The Talmud and speech acts

LAST WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: THE RULES OF THE SWAP. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ drawing a distinction between what is permitted and what is legal.

But what if you consecrate one animal to the priests, and then decide you would rather keep it and give up a different animal in its stead? Maybe you want to keep a big, valuable sheep for yourself and give the priest a skinny one; or maybe the reverse is true, you want to make sure God gets the best animal possible. Is this kind of substitution allowed? Or is consecration a permanent state, so that once a specific animal is designated, it cannot be replaced by a different animal, even if the two are equivalent?

This turns out to be a more complicated question than it might seem, because the Torah seems to contradict itself. ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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