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Masechet Chullin Daf 5
Dec. 2nd, 2018 01:21 pmDaf 5
The Gemara goes deeper into the question of the Mumar, the Jewish renegade. It parses out a number of different types of Mumar:
-The Mumar who abrogates the whole Torah, which is what I think we would classically think of as a true renegade
-The Mumar who only violates one subset of the Torah's laws, not because they reject the Torah's authority as the first class does but for some other, more selfish reason. But this segments into smaller categories:
--the Mumar who, say, is not circumcised. The Gemara takes this as the paradigmatic example of a Mumar who has rebelled against one particularly (highly significant!) Jewish law, but that law is not relevant to the question at hand: We are trying to determine if we can trust this Mumar to do shechitah properly, and whether or not they have had themselves circumcised is not directly relevant
--The Mumar achal nevelah l'teiavon that I mentioned yesterday, whose one specific rebellion against Jewish law is that they eat non-kosher meat because they are hungry and it is more convenient/cheaper/easier
--The Mumar avodas kochavim, the renegade who may observe other laws of the Torah but who participates in acts of Idolatry. The Gemara argues that this is different from the first class of Mumar, because even though they violate only one class of mitzvot, committing idolatry is akin to abrogating the whole Torah.
As I mentioned yesterday, the only reason to get this deep into this question is to try to figure out how far you're willing to compromise. It remains surprising to me that the Rabbis are willing to eat the shechitah of any Mumars, people who routinely and publicly violate Torah law.
But it's clear from the discussion of Ravina's position on the l'chatchila/b'dieved in the original Mishna that no matter who we're talking about, there's still a requirement that the shochet demonstrate full knowledge of the halakha of shechita and full technical skill at the actual task, so we're talking about a very strange edge case in a Mumar who is fully engaged with the practice of shechita but isn't strict with their observant of other mitzvot. I guess the overall point is to demonstrate the basic principle that this is chullin, not kodshim, and state of observance and state of mind aren't as important as they are with regard to Temple rite.
At the end of the daf, they bring a baraisa that goes back to the Cuttim and says that Rabban Gamliel (Artscroll's footnote says this was Rabban Gamliel III, the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, but I'm not sure how they know) got together his Beis Din and they banned eating the shechita of the Cuttim altogether. We haven't gotten to a reason yet, my guess is that this records an evolution in the interaction between the Rabbis and the Cuttim and that over time Samaritan law diverged enough from Rabbinic law that the majority no longer considered the Cuttim to be Jewish. I guess this is why Artscroll says that it was Rabban Gamliel III, because it had to have been post-Mishnaic. I assume more on this topic tomorrow.
The Gemara goes deeper into the question of the Mumar, the Jewish renegade. It parses out a number of different types of Mumar:
-The Mumar who abrogates the whole Torah, which is what I think we would classically think of as a true renegade
-The Mumar who only violates one subset of the Torah's laws, not because they reject the Torah's authority as the first class does but for some other, more selfish reason. But this segments into smaller categories:
--the Mumar who, say, is not circumcised. The Gemara takes this as the paradigmatic example of a Mumar who has rebelled against one particularly (highly significant!) Jewish law, but that law is not relevant to the question at hand: We are trying to determine if we can trust this Mumar to do shechitah properly, and whether or not they have had themselves circumcised is not directly relevant
--The Mumar achal nevelah l'teiavon that I mentioned yesterday, whose one specific rebellion against Jewish law is that they eat non-kosher meat because they are hungry and it is more convenient/cheaper/easier
--The Mumar avodas kochavim, the renegade who may observe other laws of the Torah but who participates in acts of Idolatry. The Gemara argues that this is different from the first class of Mumar, because even though they violate only one class of mitzvot, committing idolatry is akin to abrogating the whole Torah.
As I mentioned yesterday, the only reason to get this deep into this question is to try to figure out how far you're willing to compromise. It remains surprising to me that the Rabbis are willing to eat the shechitah of any Mumars, people who routinely and publicly violate Torah law.
But it's clear from the discussion of Ravina's position on the l'chatchila/b'dieved in the original Mishna that no matter who we're talking about, there's still a requirement that the shochet demonstrate full knowledge of the halakha of shechita and full technical skill at the actual task, so we're talking about a very strange edge case in a Mumar who is fully engaged with the practice of shechita but isn't strict with their observant of other mitzvot. I guess the overall point is to demonstrate the basic principle that this is chullin, not kodshim, and state of observance and state of mind aren't as important as they are with regard to Temple rite.
At the end of the daf, they bring a baraisa that goes back to the Cuttim and says that Rabban Gamliel (Artscroll's footnote says this was Rabban Gamliel III, the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, but I'm not sure how they know) got together his Beis Din and they banned eating the shechita of the Cuttim altogether. We haven't gotten to a reason yet, my guess is that this records an evolution in the interaction between the Rabbis and the Cuttim and that over time Samaritan law diverged enough from Rabbinic law that the majority no longer considered the Cuttim to be Jewish. I guess this is why Artscroll says that it was Rabban Gamliel III, because it had to have been post-Mishnaic. I assume more on this topic tomorrow.