Masechet Chullin Daf 99/100
Mar. 8th, 2019 07:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretIn honor of me somehow making it to 100 pages on schedule, let's call this another Open Questions about Talmud Post. Ask anything you want.
Daf 99
People would go to see Rabbi Ami to ask him about thighs that had been accidentally cooked with the gid hanasheh left intact, whether one was permitted to eat the other parts of the thigh. Rabbi Ami personally held that the thigh was rendered nonkosher, but he knew that other Rabbis held differently. So rather than ruling, he would send them to ask the question of Rabbi Yitzhak ben Chalov, who he knew held by the lenient ruling that the thigh was permitted.
It's kind of strange, but you see this a number of times in the Gemara. You'd think that if Rabbi Ami thought he was right, he would just issue his ruling, but apparently he thought that Rabbi Yizhak's position was equally valid even though he didn't personally hold by it, such that he was fine sending other people to get rulings from Rabbi Yitzhak.
One presumes that he wouldn't completely abdicate his job of providing halakhic guidance to his flock. But meat was super expensive, anytime you had to invalidate a big piece of meat as unkosher you were causing significant economic hardship on the owner, so one sees pretty significant value placed by the Talmud on finding ways to minimize that hardship while staying within the ambit of Torah values.
Daf 100
Disagreement in the Mishna between the Tanna Kamma and Rabbi Yehuda about whether you get lashes for eating the gid hanasheh of a nonkosher animal.
On the one hand, eating a non-kosher animal is a lav, so ordinarily you'd get lashes. But eating the nonedible parts of a non-kosher animal is fine, so since the majority opinion on previous pages is that the gid itself has no taste, you wouldn't get lashes. But since the gid is separately forbidden, you would get lashes?
Now, the actual prohibition on gid hanasheh is in Genesis during the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, as I've said. And the verse goes "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sciatic nerve”
The Rabbis teach that 'the children of Israel' refers to all of the nation of Israel, that the mitzvah was given at Sinai and was just written down in Genesis to link it to the story and show what the reason for this odd mitzvah is. So therefore they hold that the gid of a nonkosher animal is not prohibited because why would you prohibit the gid of an animal that the children of Israel are not permitted to eat?
Rabbi Yehuda teaches that 'the children of Israel' means the children of Jacob, who was called Israel. Since this is pre-Sinaitic, they were not obligated in the mitzvos of kashrus, so therefore the prohibition of gid includes nonkosher animals, which they were allowed to eat. (Of course, the Rabbis insist a whole bunch of times for Midrashic purposes that the Avot did observe all the mitzvos, but that's a story for another time.)
Daf 99
People would go to see Rabbi Ami to ask him about thighs that had been accidentally cooked with the gid hanasheh left intact, whether one was permitted to eat the other parts of the thigh. Rabbi Ami personally held that the thigh was rendered nonkosher, but he knew that other Rabbis held differently. So rather than ruling, he would send them to ask the question of Rabbi Yitzhak ben Chalov, who he knew held by the lenient ruling that the thigh was permitted.
It's kind of strange, but you see this a number of times in the Gemara. You'd think that if Rabbi Ami thought he was right, he would just issue his ruling, but apparently he thought that Rabbi Yizhak's position was equally valid even though he didn't personally hold by it, such that he was fine sending other people to get rulings from Rabbi Yitzhak.
One presumes that he wouldn't completely abdicate his job of providing halakhic guidance to his flock. But meat was super expensive, anytime you had to invalidate a big piece of meat as unkosher you were causing significant economic hardship on the owner, so one sees pretty significant value placed by the Talmud on finding ways to minimize that hardship while staying within the ambit of Torah values.
Daf 100
Disagreement in the Mishna between the Tanna Kamma and Rabbi Yehuda about whether you get lashes for eating the gid hanasheh of a nonkosher animal.
On the one hand, eating a non-kosher animal is a lav, so ordinarily you'd get lashes. But eating the nonedible parts of a non-kosher animal is fine, so since the majority opinion on previous pages is that the gid itself has no taste, you wouldn't get lashes. But since the gid is separately forbidden, you would get lashes?
Now, the actual prohibition on gid hanasheh is in Genesis during the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, as I've said. And the verse goes "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sciatic nerve”
The Rabbis teach that 'the children of Israel' refers to all of the nation of Israel, that the mitzvah was given at Sinai and was just written down in Genesis to link it to the story and show what the reason for this odd mitzvah is. So therefore they hold that the gid of a nonkosher animal is not prohibited because why would you prohibit the gid of an animal that the children of Israel are not permitted to eat?
Rabbi Yehuda teaches that 'the children of Israel' means the children of Jacob, who was called Israel. Since this is pre-Sinaitic, they were not obligated in the mitzvos of kashrus, so therefore the prohibition of gid includes nonkosher animals, which they were allowed to eat. (Of course, the Rabbis insist a whole bunch of times for Midrashic purposes that the Avot did observe all the mitzvos, but that's a story for another time.)
Question
Date: 2019-03-08 02:20 pm (UTC)Someone on Usenet asked my dad what Hindu scriptures say about this question, so I pay it forward!
Re: Question
Date: 2019-03-08 05:10 pm (UTC)It was taught in a baraita that the tanna Abba Binyamin would say: All of my life I have taken great pains with regard to two things: That my prayer should be before my bed and that my bed should be placed north to south.
...
In praise of that stringency, the Sages added that Rabbi Ḥama said that Rabbi Ḥanina said that Rabbi Yitzḥak said: One who places his bed facing north to south will be rewarded with male children, as it is stated: “And whose belly You fill with Your treasure [utzfunekha], who have sons in plenty and leave their abundance to their babies” (Psalms 17:14).
This is not a halakhic ruling, it's health/spiritual wellbeing advice. Other Rabbinic sources seem to say the opposite- apparently the Zohar, the primary Kabbalistic work, says orient East/West, but that may have to do with the Zohar being composed in Europe and the Talmud being written in the Middle East, and how they physically are situated with regard to Jerusalem in these various places.
There's also some minhagim about not orienting your bed with feet towards the door that have to do with superstition about your soul leaving your body during the night.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-08 05:16 pm (UTC)I love this so much. It's like the opposite of the parent who wants to be seen as lenient and makes another parent be the bad cop.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-08 07:17 pm (UTC)Rabbi Linzer and his class had a conversation at this point about the concept of Rabbi-shopping- you know, getting p'sak from a Rabbi on a she'ilah and then asking around until you find a Rabbi with a more lenient p'sak. This feels connected to that, but clearly it's different from the Talmud's perspective. Rabbi Linzer said that at minimum the difference is that here it's Rabbi-driven, but he also drew a distinction between Rabbi shopping to the degree where essentially you've already decided what you're going to do, and you're just looking until you find someone who will tell you what you want to hear, vs. seeking out a Rabbi who is responsive to your particular needs in a certain area. For example, finding a posek you're comfortable asking sensitive questions about niddah, even if that person is not your default posek otherwise.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-08 07:27 pm (UTC)