For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 16
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Our daf unfolds along a deceptively technical path. Beginning with the question of whether ritual slaughter may be effected through a knife attached to a turning wheel, the discussion modulates with characteristic suddenness from the mechanics of force to the metaphysics of biblical exegesis. Rav sits behind Rabbi Chiyya, who sits before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi—the very seating arrangement encoding a transmission of knowledge across three generations of the rabbinic academy—and Rebbe begins to expound. From where, he asks, do we derive that ritual slaughter must be performed with a detached blade? And he answers from the verse: "And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son" (Genesis 22:10).