Chullin 97b — the Talmud in English

And the Sages said

in other places that the measure for nullification is

sixty!

Therefore:

a.

One type mixed with another type, when the mixture is permitted,

meaning that it is possible to examine the mixture in a permitted manner, such as teruma, which a kohen—a member of the priestly family who may eat teruma—can taste to determine whether it imparts its flavor to non-sacred produce,

is evaluated by taste!

The kohen tastes it and tells us whether the taste of teruma can be detected in it.

b.

One type mixed with another type

that is forbidden,

such as meat and milk—we examine it

with the help of a professional gentile taster

and rely on his assessment.

c.

And one type mixed with the same type, where it is impossible to determine the matter by taste.

Alternatively, one type mixed with another type that is forbidden, when there is no professional taster—

its measure is

sixty! Those pieces of meat

pieces of meat

that were salted

were salted

in the house of the Exilarch,

in the residence of the head of the exile,

with the sciatic nerve,

while the sciatic nerve was still among them.

Ravina prohibited

the meat, for the reason of his ruling will be explained below.

And

Rav Aḥa bar Rav permitted

the meat to be eaten.

They came and asked Mar bar Rav Ashi

what the law was concerning this meat.

He said to them: Father [A0043]that is, Rav Ashi—

that is, Rav Ashi]—

permits it!

Rav Aḥa bar Rav said to Ravina,

who had prohibited it:

What is your reasoning

for prohibiting it?

Is it because

Shmuel said:

Salted food is like boiling food, and pickled food is like cooked food,

and therefore you considered the sciatic nerve, which was salted together with the meat, as though it had been cooked together with it and imparted its flavor throughout the meat?

But Shmuel himself said

the following:

They taught

that the sciatic nerve prohibits the thigh

only when it was cooked with it; but

if it

was roasted with it,

one peels away the meat and eats until one reaches the nerve!

Roasting too is considered “boiling,” and it is evident that food treated as “boiling” is permitted, whereas only cooked food is prohibited!?

And if you would say: What does Shmuel mean by the statement

“Salted food is

like boiling food,” as he said,

Shmuel—

like cooked food,

and therefore all the meat is prohibited—

But from the fact that

Shmuel

said, “Pickled food is like cooked food,” by inference,

when he said, “Salted food is like boiling food,”

he meant boiling food like roasted food!

And we conclude:

This is difficult:

Why did Ravina prohibit the meat that had been salted together with the sciatic nerve? According to Shmuel, salting is like roasting: it contracts the nerve and does not draw its rendered fat into the meat.

Rabbi Ḥanina said: When they assess

the ratio of one to sixty,

they assess

the sauce, the sediment, and the pieces.

And even

the pot

in which the forbidden and permitted foods were cooked is included; everything combines to make sixty against the forbidden substance!

And we explain how the measure is calculated with regard to the pot:

Some say

that one assesses

the pot itself,

according to the volume of its walls and base.

And some say

that one assesses

what the pot absorbed!

If initially there was sixty of permitted food against the forbidden substance, but the permitted food diminished and no longer amounts to sixty against the forbidden substance, one calculates how much permitted food the pot absorbed, and adds the amount absorbed to the permitted food in order to nullify the forbidden substance. But one does not calculate the volume of the pot’s walls themselves. [See Rashi carefully.]

Rabbi Abbahu said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: With regard to all forbidden substances of the Torah

that became mixed with permitted food, when it is impossible to determine the matter by taste—for example, when there is no gentile professional taster who can taste it, or when one type was mixed with the same type—

we assess them as though they were

the prohibited substances that became mixed]

onion and leek,

whose flavor is especially perceptible. If onion and leek would impart flavor to this mixture, it would be prohibited. [This ruling of Rabbi Yoḥanan was stated before the halakha was established that a mixture of one type with the same type, or a mixture in which there is no professional taster to determine its flavor, is nullified by sixty.]

Rabbi Abba said to Abaye: Then let us assess them with peppers and spices, for

even if they became mixed

with a thousand, they are not nullified!

Because they impart flavor even in a thousand—!?

He said to him: The Sages assessed that no forbidden substance imparts more flavor than onion and leek!

Therefore, they established these as the greatest measure of flavor when the flavor cannot be determined.

Rav Naḥman said: The sciatic nerve

its measure is

sixty

against it,

and the nerve

itself is

not included in the count

of the sixty permitted portions. If a pot contained

a “udder,”

which contains milk glands, and the meat was cooked together with the milk in those glands, while additional meat was present in the pot, its measure being

sixty. And the udder itself is included in the count.

Since the udder itself is considered permitted, and its only prohibition results from being cooked with the milk, one assesses it together with the meat that was cooked with the udder; if there are an additional fifty-nine portions of meat equal to it, it is nullified in the majority.

An egg of a non-kosher bird

is assessed

with sixty, and the egg itself is not included in the count!

Rabbi Yitzḥak, son of Rav Mesharsheya, said: And the udder itself,

which was cooked in a pot with other meat, is

prohibited

to eat, since the meat was cooked and imparted its flavor to it [although the udder does not have the power to impart its flavor to the meat, because of its small size].

And if

the udder

fell into another pot,

after it had been cooked with sixty portions of meat, it

prohibits

the other pot, since it does not contain sixty against it.

Rav Ashi said: When we were in the study hall of Rav Kahana, we raised the following question: When we assess

the udder that was cooked with meat, do

we assess according to its own measure, or do we assess according to what emerged from it

[assuming that the udder itself was removed from the pot]?

And we said:

It is obvious that we assess according to its own measure! For if we assess according to what emerged from it,

how would we know

how much emerged!?

And we challenge this:

If that is so,

since you say that we assess according to the udder itself, so that there must be sixty permitted portions against the udder, then in such cooking all the flavor of the udder emerges, since there was meat amounting to sixty against it. Therefore, when

it fell

this udder

into another pot, it should not prohibit

the other pot, since all its flavor had already emerged into the first pot and it should no longer be prohibited. Why, then, do we say that if it fell into another pot, the pot becomes prohibited?

And we answer:

Since Rabbi Yitzḥak, son of Rav Mesharsheya, said, “And the udder itself is prohibited,”

once the pot imparted its flavor to the udder, it became prohibited. From that point, before all its flavor emerged,

the Sages treated

the udder

as a piece of unslaughtered carcass,

which remains prohibited forever. This is as we say concerning a piece of unslaughtered carcass that became mixed with sixty pieces: the piece itself, when identifiable, remains prohibited forever.

We now explain the statement of Rav Naḥman:

An egg—

with sixty, and the egg itself is not included in the count!

Rav Idi bar Avin said to Abaye: Does this mean that

when one cooks an egg of a non-kosher bird together with kosher eggs,

it gives

the egg of the non-kosher bird

flavor

to the kosher eggs, and therefore it must be assessed with sixty?

But people say, “It is merely like the water of eggs,”

meaning that the egg does not impart flavor to other eggs; when it is cooked together with them, it gives them no taste other than that of water!?