Masechet Chullin Daf 2
Nov. 29th, 2018 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretGeneral Overview
Chullin is a word where the most direct translations have misleading connotations in English if you are not steeped in Judaism. It's translated as 'secular', or 'non-holy', or sometimes as 'profane', but those words don't mean the right thing unless you have already assimilated a Jewish understanding of kedusha, holiness.
Masechet Chullin contains the laws of slaughtering animals in a kosher manner for food as opposed to the laws of animals designated for Temple sacrifice. So Chullin clearly doesn't mean 'secular' in the sense of non-religious, it means 'secular' in opposition to consecrated- the laws of kashrut are one of the most significant and encompassing aspects of Jewish ritual law. Chullin is one of the more technically intricate tractates in the Talmud because it depends on deep and specific knowledge of animal anatomy and biology. It's also in some ways one of the more scientifically perplexing books in the Talmud because the Rabbis did not know 21st century biology. They didn't know what a cell was, they didn't know what DNA was, they didn't understand speciation even to the imperfect level that contemporary evolutionary biologists do. The modern reader has to sometimes parse through this dense technical discussion and figure out which parts are difficult because of the fine biological distinctions being made and which parts are difficult because the things the Rabbis saying are not in alignment with contemporary biology.
But part of the problem lies in trying to understand these laws scientifically to begin with. As I wrote in a discussion years back on miscibility in the Talmud
The Talmud uses category systems that sometimes resemble modern taxonomy systems, and it's tempting to conflate them and then criticize the Rabbis when they misalign, but they aren't modern taxonomy systems and they don't serve the purposes of the taxonomic systems designed by modern biologists. R' Slifkin has a great discussion at the start of The Camel, the Hare, and the Hyrax about how the scriptural concept of min is not the same as the modern taxonomic concept of species. Perhaps I'll revisit that in future posts.
Daf 2
(For those who don't know, standard Vilna pagination in tractates of Gemara start with page 2. There may be some mundane reason for this- the Title Page is page 1, or something like that. But usually people say this is for mystical reasons. God is Alef, the beginning, and a human story therefore starts with Bet, to remind us that before the Talmud stands God. This is also an explanation offered for why the Torah begins with the letter Bet, the first letter in the word Bereishis.)
The first Mishna opens with a double statement "Hakol Shochtin // ushechitan k'shera". "All may slaughter, and their slaughter will be kosher." It then qualifies with the three categories of exceptions, people who are not presumptively allowed to slaughter because they are not trusted to be able to learn how to slaughter and perform the procedure correctly with an awareness of if they make an error. These categories are the deaf-mute, the shoteh, and the minor. I don't really want to translate shoteh, it's an ableist term for people with some sort of mental incapacity- of course the Tannaim did not have the DSM.
The Gemara immediately asks why the Mishna uses a double phrase. It would have been enough to say "All may slaughter" without "and their slaughter will be kosher." The sense of "Hakol shochtin" seems to be a presumption that anyone may slaughter l'chatchila, and the sense of "ushechitan k'shera" seems to be a presumption that anyone may slaughter b'dieved.
After discussing a bunch of unrelated cases that use similar language in order to establish where it derives l'chatchila and b'dieved from, the Gemara concludes that the double language is in order to discuss two separate cases. The l'chatchila case is just the ordinary case of someone schechting meat. The b'dieved case according to Rabba bar Ullah is of someone who in slaughtering ordinary meat to eat takes on the additional strictures of shechting as if they were offering a sacrifice (perhaps as practice? or as a way of taking on additional purity?), but they are tamei! A person who is tamei can ordinarily schecht meat with no problem, but since they are shechting meat as if it were sanctified, apparently this becomes prohibited. In this case, they shouldn't shecht an animal, but if they do, and they used a long knife and are certain that they didn't touch the animal in the process, then b'dieved the meat is kosher.
This seems incomplete to me, I bet there are alternate theories of the two cases on the next pages.
Oh, also, b'dieved and l'chatchila. L'chatchila means something is permitted from the start. Someone wants to do something and it's perfectly fine, go right ahead. B'dieved means it's permitted after the fact. Someone wants to do something, we tell them they shouldn't, but if they went ahead and did it anyway, it's okay. Stuff like this is why it's so hard when people ask me questions about Jewish law to give them a straight answer.
The language of "Hakol Shochtin" also raises the question of whether hakol includes women. Apparently the conclusion is that it does, and the Shulchan Aruch says women can shecht, however later poskim forbid it anyway, probably because of sexism. It strikes me that there is now a small but significant group of female soferot asserting that their work is halakhically valid, but you never hear anything about female shochetot demanding to be recognized. The next frontier of egalitarianism?
Chullin is a word where the most direct translations have misleading connotations in English if you are not steeped in Judaism. It's translated as 'secular', or 'non-holy', or sometimes as 'profane', but those words don't mean the right thing unless you have already assimilated a Jewish understanding of kedusha, holiness.
