For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 141
To download, click/tap here: PDF
What if someone did not fulfill the commandment of shilu’aḥ ha-ken?
The Mishna on our daf teaches that if someone took the mother bird together with her young, Rabbi Yehuda says that he has transgressed a negative commandment from the Torah and he is liable to receive lashes, but he need not now let her go. The Sages disagree, arguing that he must let her go, but he does not incur lashes. They conclude with the general rule that leads them to this ruling – one does not receive lashes for the transgression of any negative precept which can be remedied by the subsequent fulfillment of a positive commandment.
The Gemara then relates the following story:
A man once clipped the wings of the mother bird before letting it go; let it go and then caught it again. Rav Yehuda had him flogged and ordered him: ‘Go, keep it until it grows its wing feathers again and then let it go.’
The problem with this story is that Rav Yehuda’s ruling does not seem to follow either of the two opinions in the Mishna.
We explore the metaphor of the mother bird hovering over the nest used in the Zohar as mother Schechina/Rachel.