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Masechet Chullin Daf 50 and 51
Jan. 18th, 2019 06:43 amHunt starts today, I'm likely to fall behind a bit in Daf Yomi. I'll endeavor to catch up when I can.
Daf 50
There's a lot on this daf about chelev, the forbidden fats. I've always known that there were forbidden fats, but didn't spend a lot of time thinking about them because kosher meat comes without them, so it's just an invisible fact of Jewish life. Chelev is the sheets of fat that surround many of the organs of the animal. It's only forbidden when it comes from an animal that may be offered as a sacrifice- the chelev of wild kosher animals like deer is permitted.
However it seems that which sheets of fat are chelev and which are permitted fat is in some cases ambiguous. This is raised in the context of treifas because apparently permitted fat is stickier and denser and therefore the Gemara says that if there is a potentially invalidating hole in an organ that is surrounded by permitted fat, the permitted fat is capable of 'plugging' the hole sufficiently to render the animal kosher. But if the hole is plugged by chelev, the less sticky/dense fat does not plug the hole sufficiently, so we say the animal is still a treifa.
But then there are ambiguous cases. Some of the fats surrounding the stomachs of cows are, I guess, unclear if they meat the criteria of chelev, so the Rabbis debate whether or not they sufficiently plug a hole. The solution is ultimately Solomonic- they conclude that the inner part of these fats is permitted fat and the outer part is chelev.
Daf 51
This notion that permitted fat can plug a hole and render an animal kosher is part of a sequence of kulas about treifas. There is continued discussion on Daf 51 of the idea that when possible we try to say that a hole in an organ arose after shechita, and therefore does not invalidate as a treifa.
One scheme it allows for this purpose is, if you see a hole in an organ and you're uncertain if it happened before or after shechita, you can cut a second comparable hole in the same organ and compare them. If they look the same, you can say that the hole came after shechita and does not invalidate. If they don't look the same, treifa. The idea seems to be that tissues react differently after death, and so a comparison on the basis of the difference in cuts can be viable. I don't know, maybe this is true? It depends on exactly which features you're looking for in the holes, and the Gemara does not really go into much detail about this here.
It does suggest that at least in some cases you look for evidence of blood residue as evidence that the cut happened before death. In the case where a needle is found through an organ, the Gemara teaches that if it does not have blood residue on it, you can conclude the needle went in after shechita. Which seems like a pretty dramatic kula.
There's a fascinating story about Abaye. He was told that an old man had come from Israel named Rav Avira, who was teaching a surprising halakha in the name of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi that he had seen them present an animal with a needle passing through only one of the walls of the stomach of a cow, and Rabbi had pronounced it treifa even though we understand the halacha to require both walls to be pierced for it to be a treifa.
Abaye was puzzled, so he asked Rav Avira to come see him to explain the halakha in more detail, but Rav Avira refused to come. Thus, Abaye went to Rav Avira. He found that he was standing on the roof of his home, so Abaye asked him to come down to speak to him, but Rav Avira refused. So Abaye climbed the roof to speak to him.
Rav Avira said that in Israel, he had served as some sort of school administrator for Rabbi, and had seen this case. In describing it in more detail, it emerged that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi had seen blood residue on the other side of the stomach not pierced by the needle, so he'd concluded that the needle had in fact pierced both walls, and thus the story Rav Avira was teaching was incomplete and didn't properly teach the halakha.
This... is hard to make work chronologically. Rabbi died in about 215 CE, and Abaye lived in the late 3rd century and died around 340CE. Rav Avira would've had to be really, really young when he served in this role for Rabbi, and really really old when he was meeting Abaye. But in any case it's a really interesting story because it testifies about the way that the oral transmission and the separation between Bavel and Eretz Yisrael threatened the Gemara, and the Rabbis of the time had to really work hard to maintain the integrity of the mesorah.
Daf 50
There's a lot on this daf about chelev, the forbidden fats. I've always known that there were forbidden fats, but didn't spend a lot of time thinking about them because kosher meat comes without them, so it's just an invisible fact of Jewish life. Chelev is the sheets of fat that surround many of the organs of the animal. It's only forbidden when it comes from an animal that may be offered as a sacrifice- the chelev of wild kosher animals like deer is permitted.
However it seems that which sheets of fat are chelev and which are permitted fat is in some cases ambiguous. This is raised in the context of treifas because apparently permitted fat is stickier and denser and therefore the Gemara says that if there is a potentially invalidating hole in an organ that is surrounded by permitted fat, the permitted fat is capable of 'plugging' the hole sufficiently to render the animal kosher. But if the hole is plugged by chelev, the less sticky/dense fat does not plug the hole sufficiently, so we say the animal is still a treifa.
But then there are ambiguous cases. Some of the fats surrounding the stomachs of cows are, I guess, unclear if they meat the criteria of chelev, so the Rabbis debate whether or not they sufficiently plug a hole. The solution is ultimately Solomonic- they conclude that the inner part of these fats is permitted fat and the outer part is chelev.
Daf 51
This notion that permitted fat can plug a hole and render an animal kosher is part of a sequence of kulas about treifas. There is continued discussion on Daf 51 of the idea that when possible we try to say that a hole in an organ arose after shechita, and therefore does not invalidate as a treifa.
One scheme it allows for this purpose is, if you see a hole in an organ and you're uncertain if it happened before or after shechita, you can cut a second comparable hole in the same organ and compare them. If they look the same, you can say that the hole came after shechita and does not invalidate. If they don't look the same, treifa. The idea seems to be that tissues react differently after death, and so a comparison on the basis of the difference in cuts can be viable. I don't know, maybe this is true? It depends on exactly which features you're looking for in the holes, and the Gemara does not really go into much detail about this here.
It does suggest that at least in some cases you look for evidence of blood residue as evidence that the cut happened before death. In the case where a needle is found through an organ, the Gemara teaches that if it does not have blood residue on it, you can conclude the needle went in after shechita. Which seems like a pretty dramatic kula.
There's a fascinating story about Abaye. He was told that an old man had come from Israel named Rav Avira, who was teaching a surprising halakha in the name of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi that he had seen them present an animal with a needle passing through only one of the walls of the stomach of a cow, and Rabbi had pronounced it treifa even though we understand the halacha to require both walls to be pierced for it to be a treifa.
Abaye was puzzled, so he asked Rav Avira to come see him to explain the halakha in more detail, but Rav Avira refused to come. Thus, Abaye went to Rav Avira. He found that he was standing on the roof of his home, so Abaye asked him to come down to speak to him, but Rav Avira refused. So Abaye climbed the roof to speak to him.
Rav Avira said that in Israel, he had served as some sort of school administrator for Rabbi, and had seen this case. In describing it in more detail, it emerged that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi had seen blood residue on the other side of the stomach not pierced by the needle, so he'd concluded that the needle had in fact pierced both walls, and thus the story Rav Avira was teaching was incomplete and didn't properly teach the halakha.
This... is hard to make work chronologically. Rabbi died in about 215 CE, and Abaye lived in the late 3rd century and died around 340CE. Rav Avira would've had to be really, really young when he served in this role for Rabbi, and really really old when he was meeting Abaye. But in any case it's a really interesting story because it testifies about the way that the oral transmission and the separation between Bavel and Eretz Yisrael threatened the Gemara, and the Rabbis of the time had to really work hard to maintain the integrity of the mesorah.