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Masechet Chullin Daf 77
Feb. 13th, 2019 09:22 amDaf 77
Final Mishna of Perek dalet. What if you shecht an animal and inside you find an amniotic sac but no specific evidence of a fetus? Is it kosher from the shechita? What is its status?
The answer is that it's obviously kosher, if you want to eat it. Most people seem to regard it as disgusting, so it's considered a non-food item, but if you wanted to eat it would be considered a food item. In a similar manner, the bones of a neveila and the hide of a neveila do not have the tumah of a neveila, as they are not edible basar as required by the pasuk, but if you did something to the bones or hide of a (kosher, shechted, I think) animal that rendered them edible like cooking them in a stew for a long time, they would be kosher and treated as foodstuffs.
This also applies for purposes of the tumah of foods. So ordinarily the amniotic sac would not transmit tumah, but if you intended for it to be food, it would transmit tumah. But it would not have the tumah of neveila still because you could not intend to eat a neveila so there's no scenario where by your intent you can make it a neveila.
But the amniotic sac still seems to retain some of the properties of being associated with the fetus, apparently because it's assumed that a miscarried fetus was inside it and was reabsorbed into its walls. So if a cow gives birth to an amniotic sac it's considered to be its firstborn for purposes of bechor, although since you can't tell its gender and there's a slightly less than 50% chance that it's a kosher male bechor (three choices- male, female, or male/female but invalid to be a bechor because of birth defect), the sac itself is not judged to have the consecrated status of bechor.
Also, if the amniotic sac partially comes out of the mother and then goes back in, and then the mother is shechted, it's treated as if there could have been a fetus in it at the time, and thus the mother's shechita does not work for the sac, and the mother is considered to have given birth.
The Mishna ends with some discussion of the superstitious burial practices of the other nations around Israel, such as burying a miscarried fetus at the crossroads, which is therefore forbidden to Israel. The Gemara discusses exceptions to this- you're allowed to do at least some practices of the other nations, provided they have some therapeutic or useful purpose. The nuances of this question, of what is a therapeutic purpose and what is just superstitious nonsense and therefore forbidden, deserves a more thorough discussion than the Gemara gives it here, but I believe there's much more on this in Masechet Avodah Zarah.
Final Mishna of Perek dalet. What if you shecht an animal and inside you find an amniotic sac but no specific evidence of a fetus? Is it kosher from the shechita? What is its status?
The answer is that it's obviously kosher, if you want to eat it. Most people seem to regard it as disgusting, so it's considered a non-food item, but if you wanted to eat it would be considered a food item. In a similar manner, the bones of a neveila and the hide of a neveila do not have the tumah of a neveila, as they are not edible basar as required by the pasuk, but if you did something to the bones or hide of a (kosher, shechted, I think) animal that rendered them edible like cooking them in a stew for a long time, they would be kosher and treated as foodstuffs.
This also applies for purposes of the tumah of foods. So ordinarily the amniotic sac would not transmit tumah, but if you intended for it to be food, it would transmit tumah. But it would not have the tumah of neveila still because you could not intend to eat a neveila so there's no scenario where by your intent you can make it a neveila.
But the amniotic sac still seems to retain some of the properties of being associated with the fetus, apparently because it's assumed that a miscarried fetus was inside it and was reabsorbed into its walls. So if a cow gives birth to an amniotic sac it's considered to be its firstborn for purposes of bechor, although since you can't tell its gender and there's a slightly less than 50% chance that it's a kosher male bechor (three choices- male, female, or male/female but invalid to be a bechor because of birth defect), the sac itself is not judged to have the consecrated status of bechor.
Also, if the amniotic sac partially comes out of the mother and then goes back in, and then the mother is shechted, it's treated as if there could have been a fetus in it at the time, and thus the mother's shechita does not work for the sac, and the mother is considered to have given birth.
The Mishna ends with some discussion of the superstitious burial practices of the other nations around Israel, such as burying a miscarried fetus at the crossroads, which is therefore forbidden to Israel. The Gemara discusses exceptions to this- you're allowed to do at least some practices of the other nations, provided they have some therapeutic or useful purpose. The nuances of this question, of what is a therapeutic purpose and what is just superstitious nonsense and therefore forbidden, deserves a more thorough discussion than the Gemara gives it here, but I believe there's much more on this in Masechet Avodah Zarah.