Chullin, Chapter 1, Mishnah 4. Until now the chapter has dealt with shechita, the slaughter that renders an animal fit to eat. This mishnah sets shechita side by side with a very different act: melika, the method by which a bird brought as a korban was killed in the Beit Hamikdash. The two look superficially similar, yet the mishnah shows that they are opposites in almost every detail of where on the neck they may be performed.
What Is Melika?
Melika was performed by the kohen with the thumbnail of his right hand. He would press the nail into the nape of the bird's neck, severing the vertebra of the neck, and continue through the neck itself. For a bird brought as an olah, he would cut through both the trachea and the esophagus. For a bird brought as a chatat, only one of the two pipes was severed.
An essential point: shechita accomplishes nothing for these bird korbanot. Melika alone prepares them for the altar. So we have two procedures, each valid only in its own domain, and the mishnah now compares them point by point.
The Four Cases
"HaShochet min hatzedadin, shechitato kesheirah." If the knife is drawn along the side of the animal's neck rather than straight across the front, the slaughter holds. What matters is that the required pipes were severed; the point along the circumference at which this happened is irrelevant. And this is not a leniency granted only in retrospect: a person may deliberately choose to slaughter there from the very start.
"HaMolek min hatzedadin, melikato pesulah." If the kohen performs melika at the side, the bird is disqualified. Melika is confined to one spot alone, the nape, and to nowhere else. The Torah writes "mimul orpo", facing the oref, the rear portion of the neck, and only a nail pressed at that spot fulfills the mitzvah.
"HaShochet min ha'oref, shechitato pesulah." Here the reason needs spelling out. Coming from behind, the blade meets the spinal vertebra before it ever arrives at the simanim. An animal whose neck bone has been snapped is a tereifah, an animal carrying a defect that will inevitably bring about its death. Such an animal is forbidden as food no matter how flawlessly it is later slaughtered. In our case, at the moment the trachea and esophagus are finally being cut, the animal has already become a tereifah through the broken vertebra behind them. The slaughter arrives too late to help, and the meat is not kosher.
"HaMolek min ha'oref, melikato kesheirah." One who performs melika from the nape, his melika is valid, and not only valid: this is precisely how melika is meant to be done.
"HaShochet min hatzavar, shechitato kesheirah." Slaughtering at the tzavar, meaning the frontal area where the pipes lie just under the skin, is valid, and indeed this is where shechita is normally carried out.
"HaMolek min hatzavar, melikato pesulah." One who performs melika from the throat, his melika is invalid, since melika belongs to the nape alone.
The Mishnah's Summary
"Shekol ha'oref kasher limelikah": every point along the nape qualifies as a place for melika. "Vechol hatzavar kasher lishechitah": the entire frontal region, its lateral areas included, qualifies as a place for shechita.
"Nimtza kasher bashechitah" (it emerges that whatever is fit for shechita) "pasul bamelikah" (is unfit for melika), "kasher bamelikah" (and whatever is fit for melika) "pasul bashechitah" (is unfit for shechita).
The result is a clean inversion. The region fit for shechita, the front of the neck together with its sides, is unfit for melika. The region fit for melika, the nape, is unfit for shechita. Each act has its own place, and each place disqualifies the other act entirely.