The Eri B. Sit Edition and Audio Series of the Babylonian Talmud: Chullin has been dedicated by our good friend Mr. Joey Jamal and his wife in honor of their son Jack’s engagement to Shirley Sutton. With God’s help, they should be married at an auspicious and successful time, and may they have the merit of the Torah learning that we will have over the next several months in Tractate Chullin. May they enjoy much satisfaction, peace in the home, peace, prosperity, and every blessing. Amen.
We begin today’s folio ten lines from the bottom. Rav Huna said: One should not sift date beer at night. The term “at night” refers to the time when it is dark, and the “pieces of wood” were used for the sifting process.
In earlier times, beer was made from dates. Sometimes the dates contained worms, so the beer had to be sifted. They did not use a cloth, because date beer is very thick and would not pass through the cloth. Instead, they sifted it over pieces of wood, so that any worms, bugs, or similar matter would be caught by the wood while the beer passed through.
The Gemara says that one should not perform this sifting at night. Why not? Perhaps the worm will leave the beer and enter the pieces of wood, and then fall back into the cup. You might think that it was in the beer from the beginning, but in fact it had already left and then returned.
As we learned yesterday, when a bug is in a drink or in water, there is no problem as long as it remains in the liquid. One does not need fins, scales, or identifying marks to determine whether it is prohibited, provided that the creature did not leave its original location. If it grew in the water or beer and remained there, it is not considered a creature that crawls upon the ground. However, once it leaves and then returns, it becomes prohibited. Therefore, if the worm leaves the beer and crawls onto the wood, it has left its original location. If it then falls back into the cup, it is prohibited by Torah law.
The Gemara asks: How could one drink date beer even from its vessel? Perhaps the worm will crawl out of the beer onto the side of the vessel and then return to the beer. That would also be considered leaving its original location. Why, then, is the concern limited to sifting the beer at night? One should be concerned even when drinking it from an ordinary vessel.
The Gemara answers that the side of the vessel is considered the creature’s habitat. That is where it develops, and therefore crawling from the beer onto the side of the vessel and back into the beer is not considered leaving its location. By contrast, when it goes onto the pieces of wood, that is already considered leaving its habitat.
The Gemara brings a proof for this principle. How do we know that a worm or other creature that grows in its natural habitat is not considered to have left? We learned that one may drink from pits, caves, and underground reservoirs without having to inspect the water. How can this be permitted if there may be bugs in the water?
The Torah says that one may drink from such water. Perhaps a bug crawled up the side of the pit and then returned to the water. The answer is that the side of the pit is considered its place of growth and its habitat. Therefore, crawling from the water onto the side of the pit and back into the water is not considered leaving its location.
So too, in the case of the beer, when the worm crawls out of the beer onto the side of the vessel and then returns, this is not considered a problem. The Gemara brings a further proof that when a creature leaves its habitat, it becomes prohibited.
We learned in a baraita that the verse referring to every creature that crawls upon the ground includes small insects found on wine barrels. These insects are found in wine cellars, where the wine is stored. If they are sifted, there is a concern that they will leave the wine, crawl onto the wood, and then return to the wine. The problem exists because they were sifted. If they were not sifted, they would be permitted, since they were in the wine from the beginning.
Once again, we learn that when a creature grows in its natural location, it is permitted so long as it remains there. Once it leaves, it becomes prohibited.
Shmuel taught: In the case of a squash, when it is still attached to the ground, a worm found inside it is prohibited because of a creature that crawls upon the ground. Although the worm itself is not crawling on the ground, since the squash is attached to the ground, it is considered as though the worm is crawling upon the ground.
The Gemara says that there is a proof for this. We learned in a baraita that the prohibition of a creature crawling upon the ground excludes certain insects found in lentils and certain insects found in chickpeas, as well as worms found in dates and figs. These are permitted, because although they are inside the fruit, they have not left it.
