Chullin 44a — the Talmud in English

And one who acts according to

the stringencies of the House of Shammai and the stringencies of the House of Hillel

with two contradictory stringencies—

concerning him the verse says

Ecclesiastes 2] “

The fool

walks in darkness.”

Rather,

if

he acts

according to the House of Shammai,

let him act

according to their leniencies and their stringencies,

and

if

he acts

according to the House of Hillel,

let him act

according to their leniencies and their stringencies!

But this is also difficult for Rava, who adopted two stringencies that contradict one another.

For on the one hand he adopted Rav’s stringency, that a perforation of the turbatz ha-veshet—the upper part of the esophagus—is enough by any amount, while on the other hand he adopted Shmuel’s stringency, who said that it is not a place of slaughter! But these two stringencies contradict one another, for according to Rav it is a place of slaughter; and why do we deem the animal a treifa when one began slaughtering in the turbatz ha-veshet and continued in the esophagus itself?!

And now the Gemara explains that which was taught in the beraita: In all cases, the halakha is according to the House of Hillel; and anyone who wishes to act according to the words of the House of Shammai may do so, and anyone who acts according to the words of the House of Hillel does so.

And we raise a difficulty concerning it:

This matter itself is difficult! You said, “In all cases, the halakha is according to the words of the House of Hillel,” and then it teaches: “And one who wishes to act according to the words of the House of Shammai may do so”?!

And we answer:

It is not difficult!

Here,

where we say that one may act according to the House of Shammai—

before the divine voice

that emerged from Heaven and announced that the halakha is according to the House of Hillel.

Here,

where we say, “In all cases, the halakha is according to the words of the House of Hillel”—

after the divine voice.

And if you wish, say:

It always speaks

even after

it emerged,

the divine voice,

which said that the halakha is according to the House of Hillel. And that which it teaches, “One who wishes to act according to the House of Shammai may do so”—

it is Rabbi Yehoshua, who says: “We pay no attention to a divine voice!”

For “it is not in Heaven,” and once the Torah was given to human beings, the opinion of the Sages is what determines matters of halakha, and a divine voice has no power to intervene and decide contrary to the opinion of the Sages.

And we return to our difficulty:

In any event, it is difficult,

how did Rava adopt two contradictory stringencies?!

And we answer:

Rav Tavot said:

That is not how the incident occurred. For Rava did not say that I impose upon him both Rav’s stringencies and Shmuel’s stringencies. Rather,

all of it—

according to Rav,

for the halakha is like him in matters of prohibitions—

he acted.

And the reason Rava deemed the animal a treifa because one began slaughtering in the turbatz ha-veshet is that even according to Rav, the turbatz ha-veshet is not a place of slaughter.

For when Rami bar Yehezkel came, he said: “Do not listen to these principles, which Yehuda my brother formulated in the name of Rav!”

That is, do not accept what Rav Yehuda his brother said in Rav’s name [that an unattributed report in Rav’s name, stated in generations after Rav, was stated by Rav Yehuda], and also what was said above, as though Rava imposed upon the animal Rav’s stringencies—that a perforation in the esophagus is enough by any amount, and that according to Rav this is not a place of slaughter—that is not Rav’s position!

Rather,

this is what Rav said: The esophagus—

the Sages assigned it a measure

up to where it is valid for slaughter. Beyond this place it is invalid for slaughter, like the windpipe, which has a particular and defined place in which one slaughters, and beyond this place, anyone who slaughters there has invalid slaughtering, by the law of hagrama.

That is, the invalidity of hagrama that applies to the windpipe also applies to the esophagus: if one slaughters above the proper place of slaughter, his slaughtering is invalid, by the halakha given to Moses at Sinai, which is called “hagrama.”

And we infer:

Since he said

“esophagus,”

the Sages assigned

it

a measure

for the place of slaughter,

by implication

you learn

that the turbatz ha-veshet,

which is at the end of the esophagus,

is not a place of slaughter [for if it too were a place of slaughter, its perforation would render the animal a treifa by any amount! Similar to the windpipe, where there is no distinction between a place of slaughter and a place unsuitable for slaughter, since in both of them the measure of a disqualifying perforation is the same [and in the windpipe its measure is the majority].

And this is why Rava acted solely according to Rav, who invalidated cutting by any amount in the turbatz ha-veshet, even though it is not a place of slaughter.

And we raise a difficulty: If one slaughters and comes to cut the esophagus, if he comes to slaughter

above,

above,

toward the head,

how far,

up to what height in the animal’s neck may he slaughter?

Rav Naḥman said: Up to the measure of “a handhold.”

He must leave, on the side toward the head, a measure of four fingers.

And if he comes to slaughter and cut the esophagus

below,

in the lower part of the esophagus, toward the body,

how far

may he slaughter?

Rav Naḥman said in the name of Rabba bar Avuha: Up to the point where it becomes hairy.

That is, up to the place where there is hair [for after slaughtering, they pull the hair found inside, in the area where the esophagus and the rumen join. And up to the place of the hair is called esophagus, while from there onward it is called rumen].

And we object:

Is that so? But Ravina said in the name of Ganiva in the name of Rav: A handbreadth in the esophagus, adjacent to the rumen—that is the “inner rumen”?!

That is, the Gemara now assumes that the hair is found only inside the rumen itself, and not in the esophagus; and if so, the difficulty is:

Why

did Rav Naḥman say in the name of Rabba bar Avuha that one may slaughter the esophagus up to the place of the hair, that is, the entire esophagus, up to the place where it joins the rumen [where the hair is found]? But Rav said that the final handbreadth in the esophagus, adjacent to the rumen, has the status of rumen, and this is not a place of slaughter; and if so,

when he slaughters

in the place of the final handbreadth,

is he slaughtering in the rumen?!

