פדיון הבן
Redemption of firstborn son

QUESTION: A wedding meal follows the chupah, and a meal at a brit follows the brit, so why is a pidyon haben usually done in the middle of the meal?

ANSWER: There are two reasons given for the requirement of redeeming the firstborn.

1) The Torah states, “For every firstborn is Mine: On the day I struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified every firstborn in Israel for Myself” (Bamidbar 3:13).

2) The brothers sold Rachel’s firstborn, Yosef, for twenty pieces of silver (Bereishit 37:28), which was equivalent to fivesela’im. Therefore, our firstborn must be redeemed for that amount as an atonement for the misdeeds of our ancestors (Shekalim 2:3).

Yosef’s brothers were pasturing Yaakov’s flock, and Yaakov sent Yosef to them. When they saw him from afar, they conspired against him to kill him. Upon Reuven’s request to shed no blood, they threw him into a pit. The Torah relates that they sat down to eat and then noticed a caravan of Ishmaelites enroute to Egypt. Yehudah advised selling him, they agreed, and Yosef was sold for twenty pieces of silver (Bereishit 37:13-28).

On the tenth of Nissan, prior to the Jews’ departure from Egypt, Hashem instructed the Jews to prepare a lamb to be slaughtered on the afternoon of the fourteenth and eaten at night. Hashem also told the Jews, “I shall go through Egypt on this night, and I shall strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt” (Shemot 12:3-12).

Since the redeeming of the firstborn is connected with two events which took place while the Jews were in the midst of a meal, the pidyon haben is customarily held after the assembled sit down to the meal.

(לקוטי פינחס סי' ש"ה אות נ"ג, מר' פינחס זלמן הכהן ע"ה שווארץ)