Masechet Chullin Daf 4
Dec. 1st, 2018 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 4
A note on technology: I have the Artscroll Chullin in print. I also bought Chullin Illuminated by Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Lach, which I'm hopeful will be useful when I get to the anatomy sections of Chullin.
If I don't have my Artscroll with me, I can consult Sefaria through the Sefaria app on my phone. Sefaria doesn't have the commentaries and illustrations that the print Artscroll and Koren offer, but it has the text clearly laid out and I believe the same translation as the Koren, so it's handy to follow along to when listening to podcasts.
For added support, I've been listening to the OU's Daf Yomi podcast with Rabbi Elefant, and YCT's Daf Yomi podcast with Rabbi Linzer. I prefer Rabbi Linzer's shiurim, both hashkafically and in terms of how he presents the material, but YCT's podcast is less likely to actually be updated on time.
Daf 4 delves deeper into two of the cases from Daf 3, the case of the Cutti and the case of the Mumar.
Artscroll translates Cutti as Cuthean; Sefaria as Samaritan. They were a tribe that lived in Samaria/Shomron after the return from the Babylonian exile and they followed some of the laws of Judaism but not all of them. I'm a little confused about the connection between them and the modern day Samaritans.
The basic sense from the Gemara seems to be that, like the Karaim and several other sects over history, the Cuttim held by the Written Torah's mitzvot but not by the Oral Torah, but this is an incomplete explanation, which is what the Gemara is struggling with here.
Detour to something obvious I should have mentioned before. The whole basis for Masechet Chullin and the idea of shechita is Deuteronomy 14:21: Lo tochlu chol nevelah. Thou shalt not eat an animal that just died. From this the Rabbis learn that we can only eat meat that has been properly shechted. There is no explanation in the Torah of how to slaughter an animal in an acceptable way so that it's not nevelah, all of that is part of the Oral Law, and the discussion of that acceptable way forms the contents of Masechet Chullin.
Back to Cuttim. The Talmud teaches, at least according to most Tannaim, that it's acceptable to eat meat that has been shechted by a Cutti. Clearly this means that they shecht in a kosher way. So clearly they are not just living out Written Torah law via a sui generis analysis. They have access to the Oral Law to some degree.
The most significant difference so far that's emerged according to the Gemara is that the Cuttim do not understand Lifnei Iver the same way that the Gemara does. Lifnei Iver comes from Leviticus 19:14, Do not put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. The Talmud understands this as a halakhically binding metaphor. The blind person is a Jew who might be led into temptation, and the stumbling block is anything that might make it easier for the Jew to violate the Torah. Thus from the Oral Law Lifnei Iver is a prohibition on misleading a fellow Jew to lead them into sin.
Apparently the Cuttim interpret this literally to mean don't put a stumbling block in front a blind person, and have no prohibition against aiding someone else in a violation of the ritual law.
So the Talmud is concerned that a Cutti might give improperly slaughtered meat, that they would not eat themselves because they did not consider it kosher, to a Jew. Hence, watching the Cutti while they shecht resolves the problem.
The whole passage feels to me like outright xenophobia, an accusation that the Cuttim have no morals when dealing with Jews. Usually when reading passages like this in the Gemara, it seems like the Rabbis have had very little contact with whichever out-group that they are talking about, and I think this is pretty clearly such a case. All the Amoraim discussing this lived in Babylon and wouldn't have encountered Cuttim regularly, so everything they know about Cuttim probably comes from the Mishna and Baraisos, and the occasional traveler from Eretz Yisrael. I take it with a grain of salt.
The Mumar is translated by Artscroll as a Jewish renegade and by Sefaria as a Jewish transgressor. The contrast to the Cutti is pretty stark. Whatever vocabulary you want to apply, this was a Jew living among other Jews who was known to not always follow halakha to the letter, but who still had a significant connection to the Jewish people.
The Talmud describes a subcategory of Mumar "ochel nevelah l'teiavon", who eats unkosher meat because they're hungry. If kosher meat is in front of them, they eat it by preference, but if unkosher meat is more available or more convenient or cheaper, they'll opt for the nonkosher meat.
The Gemara's approach to the mumar is to say that as long as you made it as easy as possible for them to shecht kosher meat properly, you don't even need to watch them, you can assume they did it properly, l'chatchila.
This was surprising to me. I think about some BT people I know who won't eat in their parents' nominally kosher kitchens anymore, and it is clear from the unflinching way in which the Gemara discusses the mumar that the Rabbis were living in a society where they regularly interacted with Jews who were not observant and they compromised when they had to to make that interaction possible.
Part of Rabbi Sacks's critique of Charedism in Arguments for the Sake of Heaven is that because they are a voluntary sect that has separated itself from the mumrim, they no longer have to compromise like this, and that has led to an increased stringency that over time only strengthens the walls between them and the rest of the Jewish people. They no longer have to distinguish between the mumar who transgresses one prohibition and the mumar who transgresses the whole Torah, as the Gemara does.
