Chullin, Chapter 3, Mishnah 2. The opening mishnah of this chapter presented the list of injuries and conditions that render an animal a tereifah, an animal so damaged that it cannot survive and therefore may not be eaten even after proper shechitah. Our mishnah is the counterpart to that list: it enumerates the injuries that look severe, sometimes frighteningly severe, and yet leave the animal fit.
The mishnah begins: "Ve'elu kesheirot babeheimah" - and these are the cases in which the animal remains kosher. The principle underlying the whole list is that none of these wounds is life threatening. The animal can go on living with them, and therefore it never enters the category of tereifah.
A Hole or a Split in the Windpipe
"Nikvah hagargeret o shenisdekah" - the wall of the windpipe was punctured, or it was split lengthwise. Here we must be careful to distinguish this from what we learned in the previous mishnah. There the windpipe was severed across its width, and that indeed disqualifies the animal. In our case the tear runs along the length of the pipe, in the direction that leads from the mouth down toward the lung, and such a split does not endanger the animal's life.
Attention now turns back to the first of the two cases, the perforation, with the question of measure: "Ad kamah techsar" - what quantity of the windpipe may be lacking? Put differently, at what point does the opening become too wide for the animal to remain fit? Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel supplies the shiur: "ad ke'issar ha'italki" - the breadth of an issar of Italy, a small coin whose width serves as the boundary line. So long as the gap does not exceed that coin, the animal is fine; once it does, we have a tereifah.
The Continuing List
- "Nifchetah hagulgolet velo nikav kerum shel moach" - the skull was smashed open, yet the membrane sheathing the brain remained unpierced.
- "Nikav haleiv velo leveit chalalo" - a perforation was made in the heart, but it stopped short of breaking through into the inner cavity.
- "Nishberah hashidrah velo nifsak hachut shelah" - the vertebral column snapped, yet the cord threaded through it stayed intact.
- "Nitelah hakaveid venishtayeir heimenah kezayit" - the liver was taken out, yet an olive's volume of it stayed in place.
- "Hemses uveit hakosot shenikvu zeh letoch zeh" - the third and second stomachs were each perforated, but the two openings sat directly opposite one another, so that the stomachs pressed together and each one plugged the other's hole.
- "Nital hatechol" - the spleen is gone.
- "Nitlu haklayot" - the kidneys are gone.
- "Nital lechi hatachton" - the lower jawbone is missing, leaving the animal with no way to chew.
- "Nitelah ha'eim shelah" - the uterus is gone.
- "Vecharutah bidei shamayim" - the lung dried out and shrank, but through a cause sent from Heaven, as when the animal was terrified by a thunderclap or some similar natural occurrence.
In every one of these cases the animal is kosher.
The Machloket About the Flayed Animal
One last injury rounds off the mishnah, and over it the Tannaim divide: "Hageludah, Rabbi Meir machshir vachachamim poslin." The subject is a beast flayed of its hide during its lifetime. Rabbi Meir holds that it stays fit for eating, while the chachamim rule that it does not.
The chachamim's ruling is then given its precise boundaries. Disqualification applies only where the hide came off completely. Should even a patch of skin have survived over the backbone, the beast remains kosher. The reverse is true as well: when it is exactly the strip lying over the backbone that was torn away, the beast is unfit, notwithstanding that the entire remainder of the hide is still attached.