„[Für] ein Tier, das Schwierigkeiten bei der Geburt hat und dessen Fötus aus seinem Vorderbein herausragt, jemand hat es abgeschnitten und anschließend seine Mutter geschlachtet, ist das Fleisch [vom Fötus entfernt] rein. [Wenn] jemand seine Mutter schlachtet und anschließend [das Vorderbein abschneidet], berührt das Fleisch [die Unreinheit] eine Nevelah [ein nicht ordnungsgemäß geschlachtetes Tier einer erlaubten Art] “, so Rabbi Meir. Die Weisen sagen: "[Die Unreinheit] beim Berühren einer geschlachteten Terefah [eines Tieres mit einem tödlichen Zustand, so dass es innerhalb eines Jahres sterben würde]. So wie wir bei einer Terefah feststellen, dass ihre Schlachtung sie reinigt, so auch das Schlachten von Ein Tier reinigt das [hervorstehende] Glied. “ Rabbi Meir sagte zu ihnen: "Nicht so, denn wenn das Schlachten einer Terefah das, was Teil ihres Körpers ist, rein macht, macht es das Glied sauber, das nicht von seinem Körper ist?" Woher stammt es für eine Terefah, dass ihre Schlachtung sie reinigt? Einem ungeeigneten Tier ist das Essen verboten, und auch einem Terefah ist das Essen verboten. So wie ein unreines Tier durch seine Schlachtung gereinigt wird, wird eine Terefah nicht durch seine Schlachtung gereinigt? Nein. Wenn Sie [etwas] über ein ungeeignetes Tier sagen, das keinen Moment der Gültigkeit hatte, würden Sie [als solches] über eine Terefah sagen, die eine Zeit der Gültigkeit hatte? Nehmen Sie weg, was [das Argument] Sie gebracht haben. Siehe, wenn es als Terefah aus dem Mutterleib geboren wird, woher würden wir das ableiten? [Eher nein. Wenn Sie über ein unreines Tier sagen, das für seine Art nicht vom Schlachten betroffen ist, würden Sie es für eine Terefah sagen, deren Art durch das Schlachten beeinflusst wird? Mit acht Monaten lebend geboren, macht seine Schlachtung es nicht rein, denn seine Art wird durch die Schlachtung nicht beeinflusst.
Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
הבשר טהור – the flesh–meat of the fetus is pure, for the animal does not receive impurity while living.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
Introduction
If a fetus sticks a limb out when being born and someone cuts off that limb before slaughtering the mother, the limb causes impurity as would a nevelah, as do all limbs taken from living animals. Our mishnah teaches that in this case the fetus that remains in the mother does not have the status of nevelah and it is clean. The rabbis in our mishnah debate whether the same is true if they slaughtered the mother first and then cut the limb off of the fetus.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
הבשר מגע נבילה – the flesh–meat of the fetus touched a limb from a living animal, which defiles like carrion.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
If an animal was having difficulty in labor and the fetus put forth its limb and a person immediately cut if off and then slaughtered the mother, the flesh [of the fetus] is clean. In this case, the fetus in its mother’s womb remains clean because it is considered to be a limb of its mother, while its mother is still alive. Even if the fetus dies it is still clean. Even if the unclean limb touches the fetus, the fetus is still clean because animals cannot become unclean while alive.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
מגע טריפה שחוטה – for the ritual slaughter, even though it does not permit the limb for consumption, purifies it from being carrion, and it is like something torn that is ritually slaughtered that does not defile from the Torah, but rather from the Rabbis with those things that are sanctified [for the Temple]: This is our reading.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
If he slaughtered the mother first and then cut if off, the flesh [of the fetus] is unclean like that which had touched nevelah, the words of Rabbi Meir. If after the fetus sticks out its limb, its mother is slaughtered, and then he cuts off the limb, we now have a case of a cut-off limb touching a dead fetus. Rabbi Meir holds that the fetus is rendered unclean by virtue of contact with the unclean limb. The limb has the status of nevelah and meat which has contact with nevelah is unclean.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
אף שחיטת בהמה תטהר את העבר – and we don’t have the reading “of the fetus.”
