Chullin 61: לֹא נֶאֱמַר פֵּירוּשָׁן מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה אֶלָּא מִדִּבְרֵי סוֹפְרִים

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When the Torah turns to the classification of permitted creatures, it does not legislate uniformly. For quadrupeds and for aquatic life it supplies positive, observable criteria—the split hoof and the chewing of the cud, the fin and the scale—by which any competent observer may adjudicate a species never before encountered. For birds it does something altogether different: it supplies no criteria at all, only a list of twenty-four forbidden names.

Abaye’s celebrated observation that: לֹא נֶאֱמַר פֵּירוּשָׁן מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה אֶלָּא מִדִּבְרֵי סוֹפְרִים the avian signs were “not stated by the Torah but by the Sages” is read here not as a marginal technical remark but as a self-disclosure of the rabbinic system: an admission that, where Scripture withholds a definition, the chain of mesorah must itself constitute the law rather than merely describe it.

We follow this principle through the marsh-hen narrative, the contrasting case of fish, the medieval codification of avian mesorah by Rashi and Maimonides, its hardening in the Shulchan Arukh, the generalizing principle of the Chatam Sofer, and the modern test cases of the turkey and the Muscovy duck.

Chullin 60: מִכָּאן תְּשׁוּבָה לָאוֹמֵר אֵין תּוֹרָה מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם

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Our daf is the most important reflection on aggadic themes in the masechtah.

It begins with yesterday’s challenges given to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya from the Roman Emperor.  When he wishes to see the Lord, Rabbi Yehoshua offers to look at the sun, which is impossible.  That much more so to look at the master of the sun, he explains.

The Gemara then considers differences between bulls and donkeys.  It also considers the prohibition against mixing species when referring to grass, which is already mixed.

The daf then discusses Adam harishon and the bull he offered with one horn.

We are told a story about the sun and the moon where Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi  sees the moon in competition with the sun, offering that one should be less bright - but not the moon!  Rabbi Shimon explains that the moon continues to beg for G-d's mercy and to allow it to be brighter.  The moon understands that though people count our months with the moon, it is written in Genesis that we use the sun to count.  G-d eventually convinces the moon that other creatures who are 'the lesser' are still great.

We explore these themes with reverence and a midrasnhic eye.

Chullin 59: כְּאַרְיָא דְּבֵי עִילַּאי מְתִיל

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The Gemara on our daf describes a lion of mythical proportions – the lion of Be-Ilai’i – and continues by relating the following story.

The Emperor once said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah, ‘Your God is likened to a lion, for it is written:

‘The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?’ (Amos 3:8). But what is the greatness of this? A horseman can kill the lion’! He replied: ‘He has not been likened to the ordinary lion, but to the lion of Be-Ilai’i!’ ‘I desire’, said the Emperor, ‘that you show it to me’.

We explore the figure of ben Chananya.

Chullin 58: שַׁב שְׁנֵי אִימְּרַאי בָּקְתָּא מִבָּקָא

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The Gemara relates that people say that a mosquito can carry iron that is equal to the weight of sixty Maneh (one Maneh is equal to a hundred silver coins) on its stinger. RASHI explains that this means that its bite is very effective.

Why does the Gemara emphasize the painfulness of the bite of a mosquito in this way?

The MAHARSHA explains that the mosquito, which damages with its mouth, symbolizes a person who slanders others with his mouth by speaking Lashon ha'Ra. Such a person should not think that his words can do no harm, but rather he should know that his words can be extremely harmful.

We may apply this approach to explain the other incident involving mosquitoes recorded in the Gemara. The Gemara relates that a mosquito's wife quarrels with her husband for seven years when she discovers that he found a fat person and sucked the person's blood without telling her.

This symbolizes that Lashon ha'Ra harms even the one who speaks it. One who speaks Lashon ha'Ra believes that he suffers nothing, and that it is only the subject of his Lashon ha'Ra who suffers. The truth is that Lashon ha'Ra harms even the person who speaks it (see Erchin 16b). In the case of the mosquito, when the other mosquito hears that this mosquito bit (i.e. spoke Lashon ha'Ra) without informing her, she no longer wants to be his friend. (M. Kornfeld)

We explore the role of the mosquito as a metaphor as well as its place in literature.

