2,711 pages of Talmud. A gem a day.

Okay not the real gem, but, on our daf today, we learn that the rabbis refer to the rectum as “lower teeth.”

Now to the gem – the daf showing a reform in Judaism! (Hey, that has a nice ring to it.)

The reform is the ability to eat meat that is not from the Temple. At first, we were forbidden, but later it was permitted. Why is this a gem? 1) It shows that, ideally, we would treat eating meat as special and sacred, and 2) Judaism has always reformed to meet the needs of the people.

Here is the passage, now enjoy your hamburger.

Rabba said: It is Rabbi Yishmael, as it is taught in a baraita with regard to the verse: “When the Lord your God shall expand your border, as He has promised you, and you shall say: I will eat flesh…you may eat flesh with all the desire of your soul” (Deuteronomy 12:20), Rabbi Yishmael says: The verse comes only to permit consumption of the non-sacrificial meat of desire to the Jewish people. As, at the outset, the meat of desire was forbidden to them, and anyone who wanted to eat meat would sacrifice the animal as an offering. After the priest sprinkled the blood, it was permitted for one to eat the meat. When they entered into Eretz Yisrael, the meat of desire was permitted for them, and they could slaughter and eat meat wherever they chose. Rabba added: And now that the Jewish people were exiled, might one have thought that they return to their initial prohibition? Therefore, we learned in the mishna: One may always slaughter non-sacrificial meat. Rav Yosef objects to this. If so, this phrase: One may always slaughter, is inappropriate; the tanna should have taught: One may always slaughter and eat, as the matter of permission primarily relates to eating the meat, not to slaughtering the animal. And furthermore, initially, what is the reason that the meat of desire was forbidden? It was because in the wilderness, they were proximate to the Tabernacle and could partake of sacrificial meat from the table of God. And ultimately, what is the reason that the meat of desire was permitted? The reason was that in Eretz Yisrael they were distant from the Tabernacle. And, if so, all the more so now, in exile, when they are even more distant from the Temple, the meat of desire should be permitted.

How much time do we spend worrying about things that might never happen? “What if I lose my job?” “Then I lose my home…” “What id this falls apart…”

Today’s daf reminds us that it’s unhelpful to worry about things that are unlikely to happen.

The Rabbis said to Rabbi Meir: Don’t you concede that perhaps the wineskin will burst before he manages to separate the teruma, and this person will have been found retroactively to be drinking untithed produce? Rabbi Meir said to the Rabbis: The mere possibility that this may occur is not a concern. When it actually bursts, I will be concerned.

Do what you should do, that’s enough to worry about. If there is nothing you can do about a certain situation if it happens – then don’t worry about it. It’s unlikely it will ever happen, and if it does, your worry won’t have helped matters.

Today’s gem:

The Gemara asks: But don’t we see that there are? The Gemara answers: Say the majority of the people of the nations of the world are not heretics, and with regard to slaughter one follows the majority. The Gemara notes: Rabba bar Avuh holds in accordance with that which Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: The status of gentiles outside of Eretz Yisrael is not that of idol worshippers, as their worship is not motivated by faith and devotion. Rather, it is a traditional custom of their ancestors that was transmitted to them.

This is a very different way of seeing religious identity than we might expect from ancient polemical texts. It reframes what looks like “idolatry” as something closer to inherited practice than conscious theological commitment. Not belief, but habit. Not devotion, but tradition carried forward without full reflection.

This it quietly pushes back against the human tendency to flatten entire populations into moral categories—righteous / wicked, believer / heretic, insider / outsider. The Gemara is doing something subtle: it is making space for complexity, for mixed motivations, for people who are not fully defined by the label you might put on them.

There’s also a methodological point hidden here: “We follow the majority.” Halakhah doesn’t assume the worst-case scenario; it operates based on what is most likely true about people as they actually are.

It’s easy—especially in moments of fear or distance—to assume that “they” are all the same, or that intention is always maximal and ideological. The Gemara suggests otherwise: most people are just living inside inherited patterns, not consciously choosing theological positions.

So, maybe it’s teaching us to pause before we define someone by their label, ask what they are actually doing, and what is actually most common and true in the world as it is.

The real gem on today’s daf is the lesson that there are certain things that only an expert should do, or a novice under expert supervision.

But, what today’s daf made me think of was the wise trash heap in Fraggle Rock, as it mentions “trash heap” repeatedly. So, enjoy:

How is it that I keep finding these AMAZING lessons on the daf that are just casual asides? Today’s daf is discussing kosher slaughter – but has an amazing aside that teaches a lesson on assisted suicide, or medical aid in dying (MAID) (also frequently referred to as death with dignity or physician-assisted dying).