Another baraita, however, includes worms found in the roots of olives, comparing them to worms found in the roots of grapes. One baraita says that worms found in fruit are permitted, while the other says that worms found in olives are prohibited. How can these statements be reconciled?
We must say that both baraitot are discussing worms found in fruit. The baraita that permits them is discussing fruit that has already been detached from the ground. When a worm is found in detached fruit, it is not considered a creature crawling upon the ground. It is prohibited only when the fruit is still attached to the ground.
Thus, the two baraitot are discussing worms found in fruit, but they differ as to whether the fruit was attached or detached. If the worm entered the fruit after the fruit had been detached from the ground, it is not considered a creature crawling upon the ground. As long as it does not leave the fruit, it remains permitted.
The Gemara rejects this proof. Perhaps both baraitot are discussing fruit that became wormy while it was still attached to the ground. The difference is that one baraita is discussing a worm found in the fruit itself, while the other is discussing a worm found in the tree or in its roots.
When do we say that something attached to the ground is considered part of the ground? That applies to the roots or to the tree itself. When the worm is found in the fruit, even though the fruit is attached to the ground, the fruit is not considered the ground itself. Therefore, the worm is permitted. The roots and the tree, however, are considered part of the ground.
The Gemara says that this explanation is supported by the language of the baraita. It does not say that the worm was found in the grapes or in the olives. It says that it was found in the roots or in the tree. This shows that only the tree and its roots are considered part of the ground; the fruit itself is not.
The Gemara then raises several questions, but no answers are given. The answer to these questions will have to await the arrival of Elijah the Prophet.
Rav Yosef asked: What is the law if the worm left the fruit and died before it reached the ground? We have a principle that as long as the worm remains in the fruit, it is permitted. If a person bites into the fruit and sees a worm inside, and it does not disgust him, he may continue eating, because the worm is considered part of the fruit. Once it leaves the fruit, however, it becomes prohibited, because it is now considered to have left its original location.
What is the law if it left the fruit but died before it crawled upon the ground? On the one hand, it never crawled on the ground. On the other hand, perhaps once it leaves the fruit, it is prohibited regardless of whether it actually crawled on the ground.
What does it mean for it to be permitted? It would mean that a person could pick up the worm and eat it, if he had the courage to do such a thing.
The Gemara asks another question: What is the law if the worm came out only partially, while the rest of it remained inside the fruit? Is partial emergence considered the same as complete emergence, or not?
Another question is raised: Suppose the worm left the fruit, but before it reached the ground, a person caught it in the air. One might argue that this case is more lenient than the case of a worm that died, because the worm never had the opportunity to crawl on the ground. On the other hand, it is still alive, and if it had been allowed to continue, it would have crawled on the ground. What is the law?
The Gemara asks further: Suppose the worm came out of a date and crawled onto the date itself. One could argue that the date is still considered its habitat, and therefore this is not considered leaving its location. Since it remains on the date, perhaps it is permitted. Or perhaps once it leaves the inside of the date, it is prohibited, even if it is still on the date.
Even if you say that once it comes out onto the date it is prohibited, what is the law if it comes out onto the pit inside the date? Is that considered leaving its location, or is the pit considered part of the worm’s habitat, since worms commonly grow in such pits?
What is the law if there are two dates attached to each other and the worm tunnels from one date to the other? It did not truly come out into the open, but it did leave one date and enter the other. Is that considered leaving its location, or is it still considered to be inside its natural habitat?
The Gemara leaves all of these questions unresolved.
The Gemara now discusses worms found in animals. What are the worms called kukiyani? According to one explanation, they are worms found in the lungs of an animal. The Gemara asks: How could such worms have entered the lungs from the outside? They must have come from somewhere. Perhaps they were in the animal’s food, but food does not enter the lungs; it enters the digestive tract. Therefore, if the worms are found in the lungs rather than in the digestive tract, it would seem that they grew there and did not enter from outside. Why, then, should they be prohibited?
