Birth, Seminal Emission and Conversion: Gender, Self-Control and Identity in bBekhorot Moshe Lavee Tractate Bekhorot discusses the laws of sanctification of the firstborn. As such it is a fascinating site for gender-oriented readings of rabbinic literature. First, the laws of the firstborn apply to men and not to women among people, to males and not to females among animals, and hence serve as another cultural marker of preference of men over women. Second, by discussing the unique status granted to a person or animal by the nature of his birth, the tractate presents a hierarchy between the firstborn and following offspring. As in many other cases, different hierarchical divisions of people or animals intersect. One division sheds light on the other, symbolizes it or semantically merges with it. The pref- erence of the firstborn, the social preferences of men over women as well as the dichotomy of Israel versus the nations are frequently linked in the tractate. Last, the theme of the firstborn provokes questions related to the physical phenom- ena of conception, pregnancy and birth; as such they present another arena that reveals perceptions of women, and functions in establishing engendered power relations: the human body. 1 One of the goals of a feminist commentary to Tractate Bekhorot is to reveal the role of the laws of the firstborn in establishing cultural constructs and power relations. In this paper I wish to establish the foundations of such a reading against the argument for gender neutrality of the halakhic language. Before pre- senting the argument and refuting it, some guidance for reading this paper is necessary. The structure of my discussion here is inspired by the literary model of the talmudic sugya in two ways. First, the article is presented as a dialectical debate, presenting various considerations for and against the claim for gender neutrality of the halakhic language. Second, since the methodological question serves as an organization principle here, I will go beyond the limits of themes discussed in Tractate Bekhorot and present related issues, which are helpful for the discussion. Our point of departure is one baraita in the tractate that presents the defini- tive moment in which birth-related laws are regarded as valid, illustrated by the hypothetical case of conversion to Judaism during birth. This baraita will lead us to a survey of similar tannaitic legislation which demonstrates a formal casuistic 1 See FONROBERT, “The Human Body in Rabbinic Legal Discourse, ” 270–294.