For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 37
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Generally speaking, only healthy animals can be slaughtered for kosher food. Thus, a tereifa – an animal that has a terminal condition – cannot be used. Nevertheless, if an animal is merely a mesukenet – it is ill – and its owner wants to slaughter it so that he can benefit from its meat, the Mishna teaches that such sheḥita would be kosher, assuming that the animal shows a sign of vitality when killed.
According to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel this would require movement of the animal’s limbs; according to Rabbi Eliezer, it is enough if blood spurted out at the time of sheḥita.
We explore the concept of pirchus and the legal definition of brain stem death in Halacha and common English law with an eye on the NY controversy.
