An Introduction to Meseches Chulin

Maseches Chullin, as its name implies, deals with laws related to Chullin. So, in contrast to the previous two masechtas that we learned, Zevachim and Menachos, which dealt with the laws of Korbanos, Maseches Chullin, which ironically isn't Seder Kodashim, doesn't deal with Kodashim, rather it deals with Chullin. Now, from the name of the masechta, you would almost think that the topics discussed are going to be all things related to Chullin. The truth is, the masechta is a lot more focused than that. In fact, the nosei of the masechta are beheimos that are Chullin. So, that whereas masechtas Zevachim specifically dealt with the halachos of beheimos that were Korbanos, Maseches Chullin is the contrast, it deals with the halachos of beheimos that are Chullin. In fact, many of the Rishonim scattered throughout Shas, when they would refer to Maseches Chullin, they would refer to it as Maseches Shechitas Chullin. Somehow, along the way, Shechitas Chullin became the shorter version of Chullin. The word Chullin is a little bit misleading. Shechitas Chullin is a more descriptive way of describing what exactly it is the masechta deals with, and that is it's the laws of [snorts] shechitas Chullin. So, what exactly is shechita? Everybody knows. Every Jew in the world knows that there's something called food that's kosher and there's something called food that's not kosher. As it relates to meat, even if the animal whose meat you're eating is kosher, in the event that it wasn't prepared in the appropriate way, it would be deemed to be considered not kosher. How do you prepare meat in the kosher way? The first thing you have to do is you have to shecht it. The makor to the idea of shechita is a pasuk in the Torah. It's in Sefer Devarim, it's Parshas Vayikra, it's perek Yud Beis, it's pasuk Chaf Vav. The pasuk says, "Ki yerchak mimcha hamakom asher yivchar Hashem Elokecha lasum shmo sham." In the event that you're a Yid and you're going to be living in Eretz Yisrael, but you're going to be far away from the Mikdash and you're going to want to eat meat, says the Torah, that's okay. However, "Vizavachta mikarcha tzoncha, you should shecht from the bakar and the tzon asher nasan Hashem lecha, the bakar and the tzon that Hakadosh Baruchu so graciously gave you, and you should shecht it kasher tzivicha, in the way that I commanded you to shecht it. V'achalta besharecha, and if you do that, assuming the animal was not Korban, it's Chullin, you'll be able to eat it besharecha bechol avas nafshicha, wherever you desire to eat it." So, the Torah says that in the event that a person wants to eat bakar and tzon, "Vizavachta, you have to do a zevicha kasher tzivicha, in the way that I commanded you to do it." There's a very interesting Gemara that we'll get to be'ezras Hashem in Maseches Chullin daf Chaf Resh Amud Alef, where Rebbe said that if you go back in the Torah and you look at all the parshiyos that were mentioned up until Devarim perek Yud Beis, there's no way that the Torah commands the Yid and instructs him exactly how to do a shechita. And Rebbe said, "This word, kasher tzivicha, is a remez in the Torah shebichtav to the Torah sheba'al peh." Advarim matikin, but the point is that kasher tzivicha must be some oral tradition, and what Hakadosh Baruchu or Moshe Rabbeinu or Misheh Torah is telling Klal Yisrael is that you remember I told you exactly how you're supposed to shecht? Well, when you're going to go into the land of Kena'an and you're going to have an opportunity to eat bakar and tzon that Hakadosh Baruchu is going to give you, that's okay. However, make sure you're going to follow those laws. Make sure vizavachtem mikarche tzoncha, make sure you go ahead and do it, and you do it kasher tzivicha. But this pasuk right here, tucked away, is the one and only pasuk that is the source, it's the makor to this concept of even if I'm eating meat from a kosher animal, the only time it's considered kosher is in the event that I do a shechita. Now, what happens if somebody eats rachmana litzlan, kosher meat, it's from a cow, it's from an animal that you're allowed to eat from. However, he didn't do a shechita. So, number one, he violated the law of shechita. He was over this pasuk. Now, what exactly is shechita from a mitzvah perspective? That's something that be'ezras Hashem will be the topic of the raid of today's daf. But in addition to the fact that he violated the law of shechita, he also was over a lav she'aseh. What lav she'aseh? So, it depends. In the event that the animal was alive, then he's over the lav of