איש, “a man;” (adult) by the Torah’s use of the word איש, I might have been misled into thinking that what follows applies only to male adults, and not to female adults; in order to prevent such an error being made, the Torah adds the word: נפשות, ”persons,” regardless of which gender. (Sifra) יפליא, similar to the word יפריש, “he will set aside;” this is one of the words that have different meanings depending on in which context they appear. In fact, sometimes the same word may mean the opposite in one place from what it means in another place. For instance: in Deuteronomy 17,8 the line: כי יפלא ממך דבר למשפט, means “if a matter involving legal litigation is too difficult for you to decide,” in other words, the meaning of the root of the word is “something that is hidden;” on the other hand, here, it refers to something over and beyond your normal powers of perception. Other examples of words appearing as having a meaning opposite what they do elsewhere is the word דשן, which may mean: surfeit, abundance and it may mean useless leftovers of material that has been burnt. (Exodus 27,3, or being full of sap, (Psalms 92,15.) The author cites three or four more examples, making the same point.

נדר בערכך, the Torah compares vows to the subject of ערכין in our chapter, seeing that both types of free willed undertakings must be honoured without undue delay. (Sifra)

ואם נקבה הוא, “and if she (the subject of the valuation) is a female person;” ולנקבה שלשים שקלים, “and the valuation of a female during the same age group is thirty shekel.” Basically, the monetary value of a female person is roughly half of that of a male. This reflects the fact that the first woman, Eve, had been taken from the body of the first man, so that G-d’s work was only half that of what it had been when He created Adam, the first human being.

ואם מבן ששים שנה ומעלה, “and if the person whose valuation is being “donated to the Temple treasury is above the age of sixty at the time;” whence do we know that if that person at the time of the valuation is exactly sixty years old it is valued as if between twenty and sixty years of age? We derive this from the wording of “sixty or above.” [That word is unnecessary unless it was meant to teach us something new. Ed.] I might think that this rule applies only to the sixtieth year, and not to the fifth, twentieth, etc; we derive the rule for those years by the use of logic when comparing it to the valuation of the five year old. As to the reason why the females’ valuation is so much less that that of males of the same age, this is based on the fact that, generally, males perform heavier physical labor than women. When men age, their ability to perform heavy labor declines at a more rapid pace than that of females of comparable age who do lighter domestic tasks.

כל אשר יתן ממנו, “all that he gives of it, etc.” the Torah employs the masculine mode here although the word בהמה, the subject here, is a beast in the feminine mode. This is not a unique occurrence, as other such examples are to be found in Leviticus 6,8, where the pronoun ממנו, which is masculine, is used in reference to the noun מנחה, which is feminine; two more such anomalies occur in Numbers 32,5 and Genesis 13,6.

טוב ברע או רע בטוב, “(substituting) good for inferior, or inferior for superior. The reason why the Torah had to write both alternatives is because the owner does so as he is not sure which is superior and which is inferior. In the case of the animals proving to be diseased and therefore at least one of them being disqualified as an offering, the donor did not know which of the sicknesses is the more serious one. (B’chor shor)

ואם כל בהמה טמאה, “he places a ritually impure animal before the priest (as a sacrifice) Rashi explains that this cannot be understood literally, as it is too obvious. He therefore understands the word טמאה here as referring to a blemished animal, the owner not knowing if that blemish was serious enough to disqualify said animal. The Torah teaches that such a decision must be left to the officiating priest. If it is a temporary blemish, said animal is fit as a sacrifice as soon as its blemish has disappeared.

ויסף חמישתו, “he shall add a fifth part thereof;” actually 25%, so that when combined, the addition is a fifth of the total. (Talmud tractate Baba Metzia folio 57) The same ratio for penalties applies to houses that are ancestral properties or to ancestrally owned fields. The same ratio applies also when the second tithe has to be redeemed, as the owner cannot transport the original all the way to Jerusalem. The background to this legislation which applies only to the original owner, not someone who has acquired it, is that an original owner may use sanctifying this property by arguing that seeing it is all his anyway, he may thereby avoid leaving those parts of the harvest which the Torah wanted him to leave for the poor and the orphaned. If, however, the owner sanctified something, no part of which was intended by the Torah as a tithe (tax) that he had to give away anyway, Shmuel in the Talmud ruled that he can redeem the whole for an addition of the smallest coin of the realm.(Baba Metzia 57)

ואם מכר את השדה לאיש אחר, “but if he had sold the field to someone else;” the prefix ו in the word ואם is to be understood as if the Torah had written: או, “or.” This is one of many such places where the letter ו is to be understood as: “or.”

