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Masechet Chullin Daf 74/75
Feb. 10th, 2019 08:57 pmDaf 74
Up to this point in the Gemara, it's apparently been the halakha unambiguously that the ben pekuah is a thing: If you shecht a mother and find a fetus inside, the mother's shechita counts for the fetus and it does not need to be separately shechted.
But here, we get a different opinion in the form of a Tannaitic dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim. What is the difference? Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim agree in the case of a nonviable fetus (it says eight months or less, but it pretty clearly means less than the gestational period of the animal, whatever that might be for a particular animal, and Rabbi Linzer's class pointed out that since it's not like you usually have an accurate date of conception for an animal, 'eight months' is likely determined based on physical markers of development rather than by counting), but Rabbi Meir holds that a viable fetus (nine months is the language used) needs a separate shechita, while the Chachamim hold that the mother's shechita still holds.
For the rest of the daf the Gemara explores the consequences of this distinction which play out of a variety of scenarios. The basic concept is that Rabbi Meir believes that once a fetus is viable, it is to some extent a separate entity from its mother even before birth, whereas the Chachamim hold that until birth it is still largely a single entity with its mother. But a series of baraisas show that neither of these conceptions is absolute- there are some ways in which Rabbi Meir's rulings indicate a partial conception of the fetus as still being part of the mother, and some ways in which the Chachamim's rulings indicate a partial conception of the fetus as a separate entity.
The Gemara teaches a general principle that a ben pekuah is considered shechted for purposes of shechita/eating, but not for other purposes where an animal is considered, like the prohibition on the prohibition on yolking animals of different species together. You can't say "technically it's not a living animal" to get away with violating that prohibition... Even though for purposes of shechita the ben pekuah is technically dead, it's still essentially a living animal.
But this gets more complicated in cases that are connected to shechita/eating, but not necessarily integrally, like tumah. Generally speaking live animals are not susceptible to tumas mes, but... maybe a ben pekuah is susceptible since in some senses it's meat and meat can be made susceptible? The Gemara goes through this whole complicated thing about the whether the shechita of its mother itself renders the ben pekuah susceptible to tumah or if it needs to be exposed to water or if a bloodless shechita renders it susceptible. I confess I don't totally understand it.
Daf 75
Aha! Everyone I tell about this perek has asked the question "Why don't Jews start a ben pekuah farm? It might be tricky at first but with time they could build up a stock of animals that didn't need shechita and it'd make kashrut so much easier!"
The main part of the answer is here. So technically if you have a live viable ben pekuah and you raise it to adulthood it still doesn't need shechita, but... there's a Rabbinical gezeira that you still need to shecht it, because of mar'is ayin. If people saw Jews going around eating unshechted meat they might assume the whole halakha of shechita didn't apply.
So does that mean that this halakha is entirely useless? No, not entirely. The Rabbis permit eating a ben pekuah if it has some sort of phenotypic abnormality that made it memorable, reasoning that if someone saw you eating the ben pekuah with the funny legs or something, you'd remember "Oh, right, that funny animal was a ben pekuah, that's why they're eating it" and there'd be no mar'is ayin issue. And also the shechita of ben pekuah seems to sidestep some other issues that aren't mar'is ayin issues... I'm a little confused on this part, but there may be some benefits with regard to tumah that I didn't follow, and maybe since it's already considered shechted a ben pekuah can't be a treifa? Also at least according to some opinions, you can eat the gid hanashe and the usually forbidden chelev of a ben pekuah. So there might be some reasons to attempt a ben pekuah farm, but the biggest reason, of getting rid of shechita, isn't there.
Up to this point in the Gemara, it's apparently been the halakha unambiguously that the ben pekuah is a thing: If you shecht a mother and find a fetus inside, the mother's shechita counts for the fetus and it does not need to be separately shechted.
But here, we get a different opinion in the form of a Tannaitic dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim. What is the difference? Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim agree in the case of a nonviable fetus (it says eight months or less, but it pretty clearly means less than the gestational period of the animal, whatever that might be for a particular animal, and Rabbi Linzer's class pointed out that since it's not like you usually have an accurate date of conception for an animal, 'eight months' is likely determined based on physical markers of development rather than by counting), but Rabbi Meir holds that a viable fetus (nine months is the language used) needs a separate shechita, while the Chachamim hold that the mother's shechita still holds.
For the rest of the daf the Gemara explores the consequences of this distinction which play out of a variety of scenarios. The basic concept is that Rabbi Meir believes that once a fetus is viable, it is to some extent a separate entity from its mother even before birth, whereas the Chachamim hold that until birth it is still largely a single entity with its mother. But a series of baraisas show that neither of these conceptions is absolute- there are some ways in which Rabbi Meir's rulings indicate a partial conception of the fetus as still being part of the mother, and some ways in which the Chachamim's rulings indicate a partial conception of the fetus as a separate entity.
The Gemara teaches a general principle that a ben pekuah is considered shechted for purposes of shechita/eating, but not for other purposes where an animal is considered, like the prohibition on the prohibition on yolking animals of different species together. You can't say "technically it's not a living animal" to get away with violating that prohibition... Even though for purposes of shechita the ben pekuah is technically dead, it's still essentially a living animal.
But this gets more complicated in cases that are connected to shechita/eating, but not necessarily integrally, like tumah. Generally speaking live animals are not susceptible to tumas mes, but... maybe a ben pekuah is susceptible since in some senses it's meat and meat can be made susceptible? The Gemara goes through this whole complicated thing about the whether the shechita of its mother itself renders the ben pekuah susceptible to tumah or if it needs to be exposed to water or if a bloodless shechita renders it susceptible. I confess I don't totally understand it.
Daf 75
Aha! Everyone I tell about this perek has asked the question "Why don't Jews start a ben pekuah farm? It might be tricky at first but with time they could build up a stock of animals that didn't need shechita and it'd make kashrut so much easier!"
The main part of the answer is here. So technically if you have a live viable ben pekuah and you raise it to adulthood it still doesn't need shechita, but... there's a Rabbinical gezeira that you still need to shecht it, because of mar'is ayin. If people saw Jews going around eating unshechted meat they might assume the whole halakha of shechita didn't apply.
So does that mean that this halakha is entirely useless? No, not entirely. The Rabbis permit eating a ben pekuah if it has some sort of phenotypic abnormality that made it memorable, reasoning that if someone saw you eating the ben pekuah with the funny legs or something, you'd remember "Oh, right, that funny animal was a ben pekuah, that's why they're eating it" and there'd be no mar'is ayin issue. And also the shechita of ben pekuah seems to sidestep some other issues that aren't mar'is ayin issues... I'm a little confused on this part, but there may be some benefits with regard to tumah that I didn't follow, and maybe since it's already considered shechted a ben pekuah can't be a treifa? Also at least according to some opinions, you can eat the gid hanashe and the usually forbidden chelev of a ben pekuah. So there might be some reasons to attempt a ben pekuah farm, but the biggest reason, of getting rid of shechita, isn't there.