Chullin 121: What is Alal? What is Marteka?

We know that bones, tendons, horns and hooves can supplement the meat of an animal so that it will become the required size to become ritually defiled with tum'at ochlin, food ritual defilement.  Also mentioned is a substance not defined.  It is known as alal.  The Gemara attempts to define alal.

• Rabbi Yochanan says that it is marteka
• Reish Lakish sat that it is meat residue still attached to the hide after the meat has been cut off with a knife
• The meaning of marteka is unclear and the rabbis debate possible definitions
• Rashi says that marteka is the tendon of the neck and spin, a hard ligament
• Rabbeinu Tam points out that when marteka is mention in Massechet Zevachim (35a), Rashi offers the same explanation but the reference is to fowl which do not have this type of tendon
• Rabbeinu Tam says that marteka is dead or whithered flesh
• This opinion is supported in the Aruch, where the term reads as 'mardeka' and in Middle Persion mardeka means 'dead'
• Tosafot say in the name of Rashi that marteka is one of the tendons or hard veins of the throat
• They explain that it is called alal because 'tendons' we might conclude that the harder tendons would not be included as they are less edible than other tendons.

Chullin 120: Eating or Drinking Dam or Chelev in Any Form

If we eat dam, blood, or chelev, forbidden fats, we are liable to receive karet, a death sentence (this could mean premature death or other excommunication from the community).  This is taught in Vayikra 7:23-27).

Today's Gemara teaches us that this prohibition applies even if the form is changed.  If the blood was processed so that it became solid, or the fat was melted so that it became liquid, each would make one liable for karet.  In the case of solidified blood, it would be considered a food, and we are prohibited to eat blood (Vayikra 3:17). Forbidden fats in liquid form is not explicitly forbidden from being drunk according Torah law. Reish Lakish believes that they should also be forbidden.
  
Tosafot and other rabbis share that the Gemara in Shevuot 23a quotes a pasuk regarding the Second Tithe (Devarim 14:23) that commands the farmed to eat the tithe of your corn, wine, old and the firstlings of your herd and flock.  Thus wine is considered to be 'eaten'.  Is drinking included in eating?  Tosafot continue to discuss that there is a difference between things that are normally drunk and things that are normally eaten but have been processed so that the are drunk in a special circumstance.  In that situation, wi might assume that drinking is unnatural and should be considered eating.

The Maharatz Chajes introduces a new interpretation.  The minimum size necessary to have eaten something is generally a ka-zayit, olive bulk.  The minimum size of having run something is a revi'it, a quarter of a log.  If drinking chelev is eating it, the amount required would follow the dry measurement rather than the liquid measurement.

Chullin 119: The Size of Produce, Shimon ben Shatah, Queen Salome

We have learned that if food has a yad, a handle, or if it was covered with something that acted as a shomer, a protection to the food, touching the a00endages would cause ritual defilement that could be spread to others.  Today, the Gemara provides the example of husks of wheat kernels as a shomer because the kernels protect each other.  The Gemara questions whether or not the kernels are large enough to become ritually defiled.  We learn about the case of "the wheat grains of Shimon ben Shatah".

In Massekhet Ta'anit (23a) we learn that kernels grew to the size of kidneys, barley grew to the size f olives and lentils grew to the size of gold dinars.  This was said to remind future generations that if we too were without sin, we would merit such large produce.

Shimon ben Shatah was the leader of the Sanhedrin while King Alexander Yannai was in charge of the land.  Shimon ben Shatah abolished witchcraft, clarified the laws of court testimony, and finalized the laws of marriage contracts.  He even brought King Yannai to court which led him into hiding.  After King Yannai's death, Queen Salome took charge of the land.  She was the sister of Shimon ben Shatah, and they worked together to rule the land successfully according to Jewish law.

Chullin 118: on Handles and Protective Appendages

The Gemara quotes Massechet Okatzin (1:1) to teach us further about the differences between adding to a piece of meat so that it becomes large enough to be ritually defiled and not being able to do so with an animal found dead in the road.  

It teaches that if something serves as a handle to a bulk but not as a protection, the attached food becomes ritually impure if the handle comes in contact with a source of impurity.  The handle then transmits ritual impurity but is not included in the amount required to make up the necessary size of an egg bulk to demonstrate the impurity.  

It goes on to explain that if something serves as an appendage to the meat that is protective, even in a case where it does not serve as a handle, the attached food becomes ritually impure if the protection comes into contact with a a ritually impure item.  The protection imparts ritual impurity and it also joins together with the meat to create the required measure to impart ritually impurity.