And we answer:

Say

this instead:

A handbreadth in the rumen

that is

adjacent to the esophagus—that is the inner rumen

mentioned in our Mishna, whose perforation renders the animal a treifa by any amount. And it is called “inner” because it is concealed between the ribs of the chest. Whereas the rest of the rumen, from the handbreadth onward, is the outer rumen, which is judged by tearing its majority.

If you wish, say: When Rav said

that a handbreadth in the esophagus is called “rumen,”

in the case of an ox—

which becomes hairy more extensively.

For there are large oxen in which the hair of the rumen enters from the rumen into the esophagus for a measure of a handbreadth. And in these oxen, their place of slaughter extends up to the place where the hairs enter, and not into the place of the hairs.

Rav Naḥman said in the name of Shmuel: The entire turbatz ha-veshet that was removed from the jaw—

is valid.

And later he objects that this severing of the turbatz ha-veshet from its attachment to the jaw is called “uprooting the סימanim,” and why is it valid?

And the tanna teaches likewise [

And the tanna of our Mishna supports him]:

The lower jaw was removed—

it is valid!

For since the lower jaw was removed, which is the place where the organs attach to the jaw, the organs were severed from their place of attachment. And this is what Shmuel said: If the turbatz ha-veshet was removed and the organs were severed, it is valid.

Rav Pappa raised an objection

to Rav Naḥman:

But there is

the invalidity of

uprooting the organs,

for when the turbatz ha-veshet is removed, the organs are uprooted from their attachment?!

And we object to Rav Pappa’s objection:

But according to Rav Pappa—

is the Mishna difficult?!

For it teaches in it:

“The lower jaw was removed—

it is valid,”

indicating that we do not care about the severing of the turbatz ha-veshet from the jaw, for when the lower jaw is removed, the attachment of the turbatz ha-veshet to it is severed, and nevertheless the tanna of the Mishna declared it valid.

Granted,

the Mishna

is not difficult for Rav Pappa,

because

this

which Rav Pappa invalidated is when the turbatz ha-veshet was removed

by being completely uprooted,

for the uprooting of the turbatz ha-veshet is considered uprooting the organs, since the organs were completely severed both from the jaw and from the flesh in which they were embedded.

Whereas

this

which the tanna of the Mishna declared valid when the lower jaw was removed is when the organs remained attached to the flesh,

when the jaw was shaved away

from

above the organs,

for the jaw was shaved in such a manner that it itself was indeed severed from the organs, but the severing was above the flesh in which the organs were embedded; consequently, the organs were still embedded in the flesh, and were not severed from it when the lower jaw was removed. In such a case it is not “uprooting the organs.”

But according to Shmuel,

who declared it valid even when the entire turbatz ha-veshet was removed,

it is difficult,

for the turbatz ha-veshet is the place where the esophagus attaches both to the jaw and to the flesh; and when the turbatz ha-veshet is removed, the esophagus is severed at its place of attachment, both from the jaw and from the flesh in which it was embedded. If so, this is uprooting the organs; how did Shmuel declare this valid?!

And we answer:

Do not say

that Shmuel said that when the turbatz ha-veshet was removed

entirely

it is valid;

rather,

say that when

the majority

of the turbatz ha-veshet was removed. And in the small portion that remained, there is an attachment of the esophagus to the jaw, and this small amount is sufficient for us.

And we object:

But Rabba bar bar Ḥana said in the name of Shmuel: Organs that became detached in their majority render the animal a treifa!

And here, once the turbatz ha-veshet was uprooted in its majority, it turns out that the organs were detached in their majority?!

Rav Shisha, son of Rav Idi, said: This

which Shmuel said, that when the majority of the turbatz ha-veshet was removed and a portion remained, the minority of the organs that remained attached is effective, applies

when they were peeled away.

For the majority of the organs was peeled away from the flesh, and a minority of them remained; in such a case the animal recovers and the organs become attached again. Therefore Shmuel did not deem it a treifa, but declared it valid.

Whereas

there,

in the case of the invalidity of uprooting the organs, it applies

when they were pulled apart,

for the minority of the organs that remained attached is not attached together, but is scattered, and such a minority of the organs does not recover. And the expression “pulled apart” is an analogy to something that comes apart when it is uprooted forcibly from its place: the remaining attachments are not in one place, but a number of small attachments remain scattered.

We learned in the Mishna:

And a split windpipe:

the tanna taught: What is the measure of

a split windpipe? Its majority!

And how much

is

its majority?

The cavity of the windpipe is surrounded by a wall, and the thickness of the wall varies. On the outside it is a thick wall, while on the inside it is a thin wall. Now, when we come to measure the cutting of the majority of the windpipe, if one cuts the majority of the windpipe from the outer side, it is possible that the cut made through the majority of the windpipe reaches only a minority of the cavity of the windpipe. For, as stated, the outer side of the wall is thick, and it follows that even if one cuts through the majority of the windpipe, the cut still reaches only the beginning of the cavity. [See the illustration in the book Siaḥat Ḥullin].

And this is the Gemara’s question: What is called cutting the majority of the windpipe? Does it mean cutting the majority of the thickness of the windpipe, even though this cutting does not include cutting the majority of the inner cavity of the windpipe? Or perhaps cutting the majority of the windpipe means cutting the majority of its inner cavity, and as long as the windpipe has not been cut until the majority of its inner cavity has been cut, this is not “cutting its majority.”