Masechet Chullin Daf 37
Jan. 3rd, 2019 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 37
The Mishna is about shechting a sick animal, a mesukenet. It's permitted bedieved, and possibly l'chatchila (Machklokes Rashi l'Tosafos), but after you do it, you need to check to make sure it didn't die in the middle of shechita, because that would render the animal a neveila.
How you check is a difference of opinion among Tannaim. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel says you look for a post-shechita leg kick. Rabbi Eliezer says you check for an immediate post-shechita spurting of blood in the throat; Rabbi Shimon says you can even check the next day for evidence of an immediate post-shechita spurting of blood in the throat. The Rabbis are like Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel except they also accept post-shechita tail wagging.
But if an animal is not a mesukenet, you don't need any of these things to happen. Which is a little hard to understand. If these are evidence that the animal is not dead yet, maybe you need this evidence all the time to show that your shechita was kosher? Why only when there is a chazaka that the animal is dying? Maybe you say that this sort of post-shechita convulsion is typical and is going to happen every time, just when there's a chazaka of dying you actually need to check for it. Or maybe we say that this isn't supposed to be interpreted as a general sign of life, just as a particular evidence that happens in the case of a mesukenet.
The question then is why a mesukenet is not a treifa. After all, a treifa is an animal with a wound on it that will cause it to die shortly, and a mesukenet is an animal with no wound but which is sick and will die soon. If the idea of treifa is to keep us from eating animals that are going to die soon, it should also prevent us from eating a mesukenet. The answer is that there is a verse, Leviticus 7:24 talking about chelev, the forbidden fats, that unnecessarily mentions both treifa and neveila in its prohibition. From here the Gemara learns that a mesukenet, which is clearly not a neveila yet, is also not a treifa.
The Mishna is about shechting a sick animal, a mesukenet. It's permitted bedieved, and possibly l'chatchila (Machklokes Rashi l'Tosafos), but after you do it, you need to check to make sure it didn't die in the middle of shechita, because that would render the animal a neveila.
How you check is a difference of opinion among Tannaim. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel says you look for a post-shechita leg kick. Rabbi Eliezer says you check for an immediate post-shechita spurting of blood in the throat; Rabbi Shimon says you can even check the next day for evidence of an immediate post-shechita spurting of blood in the throat. The Rabbis are like Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel except they also accept post-shechita tail wagging.
But if an animal is not a mesukenet, you don't need any of these things to happen. Which is a little hard to understand. If these are evidence that the animal is not dead yet, maybe you need this evidence all the time to show that your shechita was kosher? Why only when there is a chazaka that the animal is dying? Maybe you say that this sort of post-shechita convulsion is typical and is going to happen every time, just when there's a chazaka of dying you actually need to check for it. Or maybe we say that this isn't supposed to be interpreted as a general sign of life, just as a particular evidence that happens in the case of a mesukenet.
The question then is why a mesukenet is not a treifa. After all, a treifa is an animal with a wound on it that will cause it to die shortly, and a mesukenet is an animal with no wound but which is sick and will die soon. If the idea of treifa is to keep us from eating animals that are going to die soon, it should also prevent us from eating a mesukenet. The answer is that there is a verse, Leviticus 7:24 talking about chelev, the forbidden fats, that unnecessarily mentions both treifa and neveila in its prohibition. From here the Gemara learns that a mesukenet, which is clearly not a neveila yet, is also not a treifa.