Go Have Some Salt and Think About It: b.Hullin 12
In which the sages wonder: can you really trust your butcher?
Yesterday’s page had some info about expertise in butchery. This one opens with Rav Nachman citing Rav: if you watch a slaughter, beginning to end, you may eat the meat; if you didn’t see the whole thing, you may not. But this statement contradicts what we said in previous pages, where we learned that you do not need to watch experts! This, therefore, must be a case in which we don’t know if the butcher is an expert. But if so, why should we not apply the rule we had ten (!) proofs for yesterday: if you find a slaughtered chicken in the market, assume most people are experts and rely on that? The Gemara posits that, if our butcher is not an expert and you saw him do one of the two required organs properly, you should consider the possibility that he might have gotten lucky and stay to supervise the other organ.
Rav Dimi asks Rav Nahman: What if Man sends Dude to slaughter an animal, and finds the animal slaughtered? Rav Nahman replies: the animal is presumed to have been slaughtered correctly. But what, asks Rav Dimi, in a case in which Man says to Dude to separate the t’ruma (offering) from Man’s crop, and finds the t’ruma separated? Rav Nahman thinks that, in that case, the offering doesn’t count. When Rav Dimi flags the obvious contradiction (you either trust Dude or your don’t), Rav Nahman explains: in matters of butchery, we have the presumption of expertise, but in matters of t’ruma, you cannot donate without the awareness of the crop owner.
Assuming that the statement that most butchers are experts are true, what do we do with the following Tannaitic dispute: Bro lost his goats and roosters and found them slaughtered. Lest you think this would be a source of (1) grief or (2) prosecution, the concern here is whether the dead animals are kosher. Rabbi Yehuda says no; Rabbi Hanina says yes. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said that the former opinion makes sense if the animals were found in the trash, and the latter—if they were found in the home. But what if the animals were found in the trash in the house? This sparks a new debate, as some think a person would throw a non-kosher carcass into the garbage at home and some think the person would take it outside.
At this point, we return to our trio-without-capacity: the deaf, the simple, and the minor. It turns out that, even though they do not have permission to slaughter, if they slaughter anyway and they’re being watched, the meat is kosher in the aftermath. From this, the gemara deduces that intent is not a necessary element for a proper slaughter. Rabbi Natan drives the point home with an exaggerated hypo: if someone tosses a knife at the wall and, accidentally, properly slaughters an animal, the meat is kosher.
Does this mean that the sages assume the minors cannot form intent? Children, Rabbi Amei explain, have intent in the sense that they can perform an action, but not the deeper form of cognitive intent. However, Rabbi Yohanan adds, sometimes someone’s thought is evident from their actions: in the case of minors, if this is a biblical rule, we cannot assume cognitive intent, but if it is a rabbinic rule, we can.