A note on technology: I have the Artscroll Chullin in print. I also bought Chullin Illuminated by Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Lach, which I'm hopeful will be useful when I get to the anatomy sections of Chullin.
If I don't have my Artscroll with me, I can consult Sefaria through the Sefaria app on my phone. Sefaria doesn't have the commentaries and illustrations that the print Artscroll and Koren offer, but it has the text clearly laid out and I believe the same translation as the Koren, so it's handy to follow along to when listening to podcasts.
For added support, I've been listening to the OU's Daf Yomi podcast with Rabbi Elefant, and YCT's Daf Yomi podcast with Rabbi Linzer. I prefer Rabbi Linzer's shiurim, both hashkafically and in terms of how he presents the material, but YCT's podcast is less likely to actually be updated on time.
Daf 4 delves deeper into two of the cases from Daf 3, the case of the Cutti and the case of the Mumar.
Artscroll translates Cutti as Cuthean; Sefaria as Samaritan. They were a tribe that lived in Samaria/Shomron after the return from the Babylonian exile and they followed some of the laws of Judaism but not all of them. I'm a little confused about the connection between them and the modern day Samaritans.
The basic sense from the Gemara seems to be that, like the Karaim and several other sects over history, the Cuttim held by the Written Torah's mitzvot but not by the Oral Torah, but this is an incomplete explanation, which is what the Gemara is struggling with here.
Detour to something obvious I should have mentioned before. The whole basis for Masechet Chullin and the idea of shechita is Deuteronomy 14:21: Lo tochlu chol nevelah. Thou shalt not eat an animal that just died. From this the Rabbis learn that we can only eat meat that has been properly shechted. There is no explanation in the Torah of how to slaughter an animal in an acceptable way so that it's not nevelah, all of that is part of the Oral Law, and the discussion of that acceptable way forms the contents of Masechet Chullin.
Back to Cuttim. The Talmud teaches, at least according to most Tannaim, that it's acceptable to eat meat that has been shechted by a Cutti. Clearly this means that they shecht in a kosher way. So clearly they are not just living out Written Torah law via a sui generis analysis. They have access to the Oral Law to some degree.
The most significant difference so far that's emerged according to the Gemara is that the Cuttim do not understand Lifnei Iver the same way that the Gemara does. Lifnei Iver comes from Leviticus 19:14, Do not put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. The Talmud understands this as a halakhically binding metaphor. The blind person is a Jew who might be led into temptation, and the stumbling block is anything that might make it easier for the Jew to violate the Torah. Thus from the Oral Law Lifnei Iver is a prohibition on misleading a fellow Jew to lead them into sin.
Apparently the Cuttim interpret this literally to mean don't put a stumbling block in front a blind person, and have no prohibition against aiding someone else in a violation of the ritual law.
So the Talmud is concerned that a Cutti might give improperly slaughtered meat, that they would not eat themselves because they did not consider it kosher, to a Jew. Hence, watching the Cutti while they shecht resolves the problem.
The whole passage feels to me like outright xenophobia, an accusation that the Cuttim have no morals when dealing with Jews. Usually when reading passages like this in the Gemara, it seems like the Rabbis have had very little contact with whichever out-group that they are talking about, and I think this is pretty clearly such a case. All the Amoraim discussing this lived in Babylon and wouldn't have encountered Cuttim regularly, so everything they know about Cuttim probably comes from the Mishna and Baraisos, and the occasional traveler from Eretz Yisrael. I take it with a grain of salt.
The Mumar is translated by Artscroll as a Jewish renegade and by Sefaria as a Jewish transgressor. The contrast to the Cutti is pretty stark. Whatever vocabulary you want to apply, this was a Jew living among other Jews who was known to not always follow halakha to the letter, but who still had a significant connection to the Jewish people.
The Talmud describes a subcategory of Mumar "ochel nevelah l'teiavon", who eats unkosher meat because they're hungry. If kosher meat is in front of them, they eat it by preference, but if unkosher meat is more available or more convenient or cheaper, they'll opt for the nonkosher meat.
The Gemara's approach to the mumar is to say that as long as you made it as easy as possible for them to shecht kosher meat properly, you don't even need to watch them, you can assume they did it properly, l'chatchila.
This was surprising to me. I think about some BT people I know who won't eat in their parents' nominally kosher kitchens anymore, and it is clear from the unflinching way in which the Gemara discusses the mumar that the Rabbis were living in a society where they regularly interacted with Jews who were not observant and they compromised when they had to to make that interaction possible.
Part of Rabbi Sacks's critique of Charedism in Arguments for the Sake of Heaven is that because they are a voluntary sect that has separated itself from the mumrim, they no longer have to compromise like this, and that has led to an increased stringency that over time only strengthens the walls between them and the rest of the Jewish people. They no longer have to distinguish between the mumar who transgresses one prohibition and the mumar who transgresses the whole Torah, as the Gemara does.