#talmud

"okay and what if the chicken is standing *exactly* halfway between" "man can you shut the fuck up?"

If the flesh 'round a break, in a ring, Isn't there, is it treif? Here's the thing: Such a wound can still heal, If it's scraped (not with steel, 'Cause infection is what that will bring).

This is the rule Rav's spoken: "Above the leg joint, a bone which is broken, With its flesh not intact, Renders treifah in fact, Both the limb and beast by the same token."

"Mated fetuses (Mama was shechted) Make a bloodline, if duly protected, Which makes endless meat curry," Says Shimon Shezuri, "And shechitah need ne'r be effected."

In a mother cow (shechted) is found A live calf which then jumps to the ground. It grows up, pulls a plow; You can eat it right now. It's pre-shechted; You're good all around.

As someone who also lives in a society where people don’t usually eat the placenta I was please to see how culturally relative this particular pasuk was. Within the bounds of kashrut, the Talmud seems to take a culturally expansive view on what is or is not edible. There are similarly interesting laws surrounding the consumption of substances like breast milk by adults, but that’s a talk for another daf.

Today our standards for treyfa are much higher. It has been some time since animals with broken bones were counted as kosher (except in situations where it would be financially ruinous and so this Talmudic leniency was deemed appropriate), but in the lives of many of our grandparents most kosher meat was not Glatt kosher in the way it is today. Similarly, the knives used to slaughter animals have gotten considerably sharper and more precise since the Hasidim introduced high-carbon steel knives in the 19th century. All of these are beautiful examples of how even the most traditional of practices can change greatly over time.