“קַדֶּשׁ־לִ֨י כָל־בְּכ֜וֹר פֶּ֤טֶר כָּל־רֶ֙חֶם֙ בִּבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בָּאָדָ֖ם וּבַבְּהֵמָ֑ה לִ֖י הֽוּא׃

“sanctify to Me every first-born; man and beast, the first issue of every womb among the Israelites is Mine.”” 

One of the halchos Of pidyon haben is that only the natural firstborn of the mother is sanctified as bachor. If the child is the first for the father but not the mother of if he is delivered as a c- section he is not a bechor. 

Think back to what the reason why we have a pidyon haben… because it remained is that Hashem skipped over the Jewish firstborn while he was killing the Egyptian firstborn. We learn from the Gemara that Hashem specifically killed all the firstborn of the father and of the mother or any other type of firstborn. If so then shouldn’t the mitzvah of bechor also extend to both the firstborn for the mother and the father ?!

The avnei shoham offsets a solution using an analogy to the mitzvah of bikirim  giving over the first fruits. Why do we bring an offering of the first fruits ?!... it’s because of the pasuk in devarim  that says “ and you may say in your heart “my power and the strength of my hand created all this wealth” then you shall remember Hashem for he is the one that gives you the power to create wealth”

Any person can easily fall into the trap of thinking that everything comes to him naturally. He planted the seed. He took care of it. The tree grew. It gave him fruit. He could think it’s just natural. There’s no involvement form Hashem. But when we bring the first fruits to the beis hamikdash we are enemies that the most natural process still requires the miraculous intervention of Hashem. That we are always dependent on the shechinah no matter how naturally everything seems to be coming our way. 

This is the main lesson I have learnt from the second shar of chavos halevavos on bechina ( seeing Hashem through nature ) it explained how we now a days live our lives out of habit. Since we grew up with the sun always shining and there always being a sky full of stars we just thought that to be natural and nothing else. When’s the last time anyone ever looked up at the sky and said “מָֽה־רַבּ֬וּ מַעֲשֶׂ֨יךָ ׀ יְֽהוָ֗ה כֻּ֭לָּם בְּחָכְמָ֣ה עָשִׂ֑יתָ מָלְאָ֥ה הָ֝אָ֗רֶץ קִנְיָנֶֽךָ׃

How many are the things You have made, O LORD;  You have made them all with wisdom;  the earth is full of Your creations.” This is our problem we take nature for granted… the process of chavos halvevos is undoing all the habit that we’ve built up in our lives to the point when we look at nature or maybe even anything we will be able to say

 מָֽה־רַבּ֬וּ מַעֲשֶׂ֨יךָ ׀ יְֽהוָ֗ה כֻּ֭לָּםָ֝…. that no matter how natural you think everything is there is The is nothing but Hashem. 

The mitzvah Of bechor has a very similar message to this. When we have a firstborn child we may easily fall into the same trap of naturality. When petiole have all sorts of trouble having a child they turn to Hashem and daven. When the child is finally Bein they know without a doubt it is a priceless gift from Hashem. But when things go normally they may not realize that the child is just as great a gift from Hashem. People get married have a child and they think…. what could be more normal more natural ?... they forget that the owe Hashem an enormous dept of gratitude. This is the role of the mitzvah of bechor. It reminds us that Hashem spread a protective wind over all the firstborn Jewish children in mitzraim… 

The torah however chooses to give us this reminder only when everything goes normally and naturally because that is when we are most likely to forget that we to thank Hashem. We are less likely to make this mistake when things do not go our way. Because we should know with all our heart that anything that does not go our way is directly from Hashem and is what’s best for you… therefore the torah only makes us have a pidyon heben  because Hashem knew that when things are to normal we will forget to thank him. This is why we do the mitzvah of a bachor and bikirum. This is also the main reasons why Hashem made nature. Just so we can look at it and only think מָֽה־רַבּ֬וּ מַעֲשֶׂ֨יךָ ׀ יְֽהוָ֗ה כֻּ֭לָּםָ֝