Chullin 57: לֵךְ אֶל נְמָלָה עָצֵל

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The Gemara relates that Rebbi Shimon ben Chalafta wanted to see if Shlomo ha'Melech was correct when he stated that ants have no rulers (Mishlei 6:7).

How could Rebbi Shimon ben Chalafta have doubted the words of Shlomo ha'Melech? The Gemara in Bava Basra (75a) says that a person who doubts the statements made by the Torah scholars of the generation is a "scoffer" who deserves to be punished. (TOSFOS DH Eizil)

Rebbi Shimon ben Chalafta certainly trusted Shlomo's statement. He wanted to show others how Shlomo ha'Melech knew that ants have no kings.

However the question is not merely exegetical. It opens onto one of the most persistent problems in Jewish thought: the relation between knowledge that is received through revelation and tradition and knowledge that is won through observation and inference.

The principal medieval and early-modern commentators—Tosafot, the Maharsha, and, in his commentary upon Kings, the Malbim—took up the difficulty and produced answers so divergent that they amount to competing epistemologies of Torah which we explore, the relative weight of scientific epistemology vs the truths of tradition.

Chullin 56: אֲוָוזֵי דִּידַן כְּעוֹף שֶׁל מַיִם דָּמְיָין

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Having clarified issues regarding animals that are considered treifah, i.e. a terminal condition that will lead to the animal’s imminent death, the Mishnayot on our daf turn their attention to conditions that would render kosher birds as tereifot. In truth, as Levi points out in a baraita that appears in the Gemara, most of the laws of tereifot in birds parallel those of animals that were enumerated in the Mishnayot on daf 42a and daf 54a. Nevertheless, the ones that appear here are mentioned since they clarify rules and regulations that are unique to the situation of birds.

We explore the predatorily owl in bible Ancient near east and representation in poetry.

Chullin 55: שְׁאֵילְתִּינְהוּ לְכוּלְּהוּ טָרוֹפָאֵי דְּמַעְרְבָא

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The kidneys are essential organs that serve the body as a natural filter of the blood and remove wastes which are diverted to the bladder. Furthermore, they function as a regulator, maintaining the acid-base balance and regulating blood pressure by maintaining the salt and water balance). The kidneys also are responsible for the reabsorption of water, glucose and amino acids; they also produce hormones and enzymes. A human being whose kidneys are removed would face certain death, yet the stomachs of ruminant animals contain a mechanism that removes wastes to the stomach so that such an animal could survive even if its kidneys were removed.

On our daf, Rachish bar Papa teaches that although missing kidneys would not render the animal a treifah, if one of the kidneys is diseased, then the animal would be rendered a treifah.

Chullin 54: כַּמָּה חֲבִיבָה מִצְוָה בִּשְׁעָתָהּ

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Our daf relates that tradesmen are not allowed to stand in the presence of Torah scholars while working. Rashi explains that the Gemara refers to tradesmen who are employed by others rather than tradesmen who work for themselves.

Tosafos further elaborates that the phrase אינם רשאים – they are not allowed – implies that there is a prohibition for the tradesmen to stand for a Torah scholar.

Since there is no prohibition for a person to interrupt his own work to stand for a Torah scholar it must be that the Gemara refers to someone who is an employee of someone else. Tosafos maintains that the Gemara refers to a tradesman who works for himself and the phrase רשאים אינם should be understood that one is not obligated to stand.

Rabbi Ḥana the money-changer (paturaʾah) recounts that Bar Nappaḥa — Rabbi Yoḥanan — once stood over him and requested a Kurdish dinar in order to measure tereifot according to Zeʿeiri’s ruling. Rabbi Ḥana, recognising in his customer one of the towering sages of the generation, made to rise out of respect. Rabbi Yoḥanan would not permit it. He said to him:

“Sit, my son, sit; craftsmen are not permitted to stand before Torah scholars at the time they are engaged in their work.”

