Wednesday, 27 March 2019

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.

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