Chullin 89–95: Assumptions About Food a Jew Gives a Non-Jew
by R. Gidon Rothstein
An extended discussion on Chullin 93b-94b raises numerous issues, only one of which I am going to study here. The overall question is whether and when a Jew may give a non-Jew the thigh of a slaughtered animal without removing its gid ha-nasheh (sciatic nerve). We will study about when the Jew may not do so for fear another Jew will assume this meat is already edible, and neglect to remove the gid.
While not practical in our times of professional butchers (although I have seen responsa about it well into the 19th century), it confronts us with what seem to me interesting questions of what we are allowed to assume with kashrut. While we are to never assume, here, we see situations where it is assumed people will assume, and preventive action taken.
To start with what we won’t look into here:
1) this sugya led to a debate about whether a Jew may benefit from the gid ha-nasheh (only give the thigh to the non-Jew, or even sell it); Rambam, Laws of Prohibited Foods 8;14 seems to have thought such benefit is allowed, a position Tur Yoreh De’ah 65 says his father, Rosh, accepted as well. The scholars of Lunel did not.
2) Whether we are allowed to assume a Jew who performs nikur, cutting out prohibited parts of an animal (the gid ha-nasheh), knows what he is doing and did it correctly. (We do assume that regarding shechitah, at least in the times of the Gemara, the principle being rov metzuyin etzel shechitah mumchin hen, most people who take up the slaughterer’s knife are expert in the field; we wonder whether the same is true of nikur).
3) Genevat da’at. This was the most tempting, the prohibition on misleading others, including non-Jews, and how it interacts with where we may consider them to have misled themselves. This last I resisted because I fear I tend to topics with ethical implications, and I like to pretend I also grapple with “pure” halachah.
4) There is also some discussion of basar she-nit’alem min ha-ayin, when we may assume meat we lost track of for some time is the same meat.
So, on to our sugya.
Local Announcements About Meat
The Mishnah on 93b allowed sending a non-Jew a whole thigh with the gid ha-nasheh still in it, because its place is noticeable. This assumes other Jews might buy or partake of this meat, and we worry they will not realize the need to remove the gid ha-nasheh (an example of this might be where all the slaughterers in the area adhere to kosher slaughter laws).
The Gemara wonders about the Mishnah’s insistence the thigh be whole; if we can give it with the gid, we would think we can give it cut up as well! The Gemara suggests two possibilities, depending on local practice. In times when shechitah was less commercialized, if an animal was found to be a terefah, to have had an injury that precluded it becoming kosher meat, in some places an announcement was made to that effect.
In those places, if no announcement has been made, we shouldn’t even be allowed to send a whole thigh, for fear the non-Jew will cut out the gid, incorrectly, and Jews will take the silence about terefot to mean meat in the stores is kosher. [In a world without refrigeration, you had to have fresh meat every day; the parallel in our times would be questions such as how long after Pesach must we stay away from the leavened products sold in Jewish-owned stores, whose owners did not sell their chametz for the holiday.]
Or, where no announcements are made, Jews should always refrain from buying meat from the non-Jews, so why can’t we sell (at least) a whole thigh? The Gemara answers, first, that non-Jews cut out their gid differently than we do, so the Jew would still know. Where the custom is not to ever announce issues, we worry this Jew will sell/give it to the non-Jew in front of another Jew, who will be sure this meat was properly slaughtered, and neglect to worry about the gid.
Ins and outs aside, a first reading of the passage, guided by Rashi, gives a few ideas of what we Jews may take for granted regarding kashrut. First, in a place where certain announcements are made regularly, the lack of such an announcement permits a Jew to assume the other way. In our case, where the occurrence of a terefah is announced, Jews may be sure that on other days, the animal is not a terefah. Subsidiary to that, our Gemara is sure we can spot the difference between how a Jew or non-Jew removes the gid ha-nasheh from an animal.
On the other hand, where announcements are not made, a Jew may not sell a cut-up thigh to a non-Jew, because another Jew might be there, see the transaction, and assume (apparently within acceptable reason), the thigh is completely kosher.
Two allowed assumptions, in Rashi’s version. (For a third, Rashi explains the more relaxed rules of sending a thigh to a non-Jew’s home; since it’s a more private situation, the Jew need not worry another Jew will see or know about it and assume it is permissible).
Only If the Jew Said It
Rashi’s grandson, Rabbenu Tam, added a significant condition. He thought our Gemara referred to where the Jew sending/selling the thigh tells the non-Jew (falsely) the gid has been taken away. Where it’s a whole thigh, the non-Jew sees the falsity of the claim right away. Where the thigh has been cut up, even if we think it is allowed to lie to the non-Jew in this way (it generally is not), we must worry a Jew might hear the conversation, and be sure that if the Jew took out the gid, the meat itself must for sure be kosher (when it might not be).
For Rabbenu Tam (Maggid Mishneh, Laws of Forbidden Foods 8;14 thinks Rambam agreed), we can’t take for granted what we did not hear from the Jew in question. It’s only if the Jew says he was involved in fixing up this meat for kosher consumption that we would reasonably extend that to other areas of kashrut of this meat.
The Halacha
Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De’ah 65;11 follows Rabbenu Tam’s version, a Jew may send a non-Jew a thigh with the gid in it, whole or cut up. But if he gives it to him in front of another Jew, and says it is kosher, if it is cut up, he must have removed the gid (because the declaration of kashrut will tell the other Jew it is fully kosher, and its being cut up denies the other Jew the possibility of spotting that it has not been removed).
Peri Megadim notes the Taz there thought it impermissible even without a declaration of kashrut, because the other Jew might know it from elsewhere, meaning we cannot be as sure as the first view thought that the onlooker Jew will only assume kashrut if s/he hears it from this Jew.
Aruch HaShulchan in paragraph 23 notes the Rambam and Rosh we’ve already mentioned, we may benefit from gid ha-nasheh, just not eat it, and then notes the Zohar disagrees, prohibits getting benefit from gid ha-nasheh. In my limited experience of Aruch HaShulchan, he doesn’t feel obligated to follow the Zohar anyway, but his reasoning here seems worth noting.
He says the Zohar was written by Rashbi, R. Shim’on b. Yochai, as is accepted in kabbalistic circles), perhaps most famous for his thirteen years in a cave. Not all of us pause to remember he is also the R. Shim’on intended when there are no other qualifiers of the name.
Matters for us here because, as it happens, R. Shim’on in Pesachim 22a had in fact considered gid ha-nasheh banned for benefit. Halachic principle has us follow R. Yehudah rather than R. Shim’on in their disputes, though, meaning Rambam and Rosh are the accepted practice, even as we now understand why the Zohar wrote as it did (it wasn’t ruling, Aruch HaShulchan is saying, it was reflecting the view of its author).
AH knew of people who sold sinews to non-Jews, meaning these halachot were practical still in his time. (I don’t know what they used them for back then, but nowadays, a Google search suggests that biotech labs use an extract from them in their research).
He closes se’if 29 with the point I was noting, too, we end up thinking that even if a Jew sees another Jew selling an animal, whole or cut, to a non-Jew, that Jew will not assume it is kosher unless he hears the Jew assert that to be true.
A sugya about the extent to which Jews must care to save/protect other Jews from transgression, even if those transgressions are the second Jew’s “fault,” as long as s/he had the right to make the assumptions leading up to that error. What we may and may not assume becomes central to what we demand of others in terms of caring for us in their actions.