Masechet Chullin Daf 48

Daf 48

More about sirchas. If there's a sircha between a section of the lung and the wall of the chest, the test to see if the animal is kosher is to cut through the sircha with a knife and then inspect the chest wall side. If there's visible signs of damage there, the animal is kosher. There are different ideas here to explain what this means. Rashi says it shows that the sircha is covering over a puncture on the chest wall, which is not a treifa. Tosafos think the fact that it originated on the chest wall means it's stronger at the chest wall and that implies it's not likely to cause a puncture of the lung. I think there's another opinion similar to Tosafos that just goes on the fact that since it originated at the chest wall, it's considered part of the chest wall for purposes of treifa analysis, similar to the ideas about the three kanaim being associated with their respective organs.

And then if the sircha is on the lung, after cutting it, you do the lung in water test to verify if it is airtight, but some are machmir and say that the animal is just a treifa no matter what in this situation.


There a sequence of stories about various Rabbis following their teachers to the market and observing what they did when they saw organs with various defects in them. I think this is really great! So much of this section is impossible to learn orally, it really needs to be demonstrated with at least pictures and ideally with actual physical demonstrations of animal organs in various states of disease/damage. So I like that the Talmud actually demonstrates that principle by showing that the Rabbis themselves learned the halacha by watching their teachers in the marketplace.

There's also a peculiar sequence of stories about Rabbis who held particular chumras themselves about various defects, but apparently they didn't hold those chumras with any conviction. So when presented with an animal they had a chumra about, they would not issue a ruling, but would instead send the animal over to someone they knew had a kula. Artscroll suggests the reason was that they held the chumra in spite of not having an actual teaching from their teacher about the particular case. So it was a personal chumra, but not something they felt was actually obligatory on Israel.

Masechet Chullin Daf 49

Daf 49

The Gemara begins by discussing needles found inside of organs, without any discovered evidence of a hole. Obviously if there's a hole found, there's no need to analyze the needle, but if you just find the needle, do you need to assume there was a hole caused by it, and where do you assume the hole was? If it's in the esophagus (i.e. the animal swallowed the needle), the animal's a treifa. If it's the trachea (i.e. it was inhaled), which requires a majority to be severed to be a treifa, the animal's kosher. But what if it's in a different organ, how do we assume it came into the body?

Basically you go by a principle of rova. Whatever the most likely path for the needle, you assume it followed that path and rule accordingly. If it was most likely to have passed through the esophagus, treifa. If it was most likely to have passed through the liver or trachea or another organ that needs more than a nikva, kosher. If there are a couple possible paths, one kosher, one treifa, probably you should be machmir, but there's support for the mekil position too.

After needles, Rav Ashi in the name of Rav Kahana considers the 'pit from a date' or the 'pit from an olive' found in the gallbladder. The Gemara assumes the pit of a date came from the liver and therefore did not puncture anything that would cause a treifa, but that the pit of an olive (Steinsaltz says because it can be pointy) would make you have concern that it came from elsewhere and punctured the gallbladder on its way in, even though you have no evidence of a puncture.

Rabbi Linzer points out that the pit of a date is probably similar to a gallstone. In other words, it didn't come from anywhere! It formed in the gallbladder, the whole reason this is a question is the Rabbis' misunderstanding of the biology. I don't know, it's hard to say.


Edit: I've been saying that a lot on recent pages, "I don't know, it's hard to say." I want to be clear that it's not because I'm hesitant to criticize the Rabbanim, though I largely am. It's because these little quickie posts I've been making don't convey anything near the information density of the Gemara. There's so much detail, so much context, so much history and conversation surrounding it... so much brainpower being marshalled... that it makes me feel small and foolish and therefore unwilling to just throw away any piece of it without giving it a lot more consideration than I'm giving it here.