Mishnah Commentary: Mishnah 1. mBetsah 1:1

@General observations

According to the rabbis, everything that can be used or eaten on the festival day itself has to be determined beforehand. Otherwise it is considered מוקצה (muqtseh). Muqtseh literally means “set aside” and usually refers to objects that should not be moved or taken or eaten on Shabbat or on the festival day.[1] The prohibition of muqtseh is rooted in the Hebrew Bible’s admonition:

For the rabbis, this verse implies that food has to be prepared in advance of Shabbat and festivals.

It goes without saying that, when discussing the right to eat or not to eat an egg that was hatched on a festival day, the rabbis are not discussing an egg as such, but rather they are arguing about fundamental halakhic ideas. The depiction of an egg that was “born” during a festival is used to introduce the muqtseh category of נולד (nolad), literally “born.” Nolad is any object which is completed on Shabbat or on a festival day. Since it was not in a usable state prior to Shabbat or any given festival, it cannot be said to have been prepared מוכן (mukhan) before the day began. Consequently it is muqtseh.

mBetsah begins with a discussion between Beth Hillel and Beth Shammai.[1] They differ on the question of whether an egg which was “born” on a festival day has to be determined beforehand and is not permitted to be eaten (Beth Hillel) or whether an egg laid on a festival day is part of the designated hen and can therefore be eaten (Beth Shammai). Thus they argue about the question of whether or not the status of this egg depends on the mother hen. Is the egg considered “prepared” because the mother hen was prepared beforehand or is the egg – having already been “born” – now independent of the mother and therefore allowed to be determined by itself.

The Tosefta in contrast does not relate any dispute on this issue. It is permitted to eat the egg, whether it is still inside the body of the hen (and therefore seen as part of the hen) or whether most of it is already outside of the hen and considered to have been “born.” In both cases, so the Tosefta, the egg may be eaten.

@Feminist observations

mBetsah and tYom Tov use the verb נולד (born), although the Tosefta knows the term ביצה מטיל (to lay an egg – tBekh 1:1). The combination of the verb “to be born” together with the laying of an egg appears in rabbinic literature only in the Tractate Betsah.

Without mentioning whether the egg was fertilized or not, the Tosefta text compares an egg to other “children” of animal mothers: the calf and the chick. In addition, the text includes another “silent” comparison. Although the comparison does not actually appear within the text itself, it is obviously implied: The “birth” of an egg is compared to the birth of a child. The unusual usage of the verb “to be born” already indicates the psychological intimacy between the hatching of a chick and the birth of a child. Additionally, much more explicit is the statement in tYT 1:3 which says that the egg is considered fully “born” and independent of its mother once the larger part of it has been laid. Likewise, according to Exod 21:22-23, an unborn fetus is not considered to be a person (נפש) ,but is rather regarded as a part of the mother’s body and not as a separate being until it begins to emerge from the womb. mOhal 7:6 relates that:

Once the child’s head appears, it is considered an autonomous being (נפש) and thus unaffected by the mother’s state. The child may not be harmed then, because it is deemed as fully born, and one life may not be taken to save another.[1] This concept of the embryo being regarded as part of the mother and not as a separate being recurs throughout the Bavli and rabbinic writings (see the commentary on Bavli 1/1. bBetsah 2a-7a).

Although the term “to be born” is introduced as one category of muqtseh, the depiction of a human birth influences the outcome of the discussion. First of all, the unusual usage of the singular (an egg) already points to a single event like the birth of a child. Second, the verb “to be born” compels the rabbis to discuss the question of when an egg is considered to be an egg in exactly the same way as the question of when a fetus is considered to be a person. This demonstrates how important language was in rabbinic thought.

The comparison of an egg to the birth of a human being seems odd in modern times. However, already in the Hebrew Bible the egg was seen as a symbol for the origins of life; it even represented the nations of the world (Isa 10:14; 34:15; 59:10; Job 39:10). This corresponds to the ideas of many of the surrounding cultures in antiquity with which Jews came into contact, where the creation of the world was closely connected with the symbol of an egg. For example, an ancient Egyptian myth tells the story of a giant egg that was created by the god of the earth, Geb, and the goddess of heaven, Nut. From this egg the universe was created. The same is true for the Zoroastrian religion as well as ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Helen and her brothers Castor and Pollux were hatched out of an egg; Astarte, Leda, Aphrodite and Venus gave birth to eggs and Aristophanes described Eros in his play Ορνιθεσ (“The Birds”) as having been born from an egg. The same can be observed in the Christian tradition. In the New Testament the egg symbolizes good (in opposition to the scorpion that symbolizes evil, Luke 11:12). For Augustine the egg even symbolizes the birth and the resurrection of Christ.[2]