Masechet Chullin contains the laws of slaughtering animals in a kosher manner for food as opposed to the laws of animals designated for Temple sacrifice. So Chullin clearly doesn't mean 'secular' in the sense of non-religious, it means 'secular' in opposition to consecrated- the laws of kashrut are one of the most significant and encompassing aspects of Jewish ritual law. Chullin is one of the more technically intricate tractates in the Talmud because it depends on deep and specific knowledge of animal anatomy and biology. It's also in some ways one of the more scientifically perplexing books in the Talmud because the Rabbis did not know 21st century biology. They didn't know what a cell was, they didn't know what DNA was, they didn't understand speciation even to the imperfect level that contemporary evolutionary biologists do. The modern reader has to sometimes parse through this dense technical discussion and figure out which parts are difficult because of the fine biological distinctions being made and which parts are difficult because the things the Rabbis saying are not in alignment with contemporary biology.
But part of the problem lies in trying to understand these laws scientifically to begin with. As I wrote in a discussion years back on miscibility in the Talmud
It's clear that in some sense one has to recognize that the qualities of tumah and tahorah, impurity and purity, are not effable physical qualities one can measure. They follow rules derived from the Torah and spirituality, not the logic of how physical objects interact.
The Talmud uses category systems that sometimes resemble modern taxonomy systems, and it's tempting to conflate them and then criticize the Rabbis when they misalign, but they aren't modern taxonomy systems and they don't serve the purposes of the taxonomic systems designed by modern biologists. R' Slifkin has a great discussion at the start of The Camel, the Hare, and the Hyrax about how the scriptural concept of min is not the same as the modern taxonomic concept of species. Perhaps I'll revisit that in future posts.
Daf 2
(For those who don't know, standard Vilna pagination in tractates of Gemara start with page 2. There may be some mundane reason for this- the Title Page is page 1, or something like that. But usually people say this is for mystical reasons. God is Alef, the beginning, and a human story therefore starts with Bet, to remind us that before the Talmud stands God. This is also an explanation offered for why the Torah begins with the letter Bet, the first letter in the word Bereishis.)
The first Mishna opens with a double statement "Hakol Shochtin // ushechitan k'shera". "All may slaughter, and their slaughter will be kosher." It then qualifies with the three categories of exceptions, people who are not presumptively allowed to slaughter because they are not trusted to be able to learn how to slaughter and perform the procedure correctly with an awareness of if they make an error. These categories are the deaf-mute, the shoteh, and the minor. I don't really want to translate shoteh, it's an ableist term for people with some sort of mental incapacity- of course the Tannaim did not have the DSM.
The Gemara immediately asks why the Mishna uses a double phrase. It would have been enough to say "All may slaughter" without "and their slaughter will be kosher." The sense of "Hakol shochtin" seems to be a presumption that anyone may slaughter l'chatchila, and the sense of "ushechitan k'shera" seems to be a presumption that anyone may slaughter b'dieved.
After discussing a bunch of unrelated cases that use similar language in order to establish where it derives l'chatchila and b'dieved from, the Gemara concludes that the double language is in order to discuss two separate cases. The l'chatchila case is just the ordinary case of someone schechting meat. The b'dieved case according to Rabba bar Ullah is of someone who in slaughtering ordinary meat to eat takes on the additional strictures of shechting as if they were offering a sacrifice (perhaps as practice? or as a way of taking on additional purity?), but they are tamei! A person who is tamei can ordinarily schecht meat with no problem, but since they are shechting meat as if it were sanctified, apparently this becomes prohibited. In this case, they shouldn't shecht an animal, but if they do, and they used a long knife and are certain that they didn't touch the animal in the process, then b'dieved the meat is kosher.
This seems incomplete to me, I bet there are alternate theories of the two cases on the next pages.
Oh, also, b'dieved and l'chatchila. L'chatchila means something is permitted from the start. Someone wants to do something and it's perfectly fine, go right ahead. B'dieved means it's permitted after the fact. Someone wants to do something, we tell them they shouldn't, but if they went ahead and did it anyway, it's okay. Stuff like this is why it's so hard when people ask me questions about Jewish law to give them a straight answer.
The language of "Hakol Shochtin" also raises the question of whether hakol includes women. Apparently the conclusion is that it does, and the Shulchan Aruch says women can shecht, however later poskim forbid it anyway, probably because of sexism. It strikes me that there is now a small but significant group of female soferot asserting that their work is halakhically valid, but you never hear anything about female shochetot demanding to be recognized. The next frontier of egalitarianism?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-29 11:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-30 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-30 03:34 pm (UTC)I didn't know the tradition about why the daf numbering starts from 2. That's pretty cool, thank you.
Regarding female shochetot, I think there are women who make klaf, but I'm not sure they're actually doing their own shechting. R' Motzkin and Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem are names I know.