Hey there and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one charming page of Talmud each day.

And on today's pages, Hulin 17 and 18,

we find a story so touching.

It inspires us to do something we often do on this year podcast,

which is to slow everything down for a segment we like to call.

Slow Jam the Todd.

Thank you. we like to call. Slow Jam the Tom. Our slow jam begins, as it so often does in the Tomlid, with a discussion of, well, the laws.

Apropos the obligation to show the knife to a Torah scholar, Ravchuna says, this slaughterer who did not present the knife before a Torah scholar, we ostracize him.

And Rava says we remove him from his position and we proclaim about meat from an animal that he slaughtered that it is Trefa.

The obligation is beautiful if you think about it. If you are a kosher slaughterer and

you live in a town and that town has a local rabbi, you should, out of respect, go over and let the

rabbi inspect your knife. Why? Because you want to honor that scholar, to make him feel like he has

weight in the community, which if you think about it, is pretty

much the only way to create communal cohesion, and also to make sure that the laws are being upheld

by people who actually know and understand them. That's beautiful. But what happens if you don't?

The meat is declared on kosher, and then some have a listen. The Gamara notes, and they do not

disagree. Here, where Ravchuna says that he is ostracized, it is in a case where his knife

was discovered intact, and he is ostracized for treating the scholar with contempt. There, where Rava

says that his slaughter is proclaimed trefa, it is in a case where his knife was discovered not intact,

as in that case the meat from all animals that he slaughtered is suspect.

Ravina said in a case where his knife was discovered not to be intact, one spreads excrement

on the flesh so that even to a Gentile it will not be sold.

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