There is another version of the discussion that says that the worms found in the lungs must have grown inside the animal. If they had entered from outside, they should have been found in the digestive tract or in the waste tract. The fact that they were found in the lungs indicates that they grew there.
What, then, is the conclusion regarding the kukiyani? Why are they prohibited? The Gemara answers that they may have entered while the animal was sleeping. The worm crawled into the animal’s nose, the animal inhaled it, and it entered the lungs. Since it came from outside, it is prohibited.
As for worms found between the hide and the flesh of an animal, they are prohibited. Sometimes, after an animal is skinned, worms are found crawling between the skin and the flesh. Those worms are prohibited. In the case of a fish, however, such worms are permitted.
We need to understand the difference. If you are preparing fish and find these bugs, do not show them to me, because I will be disgusted. Just mix them into the food and serve it to me. The worms are permitted; I simply do not want to see them because they disgust me.
The reason is derived from the verse in Vayikra that discusses an animal carcass, which may not be eaten. The verse includes worms found in an animal. Such worms are prohibited.
Why are worms found in fish permitted? An animal cannot be eaten raw; it must undergo ritual slaughter. The worm inside the animal is alive, and slaughtering the animal does not permit the worm. The ritual slaughter applies to the animal, but it does not permit the worm, which has its own life.
Fish, however, are prepared by removing them from the water. Therefore, when the fish is removed from the water, the worm that grew inside it becomes permitted. The worm grew there, and when the fish is removed from the water, the fish becomes permitted without ritual slaughter.
The Gemara therefore makes this distinction: When an animal is slaughtered, the slaughter does not permit a live worm found inside it. When a fish is removed from the water, however, the worm that grew inside the fish becomes permitted.
There is a major difficulty here. We just discussed worms found in the lungs of an animal and asked whether they are permitted or prohibited. According to what we have now learned, they should certainly be prohibited. The animal requires ritual slaughter, and the slaughter does not permit a live worm inside it. What, then, was the entire question regarding the kukiyani?
This is the question raised by Tosafot. Because of this difficulty, Tosafot explains that the earlier discussion of kukiyani was referring not to worms in an animal’s lungs, but to worms in a fish. It was not discussing an animal. In an animal, the worms would certainly be prohibited, because the animal’s ritual slaughter would not permit them.
According to this explanation, the earlier discussion is referring to a fish. The worm could have entered through the fish’s nose while it was sleeping, passed through its gills, and entered its body.
The final section of the Gemara, and the final section of the chapter, continues to discuss the prohibition of eating creeping creatures. The verse says, “Everything that goes upon its belly,” referring to a snake, and it also refers to creatures that have four legs. The term “the many-legged” refers to a creature with numerous legs.
What does the word “everything” come to include? It includes a long, snake-like creature. It also includes a scorpion and creatures similar to a beetle. Creatures with many legs include a centipede, as well as creatures similar to a centipede. These include all the various creatures that resemble it, whether they have many legs or fewer legs.
It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yosei ben Durmaskit said: There is a creature called the Leviathan. This is not referring to the whale or large shark known in our time. A whale does not have scales, and its body is smooth, so it could not be the kosher Leviathan. Rather, this refers to the Leviathan of the future.
In the future, when the Messiah comes, the righteous will be served the Leviathan as a meal. It will be salted and served to the righteous.
What does it mean that the Leviathan has a protective covering? It means that it has scales. The scales protect the fish like armor or a shield.
Its fins are sharp and pointed, so sharp that they can cut through pieces of pottery. When the Leviathan swims, its fins cut through the water. It does not fly; it swims, but its fins are so sharp that they can cut through pottery.
The simple explanation of the verse is that the fins are bright like the sun. The fins of the Leviathan, including those on the underside of the animal, shine like the radiance of the sun.
That is the simple interpretation of the verse: the fins are bright like the sun. The homiletic interpretation of the Gemara is that they are sharp like broken pieces of pottery, cutting through the water as the Leviathan swims. The water does not impede it; it cuts through the water as it travels.
We have completed the chapter.