Is It a Knife or a Saw? b.Hullin 17-18

In which several sages take a close look at blades and we learn that Babylonia meat is not necessarily good in Israel

First item of business today is an unfinished wrinkle from yesterday. Rabbi Yirmeya asks whether it was okay for the Israelites to bring with them “stabbing meat” (not properly slaughtered) from the desert into the promised land. The Israelites were promised “houses full of all good things,” which Rabbi Yirmeya said included pork, so by argument a-fortiori, they were also allowed proper meat even if improperly butchered. He also adds the possibility that they were only allowed the food from the spoils of the inhabitants, not meat slaughtered on their own. What an uncomfortable vignette, for several different reasons: the rejoicing in spoils of battle, the pork, etc.

Rabba returns us to the tripple sentence: “everyone slaughters” (הַכֹּל שׁוֹחֲטִין) “always slaughtering” (לְעוֹלָם שׁוֹחֲטִין) and “you can slaughter with everything” (בַּכֹּל שׁוֹחֲטִים). What does the last clause mean? Rava thinks that all three phrases refer to the butcher, not to the meat. “Everyone slaughters” means, as we saw a few pages ago, even a Samaritan and a Meshumad. “Always slaughtering” includes at night, on the roof, or on a ship. “With everything” includes, as we saw, flintsone, glass, and even a reed stalk.

Remember that the mishna prohibited slaughter with a harvest sickle? Shmuel’s father, who apparently had a bit of a practical joker streak, would notch knives on purpose in various ways and send them (פְּגַם וְשַׁדַּר, פְּגַם וְשַׁדַּר) to the scholars in Israel to determine which type of notch invalidates slaughter. What he learned from their responses is that any notch that serrates the knife like a saw (כִּמְגֵירָה), which could jam the movement on both the forward and backward strokes, invalidates the knife. Rava summarizes:

Knife A, “up and down” (עוֹלֶה וְיוֹרֵד) cuts cleanly and is kosher. Knife B, “entangles” (מְסוּכְסֶכֶת) notches on one side. Not okay to use ab initio, but if you’ve already used it and only cut in the direction where it doesn’t catch, kosher in hindsight. Knife C, which is like a saw in that it “catches” (אוֹגֶרֶת), is disqualified.

The obligation to examine the knife varies. In Israel, one holds the blade up to the sunlight to see the notches. In Nehardea, where one of the prominent Babylonian yeshivot was, they place the knife on water to see if the notches disturb the surface. Rav Sheshet lives on the edge by examining with the tip of his tongue (בְּרֵישׁ לִישָּׁנֵיהּ) and Rav Aha bar Yaakov passes a hair on the knife (בְּחוּט הַשַּׂעֲרָה) to see if it gets caught. In Sura, they test on actual meat; Rav Pappa would test on meat, on a nail, and on three sides of the knife itself. There’s then a little debate about how different people do it, and finally, Rav Aha, Rava’s son, demonstrates the three-point examination and gets praised by Rav Ashi, who says, “this is good” (יִישַׁר). Rav Yeimar, the lone dissenter, reminds us that the meat separates quickly after cutting and that the proper indications (that the gullet and windpipe have been cut) will not be present in the actual knife.

Onward to a new matter. Resh Lakish flags three deficiencies in animals intended for slaughter: a bone in the Passover offering, an ear blemish in a firstborn animal, and a blemish in other sacrificial animals. To these, Rav Hisda adds the deficiency of a slaughtering knife. How large the deficiency is to disqualify the animal/knife is a subject of debate (olive-sized? palm-sized?) The Gemara determined that it’s as large as a deficiency in the altar stone.

If a butcher does not show his knife to the Torah scholar, Rav Huna says to ostracize him, whereas Rava wants him fired and all his meat declared trefa. These positions are not contradictory (לָא פְּלִיגִי)! The first is when there’s no reason to suspect the knife is actually defective, so it’s only about the disrespect, and the second—when there is an actual problem with the knife. Ravina, not to be outdone, says that in the latter case you have to smear poop (I swear I’m not making this up - מְמַסְמֵס לֵיהּ בְּפַרְתָּא) to avoid selling it even to non-Jews. We get a short vignette in which Rava bar Hinana invites Mar Zutra and Rav Ashi to inspect a the knife of a butcher who did not want to present it to him. The knife is found fine and the two scholars are okay with the butcher continuing to work. They are not worried about the disrespect to Rava, because he was the one who asked for it to be examined.

Final note on this one: it’s okay to slaughter only with detached teeth and fingernails.

Now we start a new mishna, which involves slaughtering with a harvest sickle. The rule is as follows:

After some back and forth about the purpose for which Hillel’s school allow the meat, we get a new mishna right away. Recall that, for a kosher slaughter, the butcher must cleanly slice both the gullet and the windpipe. But what happens if some part of the cartilage ring at the top of the windpipe remains intact?

The debate itself is highly technical and, not being a meat eater, it’s not super interesting to me, but I have to get into it because it is going to spill into the next page. The concept introduced here is mugremet (מוּגְרֶמֶת). This is a situation in which the knife does not neatly slice off the ring in one place, but rather slips up. Such slaughter is only kosher according to Rabbi Hanina, son of Antignos.

This leads to a story: Rabbi Zeira moved back to Israel from Babylonia. It seems from the story that the mugremet was allowed in Israel, so Rabbi Zeira, following the “when in Rome” rule, ate meat that Rav and Shmuel would consider invalid. When scolded by folks around him, “aren’t you from Babylonia?” he replied, “eh, it’s only Yosef who says that Rav and Shmuel would forbid and he got things wrong.” Rav Yosef heard this and was pissed (אִיקְּפַד): “I learn from Rav Yehuda, who flags even uncertainties!”

Which brings up an interesting question: when you move from place A to place B, which custom should you follow? Presumably, to be okay with everyone, one must follow the more stringent of the two rules. But there are disparate opinions about this. Abaye thinks that the “when in Rome” rule only applies to moves within Babylonia or within Israel, but if one moves from the former to the latter, one follows the Israel custom. Rav Ashi thinks you should only continue to follow the Babylonian custom if you plan to go back there. And Rav Yosef thinks that Rabbi Zeira had actually ruled the mugremet valid and this was true for Mehoza, the place where he was. In other words, “each river follows its own course” (נַהֲרָא נַהֲרָא וּפְשָׁטֵיהּ).

The last part of the page deals with a situation of partially cutting the cartilage (here referred to as חִיטֵּי). The distinction is between hitting it (פְּגַע) and leaving it intact (שַׁיַּיר). We get multiple views about how kosher such a slaughter is.