Chullin 122

We’ve discussed food impurity, which is spread through contact with a minimum quantity (the volume of an egg) of impure food. The opening mishnah of this chapter of Chullin asserted that while the inedible skins and bones don’t, on their own, spread food impurity, they can combine with edible portions of the meat to do so. 

Similarly, in order for dead matter to spread either corpse impurity (in the case of a human) or carcass impurity (in the case of an animal), there must be a minimum volume of dead flesh — the equivalent volume of an olive. And, similarly, the mishnah on today’s daf discusses whether skin counts toward that minimum.

These are those whose skin is the same as their flesh: The skin of a person; and the skin of a domesticated pig … the skin of the hump of a young camel; and the skin of the head of a young calf; and the hide of the hooves; and the skin of the womb; and the skin of a fetus; and the skin beneath the tail of a ewe; and the skin of the gecko, and the desert monitor, and the lizard and the skink.

And all of these, in a case where one tanned them or trod upon them for the period of time required for tanning, they are ritually pure, except for the skin of a person.

The mishnah first lists the kinds of skins that do count as flesh, then offers an important caveat: If the skin has been processed into leather, then it no longer counts as flesh when calculating whether the minimum volume of dead matter for transmission is present. There is a macabre exception: Even if you turn human skin into leather, it still counts as human flesh when calculating impurity. The Gemara adds: 

Ulla says: The skin of a person is pure by Torah law; and what is the reason that the sages said that it is impure? It is a decree lest a person fashion mats from the skins of his father and mother.

Ulla notes that the mishnah insists human skin can become impure, in contrast to his understanding of the Torah. He identifies this law as a rabbinic innovation, meant to deter a person from using his parents’ skins to make a carpet or mat. Apparently, in the rabbis’ world, this was a possibility — and they didn’t like it.

I’ll admit, neither do I. Why would someone make furnishings out of their dead parents? Curiously, none of the medieval commentaries I looked at answered this question. Rashi explains that the Hebrew term used for mats could include the leather seat of a chair or mattress. But that’s just as confounding to me. The Tosafot add that this rabbinic decree prohibits making mats from any human, not only one’s parents. But no one addresses the question of why anyone would do this.

For me, the mishnah immediately brings to mind the horrific case of the commandant of Buchenwald, Karl-Otto Koch, and his wife Ilse, who had a lampshade made from the tattooed skin of murdered concentration camp victims. In a completely different time and place, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus describes the Scythians making arrow quivers from the skin of their defeated enemies.

Curiously, the notion of making vessels of human skin appears elsewhere in the Talmud. In Sukkah 48b, we find the following exchange:

A certain heretic named Sason said to Rabbi Abbahu: You are all destined to draw water for me in the World to Come, as it is written: “With joy (sason), you shall draw water” (Isaiah 12:3).

Rabbi Abbahu said to him: If it had been written: “For sason,” it would have been as you say. But it actually says: “With sason,” meaning that the skin of that man (you) will be rendered a wineskin, and we will draw water with it.

Turning human skin into utensils and tools can be a form of domination, subjugation and dehumanization. And, in the case of Rabbi Abbahu, it can set up a cutting remark. But it appears that Ulla has a different phenomenon in mind, one that isn’t rooted in cruelty and domination. Instead, he seems to be describing a world in which a person might choose to memorialize their loved ones by continuing to use parts of their bodies in their homes, perhaps not unlike the Victorian mourning practice of fashioning jewelry from the hair of a deceased person. This practice is not common today, and it isn’t one that sounds particularly resonant or meaningful to me. But it’s a good reminder that mourning is culturally specific, and what makes sense to people in one time and place might appear morally outrageous to those living in a different culture, or in a different historical context.

Read all of Chullin 122 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 30, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.