והיה השדה בצאתו ביובל, “but when the field goes out in the yovel year;” this verse teaches that the word: שדה in Hebrew is of the masculine gender.

לאשר קנהו אתו, “to the one of whom it had been purchased.” This purchaser had never been in a legal position that enabled him to sanctify the soil of that field. He could only sanctify the fruit that it produced while it had been in his possession. (B’chor shor)

אם שור אם שה, לה' הוא, “be it ox or sheep, it is the Lord’s.” The original firstborn male animal must be offered, no substitute under any circumstances. (Sifra)

אך כל חרם, “however no segregated matter that had been presented to the Temple treasury without any further specification;” Rashi quotes a disagreement between the sages as to who is the recipient of items sanctified without a specific address. According to one opinion such monies or goods become the property of the Temple treasury, meaning that they are to be used for repairs to the Temple, etc.; the other opinion is that such monies, etc. described here as cherem, segregated property, are to be distributed amongst the priests whose property they become. He also interprets the line at the end of our verse כל חרם קדש קדשים הוא, “every segregated matter is most holy,” in that sense.

לא ימכר ולא יגאל, “it must not be sold (for secular use) nor is it subject to being redeemed,” In other words, the monetary value of such segregated items must be given to the priests. According to Rashi, this line also applies to segregated property without a specific address. Verse 29, according to the dissenting opinion the Torah speaks of items segregated by the priests without a specific address. If someone were to say “the value of this animal which had been destined for a sacrifice on the altar, shall be segregated for me,” he meant that instead it should be given to one or more of the other priests. If, however, he had said the same of segregated property of a non priest, he would have to give the value of the item he referred to the Temple treasury. [Rabbi Chavell, in his annotations, questions the premise that if you declare something banned that is not yours has any legal meaning at all, as it is an accepted rule that no one can declare someone else’s property as holy, segregated or changing its status at all. Ed.] According to the Talmud in tractate Erchin, folio 28, if someone, looking at an ox, were to say: “this ox shall become a burnt offering,” the treasury will decide on the market value of such an ox, and the person having made this vow would have to pay for a burnt offering of an ox in accordance with the amount of money the priest judges that he would have been willing to spend. He will have to give that amount to the treasury, although the animal is not being offered as a burnt offering, seeing it had not belonged to the person who made the vow.

כל חרם אשר יחרם מן האדם, “and any condemned person who has been banned from mankind; The Torah speaks of a person who has been sentenced to death by a Jewish court. The somewhat awkward wording of this verse is due to the four different types of death penalty that a Jewish court can impose for different types of capital offences. Our verse applies to any of these kinds of death sentences.

מזרע הארץ, “whether of the seed of the earth;” this wording is intended to include garlic, green mustard, and cress. (Sifra)

מזרע הארץ, “seed that is normally planted in the earth.”

העשירי יהיה קדש, every tenth (animal) shall be declared holy.” If someone while counting, erroneously called the ninth “tenth,” or called the eleventh “tenth,” he is taken by his word and that animal also becomes holy, and the animal is offered as a peace offering. (Sifra)

אלה המצות, “these are the commandments;” no future prophet has the authority to either add to them or to cancel any of them. (Sifra)

אל בני ישראל, “to the Children of Israel.” The word אל is to be understood as in Exodus 6,13: ויצום אל בני ישראל, “He commanded them to the Children of Israel.”Our author explains as a postscript that the reason that this Book is generally called: “Torat Kohanim,” the Torah for the priests, is that it deals mainly with the different laws that apply only to the priests and Levites. He points out that even the Christians called it: Leviticus, “Book of the Levites.’