REDEMPTION OF THE FIRSTBORN According to the Torah, firstborn males originally carried a special sanctity. Their lives spared during the last of the ten plagues, the firstborns were to become God’s special ministers, who would dedicate themselves to His service. (The supreme biblical example is Samuel, dedicated to God by his mother Hannah, I Sam. 1:11.) After the sin of the golden calf, that responsibility was transferred to the Levites, the only tribe that did not take part in the sin (Num. 3:11–13). In memory of the earlier sanctity, however, the Torah prescribes a ceremony of redemption, in which the father of the child makes a monetary offering to a Kohen, symbolically exchanging it for his son. The substance of the ceremony has not changed since biblical times, though its wording is first mentioned in the Talmud.

מַאי בָּעִית טְפֵי Which do you prefer: A notional question. In fact, the father has no choice but to redeem the child. The question is asked to ensure that the father understands the nature of the ceremony. The present text is in Aramaic, but it can be said in any language.