Rav Kahana said: It is derived from the halakha of one who kills another person, with regard to whom the Merciful One states: Kill him (see Exodus 21:12). Rav Kahana clarifies: And let us be concerned that perhaps the person that he killed was a tereifa, one who has a wound or condition that will lead to his death within twelve months. One who kills a tereifa is exempt from capital punishment because in that sense, the halakhic status of a tereifa is that of a dead person. Rather, is the reason we are not concerned for this not due to the fact that we say: Follow the majority of people, who are not tereifot?

If someone is within a year of death, and they are suffering, sometimes what we do merely extends death, not life. Helping someone not to suffer, not to lose themselves, their dignity. Allowing them to die before they experience severe pain and/or lose themselves . . . well, according to our daf, is not killing.

Today’s daf gets deep into the technical details of sheḥita, ritual slaughter, today’s daf focuses in particular on how the knife must be perfectly smooth with nicks and no roughness. It has to be checked carefully before use, because even the slightest flaw could invalidate the slaughter.

The concern isn’t only whether the meat is kosher. It’s also about preventing unnecessary suffering to the animal. A jagged blade tears. A smooth blade cuts cleanly and quickly. The laws of sheḥita are built around minimizing pain as much as possible.

And I’m struck by the fact that the Gemara treats this with such seriousness. According to some opinions, the knife should ideally be checked by the town sage himself. Not because knife inspection is glamorous, but because how we treat a living creature matters.

Spirituality is not disconnected from physical reality. Holiness lives in details.

I also found myself thinking about the disagreement later on the daf. If the knife is found nicked after the slaughter, one opinion assumes the problem was there all along; another gives the benefit of the doubt and assumes the nick happened afterward.

It’s almost symbolic. Some people see flaws and assume the worst immediately. Others look for a more generous explanation.

Maybe we need both instincts sometimes: rigor and compassion. Careful standards, but also humility about what we actually know.

But above all, today’s daf reminded me that even when human beings must exercise power over another living thing, Judaism insists that it be done with as little suffering as possible. The sharpness of the knife becomes, strangely enough, a measure of moral sensitivity.

My grandfather was an orthodox rabbi. He was also a survivor of the Holocaust. When he immigrated to America, he could not get job as a rabbi. So what did he do? He worked as a shochet – someone who performs ritual slaughter (for kosher meat). Reading our daf, I now understand why he knew how to do this:

And Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: A Torah scholar is required to learn the requisite skills to perform three matters: Writing, so that he will be able to write texts on various occasions, ritual slaughter, and circumcision.

By the way, when I was cleaning out his china cabinet after his death, I found a tool for circumcision and for hatafat dam brit (taking a drop of blood from the remaining foreskin for a conversion). So, I know my grandpa not only knew the laws of chullin, but that he lived them as well.

Me? I have yet to either do a kosher slaughter or a circumcision, so I guess I am yet to be a Torah scholar. However, by the time we finish Chullin, I will have learned the skills, just not performed them . . . so, maybe?

A beautiful gem amidst a gory scene.

On our daf today, the questions is raised about what to do if someone slaughters an animal with an unkosher knife. And this is one teaching: For the one who says that he peels off a layer (of the meat near the cut cite), it works out well, and the one who says that he rinses the place where the knife touched the flesh holds that since the two organs that must be severed in ritual slaughter [simanim], i.e., the windpipe and the gullet, are occupied with discharging blood, they do not absorb the residue.

So, the place is spurting blood! Nice image there (yuck). So, what’s the gem?

If we are occupied with discharging, we cannot absorb.

Gem gem gem gem!!!!

You can’t listen if you won’t stop speaking.

You cannot learn if you don’t stop outputting.

You cannot breath if you only exhale.

You can not produce produce produce without rest.

Shabbat Shalom.

We learned on a previous daf that God is pile not allow a righteous man to accidentally sin and eat something forbidden. Why? Because God prevents animals from sinning through food.

Weird? Totally. Today, we get the story behind that statement.

Rabbi Pineḥas ben Ya’ir happened to come to a certain inn [ushpiza]. His hosts cast barley before his donkey for him to eat. The donkey did not eat it. 

The hosts sifted the barley with a utensil, but the donkey did not eat it. They separated the chaff from the barley by hand, but the donkey did not eat it. They wondered why the donkey would not eat the barley. Rabbi Pineḥas ben Ya’ir said to his hosts: Perhaps the barley is not tithed. They tithed it and the donkey ate it. Rabbi Pineḥas ben Ya’ir said: This poor animal is going to perform the will of its Maker, and you are feeding it untithed produce? Rabbi Zeira was referring to this donkey when it spoke of God preventing mishaps from occurring through animals of the righteous.

Just so you know, the food of an animal does not need to be tithed unless it was originally bought for a human to consume. But the magic of the story still remains.