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Masechet Chullin Daf 33
Dec. 30th, 2018 08:04 pmDaf 33
There's a really hard to fathom question on Resh Lakish, who on the previous daf discussed the case of a shechita where you sever the trachea and then, before you can sever the esophagus, the lung develops a hole that would be an invalidating trefa, and then you sever the esophagus. Resh Lakish said that in this case the animal is a kosher shechita because once the trachea is severed, you consider the trachea and lungs to have been removed from the animal.
The Gemara takes this weirdly literally and imagines that this is not just a metaphor for the idea that you no longer consider the lungs with the animal in your halakhic analysis, but an actual concept that we consider these internal organs to have been removed in the middle of shechita. And therefore it tries to argue that we can abstract this concept out as follows:
For a Jew, since we have this mechanism of shechita where an animal is kosher as soon as the two simanim are cut, even if the animal still has some animating life force moving it around, we can eat these internal organs?
But for a non-Jew, who does not have a mechanism of shechita but is permitted to eat any animal that's just killed however, but who is still obligated in the Noahide law of ever min hachai, eating a limb from a live animal, they are not permitted to eat these internal organs because it would be considered ever min hachai?
This is surprising, as the Gemara points out, because the Mitzvot on Jews are supposed to be more onerous than the mitzvot on non-Jews. And in this case the Gemara brings a baraisa that establishes that non-Jews are in fact allowed to eat this sort of meat even without having a mechanism of shechita.
The rest of the daf is more on tumah and taharah, but at least this time it's mostly actually about tumah and taharah as it intersects with chullin.
The Mishna discusses a case where you shechted an animal but did not remove all the blood. Now, in order for food to be susceptible to tumah, it needs to be exposed to liquid, and it needs to have been exposed intentionally. So in this case there's a dispute between the Tanna Kamma who says that this meat is not susceptible to tumah and Rabbi Shimon says that it is susceptible to tumah because the process of shechita has some sort of intentionality that serves the same function, I don't know why, the laws of tumah and taharah are stupendously full of rules like that one.
Anyway, the language of the Tanna Kamma is actually that they 'may be eaten with unclean hands', and so the Gemara gets into a whole thing about circumstances where hands may be tamei while the body is tahor, which is only a Rabbinic circumstance where the Rabbis added an extra gezeirah of tumah that doesn't exist d'oraysa. In most cases where this Rabbinic gezeirah on the hands happens, it makes the hands tumah in the second degree, which would be a problem for this mishna because tumah in the second degree cannot transmit to chullin.
So the Gemara identifies cases where the Rabbinic gezeira on the hands works a little differently, such as the gezeirah against reaching your hands into a house with tzaraas, where at least according to Rabbi Akiva, your hands have the status of tumah of the rishon. Or maybe the case is where one made a neder to prepare chullin as if it were kodshim, and according to Rabbi Eliezer, in this case tumah of the sheni can in fact transfer to chullin as tumah of the shlishi.
To be continued on Daf 34, where I'm definitely hoping we get the obvious answer of "Maybe even though the Mishna used the word hands, they were speaking metonymously about the whole body"
There's a really hard to fathom question on Resh Lakish, who on the previous daf discussed the case of a shechita where you sever the trachea and then, before you can sever the esophagus, the lung develops a hole that would be an invalidating trefa, and then you sever the esophagus. Resh Lakish said that in this case the animal is a kosher shechita because once the trachea is severed, you consider the trachea and lungs to have been removed from the animal.
The Gemara takes this weirdly literally and imagines that this is not just a metaphor for the idea that you no longer consider the lungs with the animal in your halakhic analysis, but an actual concept that we consider these internal organs to have been removed in the middle of shechita. And therefore it tries to argue that we can abstract this concept out as follows:
For a Jew, since we have this mechanism of shechita where an animal is kosher as soon as the two simanim are cut, even if the animal still has some animating life force moving it around, we can eat these internal organs?
But for a non-Jew, who does not have a mechanism of shechita but is permitted to eat any animal that's just killed however, but who is still obligated in the Noahide law of ever min hachai, eating a limb from a live animal, they are not permitted to eat these internal organs because it would be considered ever min hachai?
This is surprising, as the Gemara points out, because the Mitzvot on Jews are supposed to be more onerous than the mitzvot on non-Jews. And in this case the Gemara brings a baraisa that establishes that non-Jews are in fact allowed to eat this sort of meat even without having a mechanism of shechita.
The rest of the daf is more on tumah and taharah, but at least this time it's mostly actually about tumah and taharah as it intersects with chullin.
The Mishna discusses a case where you shechted an animal but did not remove all the blood. Now, in order for food to be susceptible to tumah, it needs to be exposed to liquid, and it needs to have been exposed intentionally. So in this case there's a dispute between the Tanna Kamma who says that this meat is not susceptible to tumah and Rabbi Shimon says that it is susceptible to tumah because the process of shechita has some sort of intentionality that serves the same function, I don't know why, the laws of tumah and taharah are stupendously full of rules like that one.
Anyway, the language of the Tanna Kamma is actually that they 'may be eaten with unclean hands', and so the Gemara gets into a whole thing about circumstances where hands may be tamei while the body is tahor, which is only a Rabbinic circumstance where the Rabbis added an extra gezeirah of tumah that doesn't exist d'oraysa. In most cases where this Rabbinic gezeirah on the hands happens, it makes the hands tumah in the second degree, which would be a problem for this mishna because tumah in the second degree cannot transmit to chullin.
So the Gemara identifies cases where the Rabbinic gezeira on the hands works a little differently, such as the gezeirah against reaching your hands into a house with tzaraas, where at least according to Rabbi Akiva, your hands have the status of tumah of the rishon. Or maybe the case is where one made a neder to prepare chullin as if it were kodshim, and according to Rabbi Eliezer, in this case tumah of the sheni can in fact transfer to chullin as tumah of the shlishi.
To be continued on Daf 34, where I'm definitely hoping we get the obvious answer of "Maybe even though the Mishna used the word hands, they were speaking metonymously about the whole body"