Dear Rabbi Kornfeld,
We learned in a baraita:
An Israelite who had ten questionable first born male donkeys .... takes ten lambs [or kids] to redeem the donkeys, keeps them, and takes tithe from them - and they are his.
This conforms with a traching of Rav Nahman.
Then the gemara teaches another, more complicated case, but the instruction is the same: takes te lambs to redeem the donkeys, keeps them, and takes tithe from them.
Am I right that this instruction relates to ten or more, in which he has 10 lambs [or kids], one of which will become Kadosh as Maaser, and the others are hulin, but -
if he has less than 10 there have no ruling, because of another problem:
Each of the lambs [or kids] is of doubtful status [who is the rightfull owner, and it remains with the owner only because of Hamotsi MaHavero Alav HaRaaya], like D'mai, and just as we do not take Matnot Aniyim from D'mai for regular Tevel, and we surely never intentionally mix Tevel with D'mai - so we cannot mix these lambs [or kids] with others in the process of taking Maaser.
Of course if there are more than ten - the same procedure is valid. However if there is only one - isn't he exempt of Maaser - and even if the owner has another 9 lambs [or kids] he does NOT add this one with the others, and is not liable at all for Maaser?
If we were to take the opposite view - then why did the braita say "ten"? One would have the same result! The remark at the end of Tosafoth [DH SHEHAYU] I do not understand: why is ten more of a revuta than two? Contrarily, two is more of a revuta, because if less than ten joined in the determining of the Maaser with other lambs, there is no reason to have a separate process with these redeeeming lambs even if there atre ten!
Shabbat Shalom,
Yeshayahu HaKohen Hollander
You are correct that the case is only when he has ten Sefeikos, for he cannot mix a Safek with a Vadai, lest the Safek come out as the tenth, resulting in an animal that is Patur serving to exempt an animal that is Chayav. However, if he has only ten in total, then there is no problem, because nine alone are exempt anyway, and thus there will be no problem if the tenth that comes out is Chayav or if the tenth that comes out is Patur.
When one has eleven Sefeikos, there is an additional problem that perhaps there are ten which are Chayav and one which is not, and the tenth that comes out will be the one that is Patur. Therefore, one may not group all eleven together, unless the Safek is one Safek (like a Safek Din) in which we know that they are all the same status.
Tosfos is bothered by another question: why does he need to bring ten at all, since it is permitted to re-use the Seh? He can re-use the Seh even for ten! And even according to Rashi who says the Seh may not be re-used unless it was given to the Kohen, in the case in which a person's grandfather, a Kohen, inherited Pitrei Chamor from his grandfather, a Yisrael -- in which case although they belong to a Kohen they still need Pidyon -- why does the Gemara say that in a case of ten sheep, one may redeem all ten with one? To this Tosfos answers that the Gemara gives a case in which he used ten in order to teach us the Chidush that they need Ma'aser separated from them.
D. Zupnik