We have been using the Hebrew word bekhor to describe a firstborn male, human or animal, that is subject to special rules. The Torah has another, synonymous term: peter rechem, one that opens the womb (see Exodus 13:2, 13:12, 13:15 and 34:19). This language is significant to the rabbis. To be a bekhor, it is not enough to simply be male and have no older siblings. Being a bekhor also means “opening” one’s mother’s womb — the meaning of which will soon become clear.
A mishnah on today’s daf states:
Regarding an animal is born by caesarean section and the offspring that follows it:
Rabbi Tarfon says: Both of them must graze until they become unfit, and they may be eaten in their blemished state by their owner.
Rabbi Akiva says: Neither of them is firstborn; the first because it is not the one that opens the womb and the second because the other one preceded it.
When an animal (or human) is born by caesarean section, it does not pass through the vaginal canal, which is the “entrance” to the womb. Therefore, this offspring does not, to rabbinic thinking, “open” the womb. One could argue that, if vaginal, the next birth would in fact open the womb. That is why the status of both animals is in question.
For Rabbi Akiva, both the eldest male born by caesarian and his younger brother born vaginally are ordinary offspring. They are not bekhorot in any sense, and Rabbi Akiva exempts them from all obligations of the firstborn. Rabbi Tarfon agrees that they are not “fully” firstborns and do not have to be given to a priest, but suggests that they acquire “enough” firstborn status that they cannot be treated as ordinary offspring. Instead, they must be put to pasture until they develop blemishes that make them ineligible to be gifted to the priesthood. After that, he says, they can be slaughtered and eaten.
The mishnah’s term for caesarean birth is yotzei dofen, literally “emerging from the wall” (rather than “door”) of the mother’s uterus. Artifacts from ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese and other cultures testify to the fact that such births, though rare, were a part of the ancient world. They were a last resort as cesarean births were far more dangerous than they are today. Many were sadly performed to remove a living offspring from a deceased mother.
In ancient times a yotzei dofen, then, was a departure from the norm. In modern Hebrew, the meaning of the term yotzei dofen is detached from the literal meaning of the phrase, but not the context in which it was used. Today, yotzei dofen means simply “exception” — of any sort. But in Modern Hebrew that term no longer refers to a caesarian birth — which, after all, is now far less rare. The mishnaic term for caesarean has been replaced with the Modern Hebrew term nituach keisari (“caesarian surgery”), a usage that is more in line with the global medical community than it is with the ancient rabbinic one.
Read all of Bekhorot 19 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on October 7, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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Source: My Jewish Learning
