Masechet Chullin Daf 45 and 46
Jan. 12th, 2019 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 45
These two dapim are extremely technical about anatomy, and in extremely unwieldly pre-modern language for the same. I picked up a book called Chullin Illuminated by Rabbi Dovid Yaakov Lach, which has nice pretty labelled pictures of animal organs cross-referenced to the pages of Chullin that refer to them. I haven't been using it much so far, but it's starting to be really valuable.
Rav and Shmuel discuss the kana halev, which literally means 'the heart pipe'. What is this referring to? The aorta? The vena cava? The pulmonary artery? Rashi and Rambam seem to disagree, although Maharal thinks they actually agree that it must be the aorta, because it discusses a layer of fat around it which is more consistent with the aorta, and so Maharal thinks we must interpret Rambam loosely. Sefaria's Steinsaltz-based translation calls it the aorta, whereas Artscroll's translation stays neutral and calls it 'the pipe of the heart'.
The Gemara goes on to distinguish three kanaim in the chest area, perush l'liba, perush l're'ya, and perush l'kaved. The pipe that branches to the heart, the pipe that branches to the lungs, and the branch that goes to the liver. This is similarly unclear what it's referring to. Rashi says the explanation is that it's respectively the aorta, the trachea, and the vena cava. Chullin Illuminated suggests that the most probably explanation is that the three kanaim are all blood vessels and rather than the lower trachea, perush l're'ya is the pulmonary artery. But there are a host of different opinions among Mefarshim, including some which say, somewhat improbably to me, that kana halev and perush l'liba do not refer to the same blood vessel.
The significance here of the distinction is that by associating these vessels with one of the organs they attach to, the Gemara learns which rule of treifa applies, whether a small hole is enough to invalidate or a more significant tear is required. The vessels seem to sort of inherit the rules of treifa from their associated organs... except when they don't, of course.
Daf 46
On Amud Bet we start the discussion of holes in the lungs, which is practically the essential question of treifa, as damage to the lungs are the most common treifa and the most central part of post-shechita inspection. (And of course the whole industry of glatt is about being extra careful about checking the lungs for treifas)
The lungs consist of a set of extremely delicate thin tissues to capture the air and react with it and so on, and a puncture through the two outermost layers render the animal a treifa, but it can be difficult to identify a hole by eye because of the nature of the organ, so the Gemara suggests identifying a puncture indirectly by blowing air into the inflated lungs and seeing if they inflate. If they don't, and instead a noise comes out of a whole, you can check to see if it's just a puncture in the outermost membranes by placing a delicate patch over the hole and blowing again and seeing if that causes the patch to move. Or if this can't be made to work, you submerge the lungs in water and blow into them and see if it bubbles. If the lungs are airtight, it's kosher. If it's not airtight, you have to investigate further.
These two dapim are extremely technical about anatomy, and in extremely unwieldly pre-modern language for the same. I picked up a book called Chullin Illuminated by Rabbi Dovid Yaakov Lach, which has nice pretty labelled pictures of animal organs cross-referenced to the pages of Chullin that refer to them. I haven't been using it much so far, but it's starting to be really valuable.
Rav and Shmuel discuss the kana halev, which literally means 'the heart pipe'. What is this referring to? The aorta? The vena cava? The pulmonary artery? Rashi and Rambam seem to disagree, although Maharal thinks they actually agree that it must be the aorta, because it discusses a layer of fat around it which is more consistent with the aorta, and so Maharal thinks we must interpret Rambam loosely. Sefaria's Steinsaltz-based translation calls it the aorta, whereas Artscroll's translation stays neutral and calls it 'the pipe of the heart'.
The Gemara goes on to distinguish three kanaim in the chest area, perush l'liba, perush l're'ya, and perush l'kaved. The pipe that branches to the heart, the pipe that branches to the lungs, and the branch that goes to the liver. This is similarly unclear what it's referring to. Rashi says the explanation is that it's respectively the aorta, the trachea, and the vena cava. Chullin Illuminated suggests that the most probably explanation is that the three kanaim are all blood vessels and rather than the lower trachea, perush l're'ya is the pulmonary artery. But there are a host of different opinions among Mefarshim, including some which say, somewhat improbably to me, that kana halev and perush l'liba do not refer to the same blood vessel.
The significance here of the distinction is that by associating these vessels with one of the organs they attach to, the Gemara learns which rule of treifa applies, whether a small hole is enough to invalidate or a more significant tear is required. The vessels seem to sort of inherit the rules of treifa from their associated organs... except when they don't, of course.
Daf 46
On Amud Bet we start the discussion of holes in the lungs, which is practically the essential question of treifa, as damage to the lungs are the most common treifa and the most central part of post-shechita inspection. (And of course the whole industry of glatt is about being extra careful about checking the lungs for treifas)
The lungs consist of a set of extremely delicate thin tissues to capture the air and react with it and so on, and a puncture through the two outermost layers render the animal a treifa, but it can be difficult to identify a hole by eye because of the nature of the organ, so the Gemara suggests identifying a puncture indirectly by blowing air into the inflated lungs and seeing if they inflate. If they don't, and instead a noise comes out of a whole, you can check to see if it's just a puncture in the outermost membranes by placing a delicate patch over the hole and blowing again and seeing if that causes the patch to move. Or if this can't be made to work, you submerge the lungs in water and blow into them and see if it bubbles. If the lungs are airtight, it's kosher. If it's not airtight, you have to investigate further.