When an item does not serve as a handle nor as a protection, the attached food does not become impure even if the appendage comes into contact with ritual impurity.  The appendage does not impart ritual impurity nor does it join together to constitute the measure required for the meat to impart ritual impurity. 

In the end we learn that the handle which allows the object to be picked up or used may not supplement to volume of the meat.  However, if someone were to pick up a dead animal by its bones, hooves, sinews, or horns, they would be considered to have come into contact with meat that has been ritually defiled.

One has to wonder about why these rules exist.  Was the intention to keep people from being in contact with found animals that had been killed?  I am clearly missing some pieces of information that would help to explain the purpose behind these halachot.

Chullin 117: The Amount of Meat that Causes Ritual Impurity

Today's daf begins the ninth Perek of Massechet Chullin.  It's topics relate to ritual defilement, which is not the topic of our massechet, but is relevant to issues like ritual slaughter, removing the animal's hide and cutting the animal apart.

• the principal of tuma'at ochlin teaches that all food items that become ritual impure by contact with a dead body can potentially defile other foods the size of an egg bulk
• the Mishna tells us that if the meat is not as large as an egg bulk it can be supplemented by other parts of the animal not normally thought of as food (skin, congealed meat juice, bones, tendons lower section of horns or upper section of hooves)
• In these cases it will be susceptible to ritual defilement and will defile other food and drink

• the principal of tum'at neaeila refers to an animal that was killed by a predator or died without interference.  
• Such animals are ritually defiled and will defile others if it is minimally the size of an olive bulk.
• This meat cannot be supplemented by other parts of an animal to cause it to become ritually defiled and thus able to transfer ritual impurity to others. 

Chullin 116: Cooking Fowl in Milk, Tolerance for Different Interpretations

In Chullin 114, we learn that we may not eat meat cooked in milk, we may not benefit from it, nor may we do that cooking.  Some rabbis believe that this is because of the three times that eating meat cooked in milk is prohibited in the Torah.  This is contrasted with other prohibitions where benefiting from the prohibited action after the fact is allowed: cooking on Shabbat, plowing with an ox and donkey together, planting diverse kinds, slaughtering a mother and its offspring on the same day, and failing to remove a mother bird from her nest before taking her eggs.  These are all justified with prooftexts.

The Mishna discusses which types of meat may be cooked with milk.  For example, Rabbi Akiva focuses on the "kid" in the prohibition and does not include fowl nor wild animals in the prohibition.  Rabbi Yosei HaGelili says that birds are excluded from the prohibition because fowl cannot be cooked in mothers milk that does not exist.  The Gemara suggests two interpretations.  Perhaps Rabbi Yosei HaGelili believes that wild animals are Biblically prohibited while Rabbi Akiva believes the prohibitions are rabbinical.  Second, perhaps Rabbi Akiva believes that wild animals and fowl are prohibited by the Sages, but that Rabbi Yosei HaGelili believes that fowl can be cooked with milk with no restrictions.

The Gemara related the story of Levi who was served a peacock's head cooked in milk by Joseph the bird hunter in Rabbi Yosei HaGelili's community. Levi said nothing.  Rabbi asked why Levi did not excommunicate them.  Levi responded that this was the place of Rabbi Yehuda ben Baraita who must have taught Rabbi Yosei HaGelili's ruling, even though that ruling was not generally accepted.

The Rivash shares that as strong as Levi and Rabbi's ruling was regarding cooking fowl in milk, they recognized two things:

• the community would likely continue their tradition, and
• the community may have been following a valid, but rejected position, and thus they should not be punished.

Steinsaltz notes that this is a critical lesson for today's Jewish communities, where so many different traditions have evolved over time in different communities.  There is no need to reject, rebuke or otherwise distance ourselves from each other based on different halachic interpretations.

Chullin 114: Exceptions to the Prohibition of Cooking Meat in Milk

Today's daf tells us about the exceptions to cooking meat with milk.  Cooking bones, tendons, horns or hooves in milk does not make a person liable.  Cooking meat in whey is also not a liable action.Steinsaltz teaches us that there are no reasons given as to why certain parts of the animal can beckoned with milk.  There is the possibility that these things are not eaten and thus they do not break cross the prohibition.  Other opinions suggest that items that are cooked to add flavour but are not eaten (for example, hard bones but not soft bones) would be permitted.

