Chullin, Chapter 2, Mishnah 5. Until now the chapter has dealt with the mechanics of a valid shechitah. This mishnah turns to a different area entirely: the laws of tumah and taharah, and specifically what happens when an animal is slaughtered and no blood emerges from it.
To follow the mishnah we need one background rule. Food does not become tamei on its own. It must first be primed, made receptive to tumah, and that priming happens through contact with liquid: the food has to get wet. Only seven liquids accomplish this.
The Seven Liquids
The seven are remembered by the mnemonic yad shachat dam:
- Yad (yud, dalet): yayin, wine, and devash, honey.
- Shachat (shin, chet, tet): shemen, oil, chalav, milk, and tal, dew.
- Dam (dalet, mem): dam, blood, and mayim, water.
Once one of these seven has touched a food item, that food is capable of contracting tumah from then on, even after the liquid has dried.
Meat, in the normal course of events, is primed by the blood that flows from the neck at the time of shechitah. The blood runs onto the outside of the animal, and the meat is thereby rendered susceptible to tumah. Our mishnah asks about the exceptional case where the shechitah was performed and no blood came out at all. Two questions follow: may the animal be eaten, and can it become tamei?
The Text of the Mishnah
"Hashochet behemah, chayah, ve'of": one who slaughters a domesticated animal, a wild animal, or a bird. Every animal falls into one of two categories. A behemah is domesticated, such as cattle, sheep and goats. A chayah is wild, such as deer and antelope.
"Velo yatza mehen dam": and no blood emerged from them. "Kesherim": they are valid, and the meat may be eaten. We do not entertain the suspicion that the absence of blood indicates that the animal had already died on its own before the shechitah and is therefore a neveilah.
"Vene'echalim beyadayim meso'avot": and they may be eaten with soiled, that is tamei, hands. "Lefi shelo huchsheru bedam": because they were never primed by blood. Since no blood ever touched the meat, the meat was never made receptive to tumah, and so contact with tamei hands cannot render it tamei.
The Decree of Tamei Hands
The Chachamim decreed that a person's hands carry tumah at the level of sheni letumah, a second degree of tumah. At that level they can convey tumah to sacred foods such as terumah and to korbanot, but not to ordinary food. To prevent such sacred food from being defiled, the Chachamim instituted netilat yadayim, the requirement to pour water from a utensil over one's hands before eating those foods.
Put the pieces together. When an animal is slaughtered in the usual way, blood emerges from the neck and touches the animal's exterior, so the meat is now primed and susceptible to tumah. If the meat is sacred, one must wash before eating it. Our mishnah teaches that when no blood came out, the meat was never primed, and one may therefore eat it even without washing. This holds, of course, only if the meat did not come into contact with any of the other liquids.
Whom Is the Mishnah Describing?
The Chachamim obligated washing only before eating sacred foods such as terumah and korbanot. Our mishnah therefore cannot be speaking about terumah or a korban at all, since in those cases one would have to wash regardless of whether blood emerged.
The case is rather a person who has taken upon himself a stricter standard of purity, someone who is frequently in the presence of terumah or korbanot and has resolved that whenever a food has been primed for tumah, even if it is not terumot uma'asrot, he will eat it only with washed hands. Here that individual is eating an ordinary animal, not a korban, from which no blood emerged. Even though he accepted upon himself not to eat primed food with unwashed hands, in this case the blood never reached the meat, so he is permitted to eat it as it is.
The Position of Rabbi Shimon
"Rabbi Shimon omer, huchsheru bishechitah": Rabbi Shimon says that even with no blood at all, the animal is primed for tumah by the act of shechitah itself.
His reasoning: before the shechitah the animal may not be eaten, on account of the prohibition of eiver min hachai, eating a limb taken from a living animal. It is the shechitah that renders the animal permitted as food. Rabbi Shimon holds that since the shechitah is what transforms the animal into something fit to be eaten, that same act also transforms it into something fit to receive tumah. Accordingly, in his view one may not eat this meat with unwashed hands, since doing so would render it tamei.