For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 134
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Our Daf cites Rabbi Shimon’s view that a tereifah is exempt from reishit ha-gez — the obligation to give the first shearing of one’s sheep to a kohen:
As it was taught Rabbi Shimon exempts tereifot from reishit ha-gez… What is Rabbi Shimon’s reason? He derives “flock” from “flock” in connection with tithing: just as with animal tithes a tereifah is excluded, so too with reishit ha-gez a tereifah is excluded. And how do we know it there? Because it is written, “Whatever passes beneath the staff” — excluding a tereifah, which does not pass.
If an animal is alive, one cannot determine with absolute certainty that it is not a tereifah. According to most of the Rishonim, therefore, the basis for presuming that it is kosher is the principle of rov — majority. This emerges explicitly from the Gemara in Chullin 11a, which states that the presumption that an animal is not a tereifah is itself one of the sources for the principle that we follow the majority.
We explore this ruling.