by his firstborn status to serve as a priest.
The redemption is attained by giving five silver coins to a Kohen (a patrilineal descendant of the priestly family of Aaron).
In the Hebrew Bible the laws (see mitzvah) concerning the redemption of the first-born male are referred to in Exodus, Numbers and Leviticus:
Exodus 13:13–16 Every firstborn of man among your sons, you shall redeem. And it will come to pass that if your son asks you in the future, saying, “What is this?” you shall say to him, “With a mighty hand did God take us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And it came to pass when Pharaoh was too stubborn to let us out, God slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt.
The redemption price was set at 5 shekels for each of 273 surplus firstborn Israelites over and above the Levite totals (there was no separate census for firstborn Levites):
Numbers 3:45-47 Take the Levites instead of all the firstborns among the children of Israel . . . You shall take five shekels per head, according to the holy shekel, by which the shekel is twenty gerahs.
The redemption has been seen as part of the "natural evolution from animal sacrifice to a money substitute," and the concept of redemption money occurs also in Akkadian and Ugaritic (Canaan) texts, but not in the same function. Specific references to redemption of the first-born son in Ugaritic texts are disputed.
The Shulkhan Arukh states that when a Jewish woman gives birth to a firstborn male by natural means, then the child must be "redeemed". The father of the child must "redeem" the child from a known Kohen representing the original Temple priesthood, for the sum of five silver Shekels, or equivalent in country's currency (if it has silver currency of the correct weight). The procedure does not apply when the father is a Kohen or Levite, and does not normally apply when the mother is the daughter of one.
...
Wikipedia