Masechet Chullin Daf 92
Feb. 28th, 2019 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 92
Okay, so what exactly is the gid hanasheh? It's the sciatic nerve, a complicated bundle of nerves in the upper leg, embedded in the muscle and fat.
As is always the case with a body part in the Torah, there are a variety Rabbinical opinions about the parameters of what is forbidden. Where does the gid start, where does the gid end?
There's a particular question here because the most obvious thing to call the gid, the primary branch, is just a tasteless inedible nerve, not something anyone would particularly consider a food. And in general, inedible parts of an animal are not considered part of the animal for the laws of kashrut. So there's a tendency to want to say that the actual prohibited gid is some ancillary part that actually has flavor: Some argue that it's the fat surrounding the gid, which is not forbidden chelev but may be considered forbidden as part of the gid. Others say it's ancillary nerve bundles that I guess are more connected to the muscle or fat or some more foody part of the leg.
There are more lenient positions, too, which argue that the gid is this weird law that is directly connected to the story of Yaakov and the Malach, so that even though the gid is not a foodstuff, it still is forbidden stam. This is consistent with the previous daf and its focus on the midrashic interpretation of the wrestling as actually imparting halakha. But at least d'rabbanan we hold by the stricter opinions that encompass a more enveloping sense of what the gid is, and this is a significant holding because it is difficult, complicated, and expensive to properly remove the gid from a leg.
Per Horowitz, in modern industrial shechita, the solution is to sell the entire hindquarters of the animal to a non-kosher meatpacker rather than try to remove the gid and sell the meat as kosher.
Okay, so what exactly is the gid hanasheh? It's the sciatic nerve, a complicated bundle of nerves in the upper leg, embedded in the muscle and fat.
As is always the case with a body part in the Torah, there are a variety Rabbinical opinions about the parameters of what is forbidden. Where does the gid start, where does the gid end?
There's a particular question here because the most obvious thing to call the gid, the primary branch, is just a tasteless inedible nerve, not something anyone would particularly consider a food. And in general, inedible parts of an animal are not considered part of the animal for the laws of kashrut. So there's a tendency to want to say that the actual prohibited gid is some ancillary part that actually has flavor: Some argue that it's the fat surrounding the gid, which is not forbidden chelev but may be considered forbidden as part of the gid. Others say it's ancillary nerve bundles that I guess are more connected to the muscle or fat or some more foody part of the leg.
There are more lenient positions, too, which argue that the gid is this weird law that is directly connected to the story of Yaakov and the Malach, so that even though the gid is not a foodstuff, it still is forbidden stam. This is consistent with the previous daf and its focus on the midrashic interpretation of the wrestling as actually imparting halakha. But at least d'rabbanan we hold by the stricter opinions that encompass a more enveloping sense of what the gid is, and this is a significant holding because it is difficult, complicated, and expensive to properly remove the gid from a leg.
Per Horowitz, in modern industrial shechita, the solution is to sell the entire hindquarters of the animal to a non-kosher meatpacker rather than try to remove the gid and sell the meat as kosher.