The Gemara immediately presses the claim. Is it truly the case that artisans need not rise? A Mishnah in tractate Bikkurim (3:3) appears to say the opposite: when the pilgrims ascend to Jerusalem bearing their first fruits, all the craftsmen of Jerusalem stand before them and greet them, “Our brothers, men of such-and-such a place, you have come in peace.” Rabbi Yoḥanan resolves the contradiction with a single distinction that has reverberated through the codes for a millennium:

before them — the bringers of first fruits — the craftsmen rise; before Torah scholars they do not rise.

Which we explore.

Chullin 53: אֵין דְּרוּסָה אֶלָּא בַּיָּד

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While the Gemara uses the term treifah to denote any animal with a terminal condition that cannot be slaughtered as kosher since it will die within a short amount of time, the single case of terefah that is mentioned in the Torah is when an animal attacks another animal and kills it (see Shemot 22:30). 

This most basic case occurs when the predator locks its claws on the body of the animal that is being attacked, and the poison in its claws enters the animal, threatening its life, According to the continuation of the Gemara, this poison “burns” in the body of the animal, injuring and puncturing its internal organs, which renders it a terefah.

The example of a terefah that appears in the Mishnah is a wolf, and Rav Yehudah quotes Rav as teaching that in the case of cattle it is “from the wolf and upwards,” i.e. either a wolf or animals larger than a wolf like a lion. Ultimately the Gemara suggests that this teaching comes to exclude the case of a cat that attacks in a predatory manner. While I might have thought that the Mishnah simply mentions ordinary cases of attacking animals, but that smaller animals would be included as well, Rav Yehuda teaches that in the case of cattle an attack by a cat would not be considered significant to render the animal a treifah.

A wolf, canis lupus, is a predatory animal, similar to a dog. It grows to a length of between 3 and 5 feet and an adult can weigh up to 130 pounds. Wolves live and hunt in packs, which allow them to hunt not only small animals, but larger animals, as well. An attack by a pack of wolves can cause serious damage to a herd of cattle.

A cat, felis, is a relatively small predator that weighs between 7 and 15 pounds. We are most familiar with the common house cat – F. silvestris catus – but there are numerous types of wild cats, as well. From the Talmud it appears that there were ferocious wild cats that lived in close proximity to human habitation during the time of the Sages. These cats attacked animals much larger than themselves, such as sheep and goats, and there is even reference to a case when a child’s hand was bitten off by such a creature.

Chullin 52: צֵלָע בְּלֹא חוּלְיָא אָמְרִי

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Our Daf discusses the status of an animal whose ribs are either uprooted or broken. Rav issued a ruling that if a rib became uprooted together with the vertebra to which it is attached, the animal is a tereifah.

The other rib which had been attached to that vertebra on the other side of the animal remained in its place. Rav Kahana and Rav Assi asked Rav what the halacha would be in a case where both ribs connected to a vertebra from both sides of the animal became uprooted, and the vertebra itself remained intact. Rav responded that this animal, although still “alive” is a neveilah.

The animal is, in effect, split into two and is legally a neveilah which can even convey tum’ah. The Gemara notes that Rav had just taught that if a rib and its vertebra are uprooted the animal is a tereifah.

This should necessarily mean that the rib on the other side is no longer attached to its vertebra either, as the vertebra has been uprooted with the first rib. Yet, now Rav is saying that such an animal is a neveilah.

Chullin 51: וְהָלְכה לָהּ כְּלַפֵּי רֹאשָׁהּ, כְּנֶגֶד כל הַשִּׁדְרָה כּוּלָּהּ

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On our daf the Gemara quotes Rav Huna as teaching that if an animal was left on the roof and was later found on the ground, we do not assume that it fell and the ruling of the Mishnah is not applied to it. To illustrate and clarify this ruling, the Gemara relates the following story:

A goat belonging to Ravina was on the roof and through the sky-light saw some peeled barley below. It jumped and fell down from the roof to the ground. Ravina came before Rav Ashi and asked: Was the reason for Rav Huna’s statement, ‘If a person left an animal on the roof, and returned and found it on the ground we do not apprehend a lesion of the internal organs,’ that it had something to hold on, but in this case it had nothing to hold on; or was it that the animal estimated the distance, so that here too it estimated the distance? — He replied. The reason was that it estimated the distance; so that here too it estimated the distance and it is therefore permitted.

