Chullin 61b — the Talmud in English

And we object:

And let us derive it from the raven: just as there,

with the raven, which has

two

signs,

we do not eat it,

we do not eat it,

so too every

bird that comes with

two

signs,

we do not eat it,

we do not eat it!?

And we answer:

If so,

if you say that even a bird that comes with two signs of purity is forbidden,

the peres and the ozniya,

which have only one sign of purity,

that the Merciful One wrote

that they are forbidden to eat—

why do I need it?!

But

now,

a bird

that has two

signs of purity,

we do not eat

[as you sought to derive from the raven]; the peres and the ozniya,

that has

each of them

one

sign of purity,

is it necessary

to write that we do not eat them?

And we object:

And let us derive it from the peres and the ozniya,

for just as the peres and the ozniya, which have one sign of purity, are forbidden to eat, so too every bird that comes with one sign is forbidden to eat!?

And we answer:

If so,

if you wish to say that even a bird that comes with one sign of purity may not be eaten,

the nesher,

which has no sign of purity at all,

that the Merciful One wrote

that it is forbidden to eat,

why do I need it?

Now,

where

it has one

sign,

we do not eat it

[as you wished to derive from the peres and the ozniya]; the nesher,

which has none at all

of any sign of purity,

is it necessary

to say that we do not eat it!?

Rather, learn from this that one cannot derive from the peres and the ozniya that every bird that comes with one sign is forbidden.

Rather,

we derive this from the nesher:

The nesher, which has no sign at all

of purity,

is the one that you may not eat. But

every bird

that has one

sign of purity—

eat it!

And all the more so, if it has two or three signs of purity, eat it. Except for the birds specified in the Torah; there, even though they have signs of purity, you may not eat them [and therefore the Torah specified them as forbidden, so that we would not derive from the nesher that they are permitted].

And we refute:

Rather, the reason is that the Merciful One wrote the nesher,

and for that reason it is established for us that a bird that comes with one sign is pure.

Had it not been so,

if the nesher had not been written in the Torah,

I would have said, let us derive from the peres and the ozniya

to forbid a bird that comes with one sign.

And why? For

the peres and the ozniya would be two passages written concerning the same matter

[for we could have written only one of them, and we would have learned by an a fortiori derivation that the other one too, which resembles it and has one sign, is forbidden. Since the Torah wrote both the peres and the ozniya, they are “two passages written concerning the same matter”],

and

it is established for us that

two passages written concerning the same matter do not teach!

Therefore, specifically both of them are forbidden, but it is impossible to learn from them a prohibition concerning other birds that come with one sign. And if so, how could there have been a possibility of thinking to forbid other birds that have only one sign!?

And we answer:

It is received by tradition,

it is a tradition in our hands, that a sign of purity

that is present in this one,

in the peres or the ozniya,

is not present in this one,

in the other bird. And that sign of purity

that is present in this one,

in the other bird,

is not present in this one

in the first bird; therefore they are not two passages written concerning the same matter. For if Scripture had said that the peres is forbidden, we would not have known that the ozniya is forbidden. And if Scripture had said that the ozniya is forbidden, we would not have known from this that the peres is forbidden. And since Scripture had to say both of them [the peres and the ozniya], I would have said that we learn from them that a bird that comes with one sign may not be eaten.

And we again refute:

Now,

after all,

there were twenty-four impure birds,

as is mentioned in the Torah. And among twenty of them there are three signs of purity;

it is impossible that one

sign of purity

that is present among those,

in the peres or the ozniya,

is not present among these

twenty impure birds mentioned in the Torah. And if so, it follows that the Torah wrote twice not to eat a bird that has a sign of purity like that of the ozniya or like that of the peres [once in the case of the peres or the ozniya, and a second time in the case of one of those twenty impure birds that the Torah wrote].

And they are

those birds that come with one sign like that of the peres or of the ozniya

two passages written concerning the same matter,

and two passages written concerning the same matter do not teach! And from where would we derive a prohibition concerning a bird that comes with one sign, and why is it necessary to derive from the nesher that a bird that comes with one sign is pure!?

And we answer:

It is received by tradition—

there were twenty-four impure birds. And there are four signs

of purity among birds.

Three,

the three signs of purity,

recur in all of them.

Among

twenty of them,

there are

three each

signs of purity.

And two

of those three signs of purity are found

in the raven!

And the fourth sign is not found in any of all those birds mentioned [neither in the twenty birds nor in the raven].

And one sign of the three signs of purity is found either in the peres or in the ozniya, whereas the fourth sign of purity is found in its counterpart.

One

sign of purity is found

in the peres, and one

sign of purity is found

in the ozniya.

That sign

which is present in this one,

in one of them, that sign

is not present in this one,

in the other bird.

It follows that the fourth sign of purity, which is found either in the peres or in the ozniya, is mentioned only once in the Torah. And if so,

what might you have said: let us derive from it

to forbid a bird that comes with one sign, for we do not know which sign appears in the Torah only once, and if so every bird that comes with one sign would be learned to be forbidden, out of doubt, because perhaps that sign is the one written only once in the Torah. Therefore

the Merciful One wrote the nesher,

which is forbidden,

to teach us—

the nesher, which has no sign at all

of purity,

is the one that you may not eat. But there is

a bird

that has one

sign of purity—

eat it!

And we object: Since you have said that even a bird that comes with one sign of purity is fit,

rather, the turtledoves, that the Merciful One wrote—

why do I need it?

Since we do not derive any law from them.

And we answer:

Rav Ukva bar Hama said:

The fact that the Torah wrote turtledoves is in order to teach that they alone are fit

for an offering

and not other birds.

Rav Nahman said: