Chullin 116

We learned in a mishnah on Chullin 104 that the meat of birds may not be eaten together with milk. On today’s daf, the Gemara discusses a subsequent mishnah found on Chullin 113 and suggests the following:

Rabbi Akiva maintains that the prohibitions of an undomesticated animal and a bird do not apply by Torah law; but it may be inferred from his statement that they are prohibited by rabbinic law. And Rabbi Yosei HaGelili maintains that a bird is not prohibited even by rabbinic law.

Rabbi Akiva’s position that the prohibition against eating poultry with milk is rabbinic and not biblical. This notion has been a running thread in the conversation in the Gemara, as there is no rabbinic consensus on whether the Torah includes birds in the thricefold prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother’s milk, since birds do not produce milk. The suggestion that Rabbi Yosei HaGelili permits eating poultry and milk is noteworthy. While the rabbis are unsure about the source of the prohibition, the Gemara has been consistent in its view that it is forbidden to consume the two together. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili’s potential permissiveness certainly stands out.
 
Or does he?

Levi happened to come to the house of Yosef the bird hunter. They served him the head of a peacock in milk, and Levi did not say anything to them.
 
Levi is a guest in the house of Yosef the bird hunter and is served a mixture of poultry and milk. The Gemara implies that he did not eat from this dish and tells us directly that he did not speak up to let his host know that it is forbidden to do so. This gets Levi into a bit of trouble:

When Levi came before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to him: Why did you not excommunicate these people who eat bird meat cooked in milk, contrary to the decree of the Sages?

Not only did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi expect that Levi would point out his host’s violation of the rules of kashrut, but, given that Yosef the bird hunter had violated a rabbinic decree, he expected him to issue a ban of excommunication for having done so.

Levi justifies his (lack of) response:

Levi said to him: It was in the locale of Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira, and I said: Perhaps he taught them that the halakhah is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, who said that the phrase “in its mother’s milk” serves to exclude a bird, which does not have mother’s milk.
 
Rather than assuming that Yosef was ignoring the mainstream rabbinic position, Levi thought that it was possible that Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira, the local rabbinic authority, followed the minority opinion of Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, and that his parishioners did as well. As such, he deferred to the local authority and stayed silent.

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, under whose authority the rabbinic prohibition would have been issued, was not as open to a plurality of practice. Those who ate poultry and milk together were defying the official rabbinic position. His desire to see them excommunicated may have been just as much about solidifying rabbinic authority as about his conviction that poultry should be treated like meat. Yet, this narrative suggests that the debate about the mixing of poultry and milk was not fully settled by the end of the mishnaic period. Perhaps Yosef the bird hunter and Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira were not outliers but represented the mainstream. Perhaps Rabbi Yosei HaGelili’s opinion was more popular with the people than with his colleagues in the academy. 

Read all of Chullin 116 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 24, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.