We explore the world of falling animals in antiquity and the recent cures for spinal cord injury.

Chullin 50: אֵיזֶהוּ כָּרֵס הַחִיצוֹן? בָּשָׂר הַחוֹפֶה אֶת רוֹב הַכָּרֵס

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It is permissible to compare puncture holes in the intestines, lung, or trachea of an animal to determine if the puncture occurred before or after Shechitah.

If the rectum of an animal is punctured, the animal is Kosher because the hips seal off the puncture.

If the inner paunch of an animal is punctured, the animal is a Tereifah.

If the majority of the outer paunch of an animal is torn the length of a Tefach, the animal is a Tereifah, according to the Tana Kama. According to Rebbi Yehudah, if it is a large animal even if it is ripped only a Tefach it is a Tereifah.

If the tear in the paunch created a circular hole larger than the size of a Sela, the animal is a Tereifah, because if the hole would be stretched out in a straight line it would be the size of a Tefach.

We explore the world of the rumen, and the psychological correlates of rumination!

And the Aberdeen Shechita scandal on 1893.

Chullin 49: הַתּוֹרָה חָסָה עַל מָמוֹנָם שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל

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We explore one of the most consequential meta-halakhic principles in rabbinic literature: the assertion that “the Torah has concern for the money of Israel” (ḥasah ha-Torah ʿal mamonam shel Yisraʾel). Although the maxim recurs across the Babylonian Talmud, its appearance on our daf—within a discussion of whether a torn membrane covering the stomach renders an animal tereifah, and whether fat in a particular location is permitted or forbidden—offers an unusually clean window onto the principle's logic. There the value of the animal as property tilts a doubtful ruling toward leniency.

Chullin 48: הֶעֶלְתָה צְמָחִים – חוֹשְׁשִׁין לָהּ

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Our daf cites several rulings of R’ Nachman regarding lungs. If a lung was punctured, which is one of the signs of tereifus, but the hole in the lung became adhered to the chest wall, it is kosher.

Ravina adds and clarifies that this is only true if the place of the hole became attached to the flesh of the chest, between the ribs, and not to the ribs themselves.

According to Rashi, this results in a strong connection that will not loosen. If the place of the hole in the lung adheres to the rib itself, this connection is not strong enough to alleviate the tereifah concern.

We continue our review of kashrut in different communities and including the issue of stunning.

Chullin 47: חָמֵשׁ אוּנֵּי אִית לַהּ לְרֵיאָה

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Our Daf confront one of the most consequential and least “closed” questions in the laws of tereifot: whether a sircha—an abnormal adhesion binding a lobe of the lung to the chest wall, to the pericardium, or to an adjacent lobe—renders an animal terminally defective and therefore forbidden. The Talmudic discussion, deceptively brief, generated a centuries-long controversy whose stakes were not merely culinary but conceptual: does the sircha forbid because it is itself the disqualifying defect, or because it is a siman, a sign betraying a hidden perforation in the lung that has been sealed over?

We attempt to argue that the sircha is the paradigmatic case of the halakhic body refusing to collapse into the biological body, and that the rabbinic insistence on treating the adhesion as a juridical sign rather than a settled anatomical fact discloses a hermeneutic of the wound that resonates with the larger project of reading the patient as sacred text.

Chullin 46: הָהוּא פּוּלְמוּסָא דַּאֲתָא לְפוּמְבְּדִיתָא

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Our mishna states: If the liver was removed and nothing remained of it, the animal is a tereifa. The Gemara asks: It follows, therefore, that if anything remained of it, the animal is kosher, even if the remaining piece does not constitute an olive-bulk. But didn’t we learnin a mishna on 54a: If the liver was removed and an olive-bulk of it remained, it is kosher? One can infer that if less remained, it is a tereifa.