Chullin 113: Removing Blood From Meat

Our last several dapim have focused on the transfer of meat - its flavour and substance; the consumption of liver, a blood filled organ, and other issues on kashrut related to meat.  Today's daf focuses on how we can ensure that we have removed all blood from meat before its consumption.  In both Vayikra 3:17 and 17:11-14, we are directed that eating blood is forbidden.  Thus the process of removing blood is specific and involved.  It is surprising that more rabbinical thought did not go into justifying vegetarian food preparation to avoid any accidental consumption of blood.

• Shmuel teaches that meat must be salted thoroughly, rinsed throughly and then drained of its blood
• Rav Huna teaches that one must first salt the meat and then rinse it
• A baraita teaches that meat must be rinsed, salted, and then rinsed again
• Rav Dimi of Neharde'a teaches that meat must be salted with coarse salt and then shaken off

Rema's ruling holds according to the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'a 69:1.  First the meat is soaked in water for 30 minutes, or minimally rinsed very well in water.  Then the meat must be carefully salted with salt.  The final step to to wash the salt off of the meat.

We learn from the Re'ah that the first washing removes all existing blood left on the meat after the slaughter.  The salt can only draw out blood that is in the meat and is still wet.  It does not affect the blood on the meat that is still wet nor the blood that has dried on the meat.

The Rosh shares two different opinions about how to deal with meat that was not washed before salting.  First, the slat would not remove all of the blood, and so the blood would be reabsorbed into the meat in such a way that would not allow it to be removed.  Second, it is possible to allow a second salting that would remove all of the remaining blood.

Chullin 109: Yalta's Observations on Equivalency in Laws

A new Mishna teaches that to prepare the udder for eating, it must be opened to remove the milk.  Rav Yehuda teaches in the Gemara that the udder should be cut crosswise and pressed against the wall.  The Gemara continues by teaching about Yalta, part of the Exilarch's family and wife of Rav Nachman, was said to be learned and a participant in the rabbis' discussions.

We are told that Yalta observed that everything that G-d forbids us in law is permitted to us in an equivalent situation:

• blood is forbidden; liver is permitted
• intercourse during menstruation is forbidden; blood of purification is permitted
• we cannot eat the fat of cattle but we may eat the fat of wild beasts
• we may not eat swine's flesh but we may eat the brain of the shibuta fish
• married women are forbidden but divorcees are permitted while their husbands are alive
• the brother's wife is forbidden but levirate marriage is permitted
• the non-Jewess is forbidden but women are permitted when taken in war

Yalta then asks, "I wish to eat flesh in milk; where is the equivalent?"  Rav Nachman asked the butchers to prepare roasted, not cooked, udders for her.  He argued that the requirement to cit the udder crosswise and press it against the wall was only required when the udder was to be cooked but not roasted.

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Chullin 108: A Drop of Milk Falls on Meat

Briefly - today's daf uses information from a non-kosher meatball falling into a pot of meat to determine the kashrut if a drop of milk falls on a piece of meat.  Ultimately the rabbis agreed that if the milk fell on only one piece of meat, that one piece can be separated from the meal and the meal is still kosher.  If the drop of milk fell in a pot of meat and the meat was mixed, one would have to determine whether or not the milk accounted for more than one sixtieth of the meal to determine its kashrut.

Chullin 107: Feeding Another Person

What should be done when one person is feeding another?  Must both wash their hands, even though only one is touching the food and the other is only eating the food?  The Gemara quotes a baraita from Yom Kippur where adults are both prohibited from eating and from washing themselves for pleasure.

The most obvious enable is a woman (sic) who needs to feed her children.  She can wash one hand so that she can give them food. We are told about Shammai HaZaken refusing to feed his children on Yom Kippur until the Sages ordered him to wash both hands and feed them.  Shammai is said to have not wanted to use the leniency of washing one hand; the rabbis had him wash both hands to prove that he was breaking no prohibition at all.

The Ritva teaches that the Talmud shares many situations where the Sages went beyond the letter of the law to emphasize the correct ruling.  Rabbeinu Yehonatan argues that Shammai HaZaken was concerned that he would touch the food with his unwashed hand accidentally, and thus he did not feed his children.  The Sages helped him to avoid this 'accident' by insisting he wash both hands.

Abaye teaches a part of this tradition: people were afraid of transmitting illness from one small child to another by Shivta, a ru'ach ra'a, evil spirit.  In Ge'onic literature, Shivta was considered to be a diseased that affected mostly babies and young children transferred by dirty hands.