ever min hachai. Ever min hachai is unique that not only is it a lav, but it's actually one of the sheva mitzvos benei Noach. In fact, it's the only one of the sheva mitzvos benei Noach that relate to ma'achalos assurim. But the bottom line is, ever min hachai is a very, very big lav. The Gemara in Gittin daf Zayin refers to it as a davar gadol because it's not only a lav, it's sheva mitzvos benei Noach, and again, the only one of the sheva mitzvos benei Noach of ma'achalos assurim, or the only type of ma'achalos assurim that relates even to somebody that's not a Yehudi. In the event that the animal wasn't alive, but you didn't do a shechita, so you weren't over ever min hachai because it's not chai, it's an ever min hameis. But at the same time, the person's over the issur of aveilah, and aveilah is a horrible issur in the Torah, it's a lav she'aseh, it's a chiyuv malkus. The point is that if somebody would go ahead and he would eat meat without doing a shechita, number one, he would violate the chiyuv to do a shechita. What exactly is that? We're going to see. In addition to that, he's also over a lav. What lav? It depends. If the animal's alive, he's over the issur of ever min hachai. And if the animal is not alive, then he's going to be over the issur of aveilah. Now, what exactly is shechita? What's the definition of shechita? So, Chazal, throughout Maseches Chullin, Rashi brings in the Chumash, everybody knows this. Shechita means that the animal was killed by severing its two simanim, the konah and the veshet, in English, the trachea and the esophagus, respectively. Now, the animal does not need that all of its simanim were severed, rov of the simanim are enough. In fact, one of the greatest sugyos of rov are in Maseches Chullin because really, the whole inyan of how you do a shechita is rov of the simanim. So, the word rov is going to come up again and again and again. So, number one, the way shechita has to happen is by the severing of the konah and the veshet. It's interesting, the Ramban al haTorah in that pasuk that we mentioned before, in Mishneh Torah, Parshas Re'eh, perek Yud Beis, pasuk Chaf Vav, says that he believes that the idea that shechita has to be al yedei severing the simanim, that's not Torah sheba'al peh. He said that's the ta'am of the word shechita, ein ta'am. But the Ramban says that you find different words that are used to describe killing. One of the words that are used is shechita, also referred to as zevicha, those are both leshonos in the Torah, and the Ramban says they mean the same thing, and they both mean killing in this way. So, shechita is not the ta'am, you shecht it. We have a mesorah that it has to be in this way. That is the definition of shechita. So, in the event that it wasn't dei simanim, it's harigah, it's retzicha, it's some other synonym thereof. But shechita is by definition, so says the Ramban, in the event that you do this. But there are other halachos that govern the halachos of shechita. You think? Most notably, however, and this is something that needs to be spoken out already in the hakdamah to the masechta, most notably, there are five halachos leMoshe miSinai. We'll see that three of them are already going to make a cameo appearance in Chullin daf Beis Amud Beis. So, what are these five halachos leMoshe miSinai? So, it's helpful to be a shochet, but for the rest of us, just describe the words. Number one, shehiyah. So, when the shochet does the shechita, he's not allowed to pause for too long a period of time in the middle of the ma'aseh shechita. So, shehiyah means you're stopping, you're pausing, that's something that one is not allowed to do. The second one is derasah. So, derasah means that when the shochet severs, he has to be molech umeivi, there's a certain motion that he has to use. In the event that he presses against the konah and the veshet, and that's the way he kills the animal, even if he got the bei simanim and he didn't pause, that in and of itself is not going to be okay. The third is chaladah. Chaladah is maybe the most technical, but chaladah is where the shochet takes the sakin and he sticks it, he pokes it into the animal in between the two simanim, between the konah and the veshet, and then he's molech umeivi, and he doesn't do a shehiyah, but that's where the starting point was, that also is not going to be okay. The fourth is what's called hagaramah. >> [clears throat] >> Hagaramah is where the shochet puts the knife or kills the animal just in the wrong place, so it's not in the tzavar of the beheima, that's obviously not okay. And then finally, ikkur. Ikkur