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Take One Daf Yomi

Chullin 27 - The Meat of the Matter

Take One Daf Yomi

Tablet Magazine

Judaism, Religion & Spirituality

4.8565 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2026

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s page, Chullin 27, a discussion about slaughtering birds and animals opens unexpectedly into the world of Jewish mysticism. The rabbis imagine different creatures as possessing different degrees of physicality and spiritual vitality, raising the stakes of what it means to consume them properly. The result is a vision of kashrut not merely as a system of rules, but as an attempt to elevate even our most basic appetites into acts of awareness and repair. What does it mean to eat in a way that honors the holiness of life itself? Listen and find out.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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

0:20.3

And on today's page, Chululin 27 we get back to the basics

0:25.5

what makes kosher slaughtering kosher well here we go the mission says and the case of one who

0:32.4

slaughters by cutting one siman i e the windpipe or the gullet in a bird, and two simanim in an animal,

0:39.5

his slaughter is valid. And the halakhic status of the majority of one siman is like that of the

0:45.1

entire siman. Rabbi Huda says, the slaughter is not valid until he cuts the veins, Havridin,

0:50.8

i.e. the major blood vessels in the neck. If one cut half of one siman in a bird or one and a half

0:57.0

simanim in an animal, his slaughter is not valid. If one cut the majority of one simon in a bird or the

1:02.2

majority of two simonim in an animal, his slaughter is valid. So let's get this straight.

1:07.9

Shchita or kosher slaughtering involves the shoet or slaughterer cutting two simanim or marks, the esophagus and trachea in an animal and a single siman, either the esophagus or the trachea in a bird.

1:21.7

There are some arguments, as you could hear, about the fine points or the fine print of these differences, but these are the

1:28.8

basics. The Kamara then goes on to discuss these laws in depth. From where do we derive them? Well,

1:34.9

the rabbis being the rabbis, they bring the appropriate Torah passages to support and explain these

1:41.0

laws. But then we get something a bit stranger. We get commentary from a person

1:46.9

described merely as a passerby from the Galilee. Have a listen. The Gamara relates that a passerby

1:54.0

from the Galilee taught, fitness for consumption of animals which were created from the dry land

1:59.6

is accomplished through cutting Tussimunim the

2:02.6

gullet and the windpipe fitness for consumption of fish which were created from water is accomplished

2:07.6

with nothing as no slaughter is required fitness for consumption of birds which were created from mud

2:13.2

haricacacques a combination of dry land and water is accomplished through cutting wotsimann of schmuel of capadokia says know that birds were created from a combination of dry land and water as they have scales under feet like fish this is intriguing and mystical reasoning and rashi rushes to explain it by suggesting that the more solid, the raw material used in creation,

2:37.7

the greater the life force of that creation, and so the greater the need for a more significant

2:45.5

act of slaughter. Which is only the beginning of the beautiful, mystical discussion the late great rabbi ad deen

...

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