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
But the sages say, it is like that which had touched a slaughtered terefah, The other sages do not accord the limb the status of nevelah but rather terefah, and as we shall see below in the mishnah, a slaughtered terefah does not cause impurity.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
לא אם טיהרה שחיטת טריפה אותה – this is according to the law, for it is a thing that is part of its body.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
For just as we find that the slaughtering of a terefah animal renders it clean, so the slaughtering of the animal renders the limb clean. The rabbis say that just as slaughtering renders a terefah clean (and saves it from ever becoming an unclean nevelah) even though the meat is forbidden, so too slaughtering renders the limb clean, even though it cannot be eaten.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
ומנין לטריפה ששחיטתה מטהרתה – for perhaps it does not purify it, and from the law, does not purify it, for an unclean–impure animal is prohibited for consumption and a torn animal is forbidden for consumption.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
Rabbi Meir said to them: No, for when you say that the slaughtering of a terefah [animal] renders it clean you are concerned with [the animal] itself, but can you say that it will render clean the limb which is not part of [the animal] itself? Rabbi Meir rejects their argument. Slaughtering can render the terefah animal itself clean, but how can it render clean a part of the fetus, the limb, that was not attached to the fetus when its mother was slaughtered? Rather, the limb has the status of nevelah and renders the fetus unclean.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
ומה טמאה אין שחיטתה מטהרתה – from being impure, for this is taught in Torat Kohanim (i.e., the Midrash Halakha on the Book of Leviticus – see Leviticus 11:26,24: “among all the animals...that has true hoofs….whoever touches their carcasses shall be impure until evening” – all who touch them shall be impure, to include an unclean animal that its slaughter will not purify it.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
From where do we learn that the slaughtering of a terefah animal renders it clean? The mishnah now begins a prolonged argument trying to prove that a slaughtered terefah is clean, even though its meat cannot be eaten.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
תאמר בטריפה שהיתה לה שעת הכושר – for since it takes effect the law of ritual slaughtering, furthermore, it does not escape from it for it is within the general realm of the rest of sheep and cattle.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
[For we could have argued to the contrary:] An unclean animal may not be eaten, and a terefah also may not be eaten; just as slaughtering does not render an unclean animal clean so slaughtering should not render a terefah animal clean? However, in a most rabbinic fashion, the rabbis do not begin with the proof but rather with a counter-proof, what one might have argued. Seemingly one might have compared the terefah with the unclean animal. Both an unclean animal and a terefah cannot be eaten. Therefore, one might have argued that just as shechitah (slaughtering) does not render an unclean animal clean, for its meat transmits impurity, so too the slaughtering of a terefah renders it unclean and able to transmit impurity.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
טול לך מה שהבאת – take from here this proof that you brought.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
No, if you said this of an unclean animal for at no time was it fit [for slaughtering]; can you also say this of a terefah animal which had a time when it was fit [for slaughtering]? That argument can be refuted. An unclean animal is not rendered clean by slaughtering because it never had the opportunity to be made permitted/clean through slaughtering. In contrast, if the terefah animal had been slaughtered before it became a terefah, it would have been rendered clean. Therefore, even if it is slaughtered after it becomes a terefah, it is clean (although not edible).
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
הרי שנולדה טריפה מן הבטן מנין – that it would make it pure.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
Take away with this argument that you brought forth! For where would we know this of an animal that was born terefah from the womb? The mishnah, employing graphic language found in a few other midrashim but no where in the Mishnah, says that the distinction drawn between the terefah and the unclean animal must be removed. There is a terefah which would never have been permitted by shechitah the terefah that was born as such. This is similar to the unclean animal, which also never would have been permitted by shechitah. Therefore, our original question returns: How can the inedible terefah be rendered clean by slaughter?
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
שיש במינה שחיטה – therefore, it does not escape from the generalization of sheep and cattle. But a living animal [fetus] that is eight [months] old that was born from a living animal, we don’t have with what to purify it even it is slaughtered, because it is not included with cattle and sheep. And the Halakha is according to the Sages.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
[Substitute therefore this argument]: No, if you said this of an unclean animal for none of its kind may be validly slaughtered; can you also state this of a terefah for whose kind there is valid slaughter? The mishnah now adjusts the distinction between the terefah and the unclean animal. A terefah comes from a species of animal that is edible. Other such animals can be eaten after shechitah. Therefore, it is rendered clean by shechitah, just as other animals of its kind are. This would be true even for a terefah that was born as such. In contrast, an unclean animal is by definition from a species that can never be edible. Therefore, it is not rendered clean by shechitah.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Chullin
אין שחיטתה מטהרתו – from being carrion, for the ritual slaughter of an eight [month] fetus is of any benefit, but rather, when it is in the womb of its mother, it is permitted through the slaughter of its mother (as we will learn in the next Mishnah).
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English Explanation of Mishnah Chullin
[Accordingly], the slaughtering of a live eight months birth does not render it clean, since there is no slaughtering of its kind. The rule that we posited in the previous section is that any animal whose “kind” can be permitted/edible by having been slaughtered, is also clean if it is slaughtered. An “eight months’ birth” refers to an animal born prematurely, one which is deformed and we know will die. The mishnah uses the term “eight months” because a human baby born at eight months is assumed not to be viable. An “eight months’ birth” is like a terefah it is an animal that is now alive, that we know will die shortly. Because of the general rule explained above, an animal born prematurely cannot be made clean by shechitah because none of its kind can be made permitted through shechitah. Such an animal that is slaughtered will have the status of nevelah.