Chullin 106: Ritual Handwashing Before the Meal; Which Water is Permitted

Ritual hand washing before the beginning of the meal is more familiar to me than what we have learned in past dapim about ritual hand washing during and after the meal.  

Chizkiyya teaches that we may not use hot water nor water from the hot springs of Tiberius for hand washing before the meal.  However, he says that we can dip them in the water of a mikvah.  Rabbi Yochanan disagrees with both statements.  He states that he asked Rabbi's son, Rabban Gamliel, who affirmed that all of the Sages of the Galilee used it for ritual hand washing.  Rabbi Yochanan ruled that the hot springs could be used as a mikvah for the entire body, but not to wash one's face, hands, or feet.

Rav Pappa teaches that all agree that the hot springs of Tiberias can be be used as a mikvah.  They also agree that that water from those springs are not to be used for hand washing if they are removed in a bucket or vessel.  IF there are pipes laid through the hot springs so that the water is heated, Chizkiyya forbids the use of those waters to avoid confusion between them and the hot water from hot springs.  Rabbi Yochanan is not concerned about a problem with that distinction. 

Steinsaltz teaches that the Tiberias hot springs near the Sea of the Galilee are heated geothermally at a constant temperature 60C or 140F.  The waters are high in minerals and salt and are recognized as having medicinal benefits.   They are too bitter to drink but were sed by locals to heat fresh drinking water by using pipes leading from the hot springs.  Notably, the rabbis explain that the hot springs cannot be use for handwashing because the are too bitter to be drunk by a dog.  Any water in a vessel that is unfit for animals is unfit for hand washing. 

Chullin 105: Handwashing Between Meat and Milk; Salt

We learn about washing the hands around food.  The first time that we wash is mayyim emtz'iyim, washing during the meal.  Rav Nachman explains that we are not required to wash between courses of a meal unless a cooked meat dish and cheese are both being served. In that case, which is seemingly forbidden, washing between dishes is necessary.

To elucidate, the Rashbam teaches that Rav Nachman is describing the difference between a meal consisting of two doses of meat or milk, where no washing is needed, and a meal where a milk dish is followed by a meat dish, where washing would be required.  A milk dish would never be permitted to follow a meat dish.  Rabbeinu Tam suggests that Rav Nachman is talking about a meat dish that follows a milk dish.  We learn that as long as no actual meat or mil products are consumed, only when there is the "taste" of meat or milk in a dish, there is no need to wash our hands.  If actual cheese is being eaten after meat was eaten, we would be required to separate the two by washing.  The Rema accepts the Rashbam's position and it is still Halacha to wait a significant amount of time between eating meat and milk dishes.

The second type of washing is Mayyim acharonim, washing after the meal.  Rav Yehuda ben Rabbi China explains that this is essential because the melach sodomit, salt, could blind you if left on your fingers.  Abaye adds that this type of salt mixed with ordinary salt would pose serious medical danger.

Steinsaltz notes that this seems to refer to Magnesium Chloride (MgC12) which is found in the Dead Sea.  Both of these elements can be mixed with Sodium Chloride (NaCl), ordinary salt, which is produced in Sodom near the Dead Sea.  These are poisonous substances which could infect the eye of someone who inadvertently rubbed his or her eye with the dangerous material.

Chullin 104: Separating Milk and Meats

We have been learning about laws of kashrut.  Yesterday our Misha taught that every kind of meat is forbidden to be coked in milk except for the meat of fish and grasshoppers.  We learned that it is also forbidden to place meat and cheese on the same table, again with the exception of the flesh of fish and grasshoppers.

The Gemara tells us that Rabbi Akiva disagrees.  He says that the ofot, the flesh of fowl, and chayyot, the flesh of wild animals are not considered to be meat regarding the halachot of meat and milk.  Rav Ahi says that the Mishna should be read as "every kind of meat is forbidden to be cooked in milk, domesticated animals forbidden by Torah and the meat of fowl and wild animals forbidden by the Sages.  The exceptions are the meat of fish and grasshoppers, which are not forbidden by Torah nor by the Sages".

The  Gemara tells us that Rabbi Abba's father-in-law Agra taught that fowl and cheese may be eaten without washing one's hands nor cleaning one's mouth between eating one and the other.  The Ramban teaches us that Agra considers fowl to be other than meat according to Torah, so the Sages do not require the same level of separation between milk products and fowl as between milk products and real meat.  Rabbeinu Tam wonders whether Agra might believe that fowl does not become stuck on the ands, teeth and gums in the way that 'real' meat does.

