1,171. An Animal Owned in Partnership

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz, MS Ed., is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of nine books, including The Tzniyus Book, The Taryag Companion, The God Book and Ask Rabbi Jack. His two-volume The Complete Targum Onkelos is available from Kodesh Press as well as on Amazon.

177:14 If a non-Jew owns an animal in partnership with a Jew, or if a Jew receives an animal from a non-Jew to raise with the understanding that they will share the offspring, these animals are exempt from the mitzvah of first-born animals. This is because Exodus 13:2 says, "whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel," meaning that the animal must belong entirely to a Jew. If a non-Jew receives an animal from a Jew to raise with the understanding that they will share the offspring, many authorities feel that this doesn't affect the obligation of first-born animals. If the Jew wants to exempt himself in such a case, he must sell the mother to the non-Jew.

177:15 It's a mitzvah to sell the clean animal to a non-Jew, or to enter into a partnership on it with him before the animal gives birth, in order to exempt the animal from the mitzvah of first-borns. Even though one is preventing the offspring from acquiring the sanctity of first-born animals, this is preferable to risking the possibility that he may come to shear or work the first-born. If one sells the animal to a non-Jew as a fetus, it doesn't help because one is not able to sell something that does not yet exist; rather, he must sell the mother to the non-Jew.

The transfer of ownership should be handled as follows: the Jew agrees with the non-Jew on the price of the cow. He also rents him the place where the cow is standing. The non-Jew gives the Jew a perutah (a small coin) and the Jew says to him, "With this perutah, you acquire the place where the cow is standing; that place acquires the cow for you." Or they may do as follows: after the two parties agree on the price of the cow, the non-Jew gives him a perutah and then pulls the cow onto his property or into an alley; he acquires it through the combination of pulling and money. Even if he later returns the animal to the Jew's domain, it is of no consequence.

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