is where there's a pa'am in the sakin. So, we know one of the things that the shochet has to do is he has to be bodek the sakin, be bodek the chalaf. So, in the event that he wasn't bodek it, then there was a little bit of a nick inside the knife, so then what we are concerned is that when he did the shechita, it could be he nicked the konah and the veshet before he severed it in the proper way, that too is going to be a problem. Again, this is technical and it's more noge'a to the technicians, but the bottom line is what we need to know is conceptually there are these five halachos leMoshe miSinai that govern. So, even in the vent of the shochet when ahead and he shocheted the two simanim, he didn't just put a bullet through the eyes of the animal, but at the same time he has to conform with shiya, with drosa, chalada, hagroma, and ikur. So, the primary topic of maseches chullin is, without a question, shchita chullin. In fact, that's why many of the rishonim refer to it as shchita chullin. But as we're going to see, the topic is not going to just be the basic laws of shchita, but it's it's going to be rather all-encompassing. In fact, it's almost as if the topic of the maseches is, a person wants to sit down and he wants to eat a piece of meat, what do I need to Just give me all the halachas I need. Literally from the time that I identify the animal to shocheting it, to cooking it, to making sure that it is fine until it's literally sitting on my plate with my fork and my knife and my little shmatke inside my shirt so I don't get dirty, and literally with my glass of wine, everything. So, it's from the barn till my mouth, those are the halachas that are discussed in maseches chullin. Right, just to bring it out a little bit. We'll see that the maseches is going to discuss the basic laws of shchita, obviously. The laws of treifus, that plays a a huge role. There's a lav in the Torah, oiseiv espenoi lo sishchut to be a nachal. That's a lav in the Torah that's negay shchita. That's obviously going to be discussed. Kisuy adam is a shchita dig halacha. There's something called a ben pakua. In the event that somebody shochets an animal, a female animal, and the animal had a fetus, that fetus one is allowed to eat without a shchita because we say the shchita of the mother worked for the child. The infamous ben pakua is featured very prominently. There's a whole perek in maseches chullin that deals with a ben pakua. The laws of gid hanasheh is very critical to the laws of shchita because one of the things that the shochet has to do, he also has to be menaker, right? You have to remove certain parts of the kosher animal that are not kosher. The gid hanasheh is the third mitzvah in the Torah. It traces itself back to Yakov Avinu already in parshas Vayishlach. There's an halavim that one is not allowed to eat. All these things are going to be discussed. What exactly is even a kosher animal, right? How do you know when an animal is kosher or not kosher? So, we know a little bit, I hope, but all the sugyas are discussed over here. By the way, not just kosher animals, what about oifis, what about fish, what about grasshoppers, right? Grasshoppers could be kosher. So, all of these halachas are going to be discussed. What happens if a person has kosher meat, but it was nis'ar with meat that's not kosher? What happens if someone has kosher meat and it was nis'ar with chalav, basar v'chalav. The sugyas of basar v'chalav and taruvus are synonymous with maseches chullin. They're not just sugyas in maseches chullin. If you never open the chullin, you might think that's the only topic of maseches chullin. That's something that's going to be featured very prominently. The zeroa, lachayayim, and the kaveh, these were matnos kehuna that were part and parcel of a behemas chullin that had to be given to the kohen. There's a whole perek, zeroa, lachayayim, and kaveh in the back end of the maseches. Even the laws of shiluach hakan. Oh, by the way, tumas oichlin is discussed over here in maseches chullin. The bottom line is, everything that's in any way associated with the preparation of flesh that chullin is featured very prominently here in the maseches. This is not a maseches that's halacha l'maaseh for vegans and vegetarians. This is very, very much a fleishig maseches. And without further ado, we begin one of the I I mean, every maseches is has a hey alef yud alef in front of it, but definitely once upon a time, if you were a mentsch in tish, you had a know maseches chullin. So, really one of the epic shabbos epic maseches in shas, maseches chullin.