In this Mishnah, we'll talk about what happens if a limb of an animal is amputated or cut off, in terms of the animal being a tereifa (cannot be eaten). The Mishnah says that legs were cut off below the lower joint. Practically, let's think in terms of the animal's knee. If it was cut off below the knee, then the animal is kesherah. The animal is kosher. You could eat it. It's not a tereifa. But if one of the legs was cut above the lower joint, above the knee, the animal's a tereifa and cannot be eaten. The cutting off of the leg at that point is looked at as a tereifa. The animal can't survive the year, and therefore, it's fatal. It's a fatal injury, and you're not allowed to eat that animal, even with proper shechita (slaughter). The same applies if some of the sinews were also removed. Those sinews, like the ligaments, are right above the knee. If they were removed, the animal is a tereifa and is not fit for eating. There are three sinews that run along the back of the hind legs of the animal, and they come together right above the knee. If they're removed, the animal is a tereifa, even if the bones all remain intact.
Now we'll talk about, let's say, those legs weren't severed, but they broke and they're dangling from the animal. Nishbar ha'etzem. If the bone of the hind leg was broken below the lower joint, but the leg is still attached with the skin and the flesh, what do we say? Im rov ha-basar kayam, shechitato metaharto. If the majority of the flesh around the break is still intact, even though there's a fractured bone, the bone is surrounded by skin and flesh, then the leg is part of the animal, and when the slaughter happens, it basically makes it pure and okay for eating with the rest of the animal. But if the majority of the flesh around the break is not intact—it's all ripped, it's all broken—then the shechita does not make the dangling leg kosher, because the leg is sort of detached from the animal even though it's connected in some way, and therefore the shechita would not change things...