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The fourth perek of Masechet Chullin begins on our daf. Entitled beheima ha-mekashe leiled – “an animal that encounters difficulty while giving birth” – its focus is on the laws relating to an unborn fetus in its mother’s womb at the time that the mother is slaughtered.
When an animal that is in labor encounters difficulty in delivery, and its owner suspects that it may die, one option is to slaughter the animal. Such a situation raises many questions – not about the animal itself, which can certainly be slaughtered and eaten – but with regard to its fetus. Generally speaking, we assume that ritual slaughter will permit the entire animal, together with everything inside it, to be eaten Just as all of the animal’s internal organs will become permitted by means of shechita, similarly the fetus, which at the moment of slaughter is part of the animal, will become permitted, as well.
If someone reaches into the mother and cuts off one of the fetus’s limbs and leaves the limb in the womb, when the mother is slaughtered, that limb may be eaten. This is not considered to be eating a limb from a living animal, which is prohibited, because this is a limb of an animal that has not yet come to life. In contrast, if he reaches in and cuts off an organ from the animal itself and leaves it in inside the animal and then slaughters the animal, that limb is prohibited because it is a limb from a living animal. Without this mishnah one might have thought that as long as the limb is inside the animal when the animal is slaughtered, it is permitted. The mishnah provides the general rule which explains this particular halakhah: if the limb is part of the animal’s body it is prohibited, but if it is not part of the animal’s body, because it is a fetus, it is permitted.
We explore the curious case of Ben Pakuah.