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Masechet Chullin Daf 13
Dec. 10th, 2018 10:02 pmDaf 13
The Gemara started discussing at the end of the last daf the original Mishna about how the cheresh, shoteh, and katan are not allowed to shecht, but if they are observed, they can shecht. It tries to understand the reason for the law, which is somewhat an effort in child psychology (for some reason they primarily are discussing the katan and not the cheresh or the shoteh), but much more an effort, it seems to me, in trying to define the mental parameters of shechitah. What do you need to be thinking, if anything, when you set out to perform shechitah? What do you need to be thinking when you are actually in the act of shechitah? Why is it that a katan lacks whatever thought process we require?
It's not a very satisfying effort from a child psychology perspective. According to the Gemara, children don't have, or at least can't be presumed to have, da'at, which is some form of higher reasoning. R' Linzer and his shiur were debating exactly what it means- does it refer to the capacity to think through actions to their consequences? Does it mean the capacity to plan an action and then carry through to completion without losing focus? Depending on exactly which halakha requiring da'at is being discussed, we could come to different conclusions.
The Gemara drills down a little bit by separating the thought process, machshava from the action, ma'aseh, (and Rashi adds a third distinction that there is also a difference between vocalizing a thought process/intention and merely thinking it.) An adult with just a machshava can have the proper intention to effect a halakhic process, but a katan needs to effect it with a particular and specific action that demonstrates that they are doing the action for us to say that they effected the halakhic process.
I don't think this is all that useful from a child psychology perspective at explaining what it is a child lacks. I think it's more the Gemara trying to use the abstract concept of a thinker who lacks some mental capacity in order to teach the steps involved in kavana, so that it can teach how you should approach actions that require kavana with both correct machshava (I am doing this action right now in order that I fulfill the mitzvah of X...) and correct ma'aseh (I am doing this action right now with all the proper steps to complete task Y.) For technical legal reasons to understand how to handle cases where one or more of these components is missing, and also to teach that even though the halakha may allow you to shortcut the physical and merely enact a process with a thought/intention, really the point of kavana is to act out all two or three parts of the process.
And then it turns out that at least according to some, kavana is not required for shechitah at all. Which is confusing to me since the shochet says a bracha, right? But I guess it's not an obligatory bracha. There's a weird case where someone has a knife randomly slip out of their hand and it flies across the room and manages to shecht an animal with perfect procedure... and it's considered kosher. This is in contrast to shechitah for a sacrifice, which requires kavana. So since kavana is not required for shechita, the only reason a katan is prohibited is not because they can't have the kavana, but because we are concerned they will perform the shechita incorrectly.
The rest of the daf discusses shechitah by a goy, which is not allowed. We might have said it was forbidden because a goy inherently lacks kavanah to shecht, but we just established that kavana is not required. We might have said that a goy was forbidden because they might have shechted the animal as a sacrifice of avodah zarah, but the Gemara says that actually, neveilah shechted by a goy is not considered forbidden to benefit from the way objects used in avodah zarah are, so it doesn't appear to be the case that we're worried about avodah zarah. So a goy is just forbidden to shecht as an excluded category, perhaps just to minimize contact between Jews and idol worshipers.
The Gemara started discussing at the end of the last daf the original Mishna about how the cheresh, shoteh, and katan are not allowed to shecht, but if they are observed, they can shecht. It tries to understand the reason for the law, which is somewhat an effort in child psychology (for some reason they primarily are discussing the katan and not the cheresh or the shoteh), but much more an effort, it seems to me, in trying to define the mental parameters of shechitah. What do you need to be thinking, if anything, when you set out to perform shechitah? What do you need to be thinking when you are actually in the act of shechitah? Why is it that a katan lacks whatever thought process we require?
It's not a very satisfying effort from a child psychology perspective. According to the Gemara, children don't have, or at least can't be presumed to have, da'at, which is some form of higher reasoning. R' Linzer and his shiur were debating exactly what it means- does it refer to the capacity to think through actions to their consequences? Does it mean the capacity to plan an action and then carry through to completion without losing focus? Depending on exactly which halakha requiring da'at is being discussed, we could come to different conclusions.
The Gemara drills down a little bit by separating the thought process, machshava from the action, ma'aseh, (and Rashi adds a third distinction that there is also a difference between vocalizing a thought process/intention and merely thinking it.) An adult with just a machshava can have the proper intention to effect a halakhic process, but a katan needs to effect it with a particular and specific action that demonstrates that they are doing the action for us to say that they effected the halakhic process.
I don't think this is all that useful from a child psychology perspective at explaining what it is a child lacks. I think it's more the Gemara trying to use the abstract concept of a thinker who lacks some mental capacity in order to teach the steps involved in kavana, so that it can teach how you should approach actions that require kavana with both correct machshava (I am doing this action right now in order that I fulfill the mitzvah of X...) and correct ma'aseh (I am doing this action right now with all the proper steps to complete task Y.) For technical legal reasons to understand how to handle cases where one or more of these components is missing, and also to teach that even though the halakha may allow you to shortcut the physical and merely enact a process with a thought/intention, really the point of kavana is to act out all two or three parts of the process.
And then it turns out that at least according to some, kavana is not required for shechitah at all. Which is confusing to me since the shochet says a bracha, right? But I guess it's not an obligatory bracha. There's a weird case where someone has a knife randomly slip out of their hand and it flies across the room and manages to shecht an animal with perfect procedure... and it's considered kosher. This is in contrast to shechitah for a sacrifice, which requires kavana. So since kavana is not required for shechita, the only reason a katan is prohibited is not because they can't have the kavana, but because we are concerned they will perform the shechita incorrectly.
The rest of the daf discusses shechitah by a goy, which is not allowed. We might have said it was forbidden because a goy inherently lacks kavanah to shecht, but we just established that kavana is not required. We might have said that a goy was forbidden because they might have shechted the animal as a sacrifice of avodah zarah, but the Gemara says that actually, neveilah shechted by a goy is not considered forbidden to benefit from the way objects used in avodah zarah are, so it doesn't appear to be the case that we're worried about avodah zarah. So a goy is just forbidden to shecht as an excluded category, perhaps just to minimize contact between Jews and idol worshipers.