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Masechet Chullin Daf 17
Dec. 14th, 2018 02:14 pmDaf 17
Yesterday I mentioned Rabbi Yishmael's teaching that in the Midbar the only meat the Israelites ate was korbanot, and I said I expected continued discussion and other perspectives. Today the Gemara brings Rabbi Akiva's teaching that rather, in the Midbar the Israelites could eat any animal they killed without having to do Torah shechita.
The Gemara then asks a series of questions about problems with these competing drashes that serve to narrow the differences. Both Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva thought that the Israelites ate wild kosher animals like deer in the Midbar (without offering them as korbanot), both Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva thought that Israelites could only eat animals that could be offered as korbanot like cows and goats and so on, as korbanot. So the only point of disagreement is whether the wild animals needed to be shechted according to Torah shechita or not.
But there seems to be a bigger dispute going on about the ideas I wrote about yesterday about how we understand the observance of mitzvot by our forefathers when there is documentation that seems to say that they don't observe in the same way that we do. Judaism has evolved in spite of our enduring devotion to Torah and halakha, so this can be hard to sort out. The terrifying existential question the Rabbis ask on both Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva is... now that we are in exile again, do we revert away from the practice we've taken on in Eretz Yisrael?
The rest of the daf is interested in the features of a knife that is valid for shechita, and the method of checking. One of the ways to invalidate shechita is for the knife to rip the simanim rather than cutting them. A saw' or a blade with serrations, will do this kind of ripping. A straight, sharp blade will cut rather than rip. But obviously a knife wears with use and needs to be periodically sharpened. Knives get nicks and dents and other damage, and at some point a straight, sharp knife that is valid for shechita may have a nick that effectively turns it into a serrated knife that rips.
My impression generally from my prior knowledge of shechita and from earlier discussion in Chullin about checking the knife had been that if you find any nick in the knife, you need to sharpen it to remove the nick. But there are some leniencies. One nick is not necessarily enough to invalidate, although two are. There seems to be a sense that to get the serrated sawing motion that causes a nick, you need the first serration to pull things out of position and then the second serration to actually do the ripping. If a single nick is big enough and sharp enough on both sides to be equivalent to a serration, it invalidates completely. But if the nick is dull on one side and sharp on the other, it may be possible according to Rava for a shochet to use it if they only cut in the dull direction. (This is not the standard way to shecht. You're supposed to go back and forth. But with a long enough knife, a single stroke is permissible.)
And if the notches or wear marks are not on the sharp edge but elsewhere on the knife like on the side, they are not invalidating at all. This is at first surprising because a burr on the side of the knife can still rip things, but we bring back our old friend the knife that was heated to Libun. In that case, we said that since the simanim separate after the sharpness of the knife cuts them, the heat on the sides of the blade does not risk damaging them. Likewise, after the edge of the blade cuts the simanim in this case, the simanim separate so we are not at risk of ripping with a burr on the side of the blade.
Yesterday I mentioned Rabbi Yishmael's teaching that in the Midbar the only meat the Israelites ate was korbanot, and I said I expected continued discussion and other perspectives. Today the Gemara brings Rabbi Akiva's teaching that rather, in the Midbar the Israelites could eat any animal they killed without having to do Torah shechita.
The Gemara then asks a series of questions about problems with these competing drashes that serve to narrow the differences. Both Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva thought that the Israelites ate wild kosher animals like deer in the Midbar (without offering them as korbanot), both Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva thought that Israelites could only eat animals that could be offered as korbanot like cows and goats and so on, as korbanot. So the only point of disagreement is whether the wild animals needed to be shechted according to Torah shechita or not.
But there seems to be a bigger dispute going on about the ideas I wrote about yesterday about how we understand the observance of mitzvot by our forefathers when there is documentation that seems to say that they don't observe in the same way that we do. Judaism has evolved in spite of our enduring devotion to Torah and halakha, so this can be hard to sort out. The terrifying existential question the Rabbis ask on both Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva is... now that we are in exile again, do we revert away from the practice we've taken on in Eretz Yisrael?
The rest of the daf is interested in the features of a knife that is valid for shechita, and the method of checking. One of the ways to invalidate shechita is for the knife to rip the simanim rather than cutting them. A saw' or a blade with serrations, will do this kind of ripping. A straight, sharp blade will cut rather than rip. But obviously a knife wears with use and needs to be periodically sharpened. Knives get nicks and dents and other damage, and at some point a straight, sharp knife that is valid for shechita may have a nick that effectively turns it into a serrated knife that rips.
My impression generally from my prior knowledge of shechita and from earlier discussion in Chullin about checking the knife had been that if you find any nick in the knife, you need to sharpen it to remove the nick. But there are some leniencies. One nick is not necessarily enough to invalidate, although two are. There seems to be a sense that to get the serrated sawing motion that causes a nick, you need the first serration to pull things out of position and then the second serration to actually do the ripping. If a single nick is big enough and sharp enough on both sides to be equivalent to a serration, it invalidates completely. But if the nick is dull on one side and sharp on the other, it may be possible according to Rava for a shochet to use it if they only cut in the dull direction. (This is not the standard way to shecht. You're supposed to go back and forth. But with a long enough knife, a single stroke is permissible.)
And if the notches or wear marks are not on the sharp edge but elsewhere on the knife like on the side, they are not invalidating at all. This is at first surprising because a burr on the side of the knife can still rip things, but we bring back our old friend the knife that was heated to Libun. In that case, we said that since the simanim separate after the sharpness of the knife cuts them, the heat on the sides of the blade does not risk damaging them. Likewise, after the edge of the blade cuts the simanim in this case, the simanim separate so we are not at risk of ripping with a burr on the side of the blade.