For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 39
To download, click/tap here: PDF
In the context of the disagreement between the Sages and Rabbi Eliezer that we learned about on yesterday’s daf, the Gemara brings a baraita that teaches that if someone slaughters an animal with the intention of sprinkling its blood for idolatry or sacrifice its fats to an idol, that animal is forbidden; it is as if one ate “sacrifices of the dead.”
If it was slaughtered without any particular plans and afterwards the decision was made to sprinkle its blood for idolatry or sacrifice its fats to an idol – this case occurred in the city of Caesarea, and the Sages refused to rule one way or another.
We explore the unique city and its hosting Jewish and Chritian neighbors and the way they both claimed the biblical text for their own theologies yet using remarkably similar hermeneutical techniques.