The mishna's premise — that an animal might be found with its liver removed and nothing remaining — raises a question that the ancient medical traditions could scarcely have entertained. If the liver was, for the Galenic world, the irreplaceable source of the blood, how could the rabbis treat as a live empirical possibility the discovery of a beast wholly or nearly without one? The question divides into two: how an organ might come to be absent, and how an animal so afflicted could have lived at all up to the moment of slaughter.

We explore the liver of antiquity and its use for divination besides nutrition, a seat of the soul.

Chullin 45: נִיקַּב קְרוּם שֶׁל מוֹחַ

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Our mishna states: If the membrane of the brain was perforated, the animal is a tereifa. The Gemara cites Rav and Shmuel, who both say: The brain is covered by two membranes, a thick outer membrane adjacent to the skull and a thin inner membrane adjacent to the brain. The animal is a tereifa if the outer membrane was perforated, even if the inner membrane was not perforated.

And some say that the animal is not a tereifa unless the innermembrane was perforated as well. Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani says: And this is your mnemonic to remember the halakha: The bag in which the brain rests, i.e., the inner membrane.

We explore notions of meninges skull and pathology in the Talmud and Antiquity.

Chullin 44: כָּאן – קוֹדֶם בַּת קוֹל, כָּאן – לְאַחַר בַּת קוֹל

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On yesterday’s daf the Gemara presented a disagreement

between Rav and Shmuel regarding the status of the turbatz ha-veshet, the animal’s pharynx. This area, which is where the esophagus enters the throat, is considered by Rav to be a place where ritual slaughter can take place, while Shmuel rules that it is too high up in the animal’s throat to be an appropriate place for slaughter. When a practical situation of shechita in this area was brought before Rava, he applied both Rav’s position and Shmuel’s position to rule stringently in that case.

We identify cases where the Halacha does not fit biology and present a modern orthodox view vs the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s resolution.

Chullin 43: הָכָא נָמֵי נִיסָּא שָׁאנֵי

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The Gemara provides a mnemonic for the following statements of Rabbi Yitzḥak, son of Rabbi Yosef: Halakhot, friend, olive-bulk, gallbladder, and gizzard.

Rabbi Yitzḥak, son of Rabbi Yosef, says that Rabbi Yoḥanan disagrees with the statement of Ḥiyya bar Rava and says: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, that a perforated gallbladder renders the animal a tereifa.

And Rabbi Yitzḥak, son of Rabbi Yosef, says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: What did the friends of Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, respond to him? They responded that Job said:

“He pours out my gall upon the ground” (Job 16:13), and yet Job was still alive.Evidently, one with a perforated gallbladder can live. Rabbi Yosei said to them: Job was kept alive by a miracle, and one does not mention miraculous acts as proof for a general ruling.

We explore the history of gall bladder, bile and diseases thereof with focus on how the rabbis selected the scientific from the mythical and humoral aspects of the humors.

Chullin 42: וְהָא אִיכָּא בסג״ר, וְשַׁב שְׁמַעְתָּתָא

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The third perek of Masechet Chullin begins on today’s daf. Following the first two chapters of the tractate whose focus was on the act of slaughtering an animal, this perek – the longest one in Masechet Hullin – deals with the animal itself, i.e., which animals are permitted and forbidden to eat. The two general categories discussed are the laws of treifah – animals that for reasons of illness or injury will die as a result of their condition – and types of animals that are not kosher and cannot be eaten.

The opening Mishnah of the perek presents a list of conditions that are considered to be terminal and concludes with the following principle: if an animal with a similar defect could not continue to live, it is a treifah.

In defining this principle, we find a difference of opinion. The accepted interpretation is that the animal will succumb to its condition within 12 months, but others say that it will die within 30 days and one opinion in the Gemara defines it as an animal whose condition will not allow it to conceive and give birth. The commentaries discuss whether an animal would be considered a treifah if it could be treated with drugs, and whether there is reason to distinguish between different types of tereifot.