A Creation Sui Generis: What are the Implications for Thinking about Categories?

In the second chapter of Tosefta Bikkurim, in contrast with the majority opinion that attempts to classify them, R. Yose declares both the koy and the androgynus – “A Creation Sui Generis” (בריה בפני עצמה or בריה לעצמו). But, in contrast with the rest of the chapter that clearly lays out the halakhic implications of its categorization of the androgynus and the koy, it remains unclear in this chapter just what the halakhic (and other?) implications of R. Yose’s classification might be. For this lecture, I am interested in exploring the few texts where this appellation is employed by later layers (both rabbinic period and medieval) and applied to specific halakhic scenarios. I am interested first of all in how the category is understood as a practical working category. Following that, however, I wish to think about whether we can draw any greater conclusions from the particular applications of the appellation. In short, I wish to think through what it means for the rabbis, and then for us, to entertain the notion of a “category” that seems to be outside of the bounds of halakhah, and of categorization as a whole.