The Rambam confines Agra's teaching to situations where cheese was eaten before the fowl, though this does not seem to be the simple meaning of his statement.  Regardless, common practice is that we do not distinguish between fowl and meat regarding the amount of time that people must wait before consuming milk products.

Chullin 100: Which Came First, the Mitzvah or the Practice?

The rabbis question which animals, kosher or non-kosher animals, are forbidden when it comes to the sciatic nerve.  Bereishit (32:33) teaches that Jacob limped back after his fight with the angel, and the Torah said "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the spoon of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the spoon of Jacob's thigh, even int he sinew of the thigh-vein."

Our new Mishna teaches that only kosher animals apply.  Rabbi Yehuda argues that Jacob's children were allowed to eat ritually impure animals before the Torah was given but they did not eat the sciatic nerve.  The Mishna responds that the mitzvah prohibiting the sciatic nerve was given at Mount Sinai and then it was placed in context in Bereishit.  This does not address the question of whether or not Jacob's children kept the tradition before receiving Torah.

Steinsaltz explains the general principal regarding Biblical mitzvot: they require the Jewish People because they were given as part of the Torah and not because they may have been part of earlier Biblical narrative.  The example provided by Rambam is that of brit mila, circumcision, is kept because the Torah commands us to circumcize our children like Abraham was circumsized, not because Avraham was commanded to circumcize himself and members of the family.

Even in antiquity we see our rabbis grappling with the questions that arise around time: how could one thing have happened before it was written?  Which rules did we begin to follow at which times?  How can we use logic to better understand creation, time, the will of G-d, and Halacha?

Chullin 99: How to Taste Whether or not Something is Kosher

Over the dapim Chullin 97 and 98, the rabbis have discussed the ruling that one sixtieth of non-kosher content will not cause the entire kosher whole to become forbidden.  The rabbis have argued about which exact ratio might be permitted and under which circumstances there might be flexibility.

In Chullin 96, a Mishna taught that if the gid hanasheh, sciatic nerve, had not been removed when the thigh was cooked so that there was enough forbidden flavour to affect the meat of the thigh, it is forbidden.  How is this measured? The Mishna explains that we compare it to meat cooked with turnips.  Today's daf has Rav Huna's explanation.The meat and turnips would be cooked in the same proportions as the thigh and sciatic nerve.  If the meat flavours the turnips then the thigh would be forbidden.  And as the Sages have estimated, meat cannot transfer its taste to any substance that is cooked where the substance is sixty times larger in bulk than the meat. 

The rabbis wonder how it would be possible to estimate a forbidden flavour.  First of all, all meats have a similar taste.  Secondly, a Jew might accidentally taste what is forbidden.  Third, the Chatam Sofer argues that a non-Jew would not be familiar with Jewish flavours.  Thus because non-Jews always eat the thigh with the sciatic nerve attached, s/he would not be able to accurately judge a change in the flavour of the meat.

The Gemara notes that Yishmael ben Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka disagrees with the Mishna.  He rules that the gid hanasheh has no taste at all and cannot transfer its flavour into the meat surrounding it.  This opinion is accepted by the rabbis.  It is interesting that the rabbis are willing to concede that the sciatic nerve has no flavour when no-one has in fact tasted it.

Chullin 95: An Olive Bulk of the Gid HaNasheh?

We learn in a new Mishna that a person must eat at least a ka-zayit, an olive bulk, of the gid hanasheh, the sciatic nerve, to be liable to receive the punishment of lashes.  The Mishna also says that if a person eats more than an olive-bulk but the sciatic nerve is smaller than an olive-bulk, the person is still liable to receive lashes.

The Gemara teaches that the sciatic nerve is special.  It is a beriah bifnei atzmah, a significant free-standing entity.  As such, it does not adhere to regular Halacha.  Such entities are said to have been singled out by the Torah as forbidden to be eaten in its entirety.  Even though Shmuel teaches that the 'spoon' of the thigh is forbidden, the entire gid ha-nasheh is mentioned in the Torah and thus it is forbidden to eat any of that entity.

Some say that the beriah bifnei atzmah must include the significance of an entire creation.  According to this interpretation, one is punished if they consume the entire gid hanasheh as it is a significant act. However, s/he would not be liable for punishment if s/he had only eaten the part of the gid hanasheh that was forbidden.  A strange twist.

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