The Meat We Eat - Part 3: The Chalef

This is a chicken caulif. It looks very, very different than a knife you have in your kitchen cabinet. The angle on a chef's knife gives us the ability to chop, to go down. This type of a knife forces us to go back and forth. The halak is is that we want the knife to be at least two neck widths, so we have no problem of it getting caught and we have no problem of having to press down in order to sh. It is square on the top, so we can't have stabbing. We can't have kala. The knife is made out of stainless steel nowadays in order there shouldn't be rust to create a pigma in order that we don't have ek and hagrama. Of course, it's up to the shi to chef in the right place. This is one that's uh for lambs. >> Did you make that yourself? >> Yeah. It's a plastic handle, but it's it's a special kind of plastic. It it won't deteriorate. This is a a gasa. This is what you use for for animals. And this handle is micarta. Believe it or not, it's pressed paper. So he has to know how to sharpen it, how to make it completely smooth and how to he has to know how to feel that there is a nick in it if there is. So what the what the rabbi who's giving him the license usually does, he says, "Bring me your knife." Then the rabbi makes a few nicks in it. The rabbi usually makes a large a larger one and a small one and a very small one to see if he can feel even a small the nick in the knife. It's very important. So if he knows where the nicks are and he knows how many there are. So it's a sign that he knows how to feel a nick and a knife. It has to be smooth. It is not smooth. It is trfe.