Chullin 140

The Talmud has been discussing the Torah’s requirement of shiluach haken, shooing the mother bird away from the nest before collecting her eggs or hatchlings (Deuteronomy 22:6–7). This is compassionate, but it is also gender normative. What if the eggs are being incubated by dad?

Male incubation is the norm for several avian species. Male emus, for example, incubate their partner’s eggs for eight to 10 weeks, often losing substantial weight in the process. By the time the chicks hatch, the mother emu is long gone, leaving her former mate to raise them alone. Female red phalaropes — delightfully plumed, chunky shorebirds — likewise abandon their dun-colored male counterparts to handle all brooding and chick-rearing duties. And after a female emperor penguin lays a single egg, her male mate tucks it into his brood pouch, balancing it carefully on his feet while huddling with other fathers-to-be doing the same. Emperor penguins are the only species of penguin that breeds in the harsh Antarctic winter, and their survival depends on these male birds that snuggle up together with their eggs. It’s a mistake, therefore, to assume that all birds minding nests are female.

With awareness of this occasional gender reversal among birds, a mishnah from two days ago raised the following debate:

With regard to a male kore, Rabbi Eliezer deems one obligated to send it away, and the rabbis deem one exempt from sending it away.

The bird species in the mishnah is tricky to identify precisely. I’ve seen kore translated as pheasant, partridge and heron. But the legal understanding is more straightforward: In the debate between Rabbi Eliezer and the rabbis, the rabbis interpret the Torah more narrowly and literally. Deuteronomy 22:7 refers to the bird as a “mother,” and so, according to them, there is no obligation to shoo any male bird off the nest — even if he is diligently guarding its contents. But Rabbi Eliezer holds that the law extends to a male pheasant. On today’s daf, the Gemara explains why:

Rabbi Abbahu said: What is the reasoning of Rabbi Eliezer? According to Rabbi Eliezer, a verbal analogy between brooding stated with regard to a male pheasant and brooding with regard to a female bird indicates that the resting of a male pheasant upon its eggs is considered an effective resting. It is written here: “As the pheasant that broods over young that he has not brought forth” (Jeremiah 17:11), and it is written elsewhere: “There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and brood under her shadow” (Isaiah 34:15).
 
The Hebrew Bible contains verses about both male and female birds brooding over their eggs. Further, the verse in Jeremiah suggests that male pheasants, in particular, do this regularly. Therefore, says Rabbi Abbahu, Rabbi Eliezer believes the mitzvah of shiluach haken extends to these involved dads as well. The question is not the gender of the bird, but the function the bird is performing.

But what about species where the males don’t habitually brood? Does the mitzvah of shiluach haken extend to those rare feathered fathers that buck gender norms and brood over eggs normally sat upon by females of their species? Alas, no:

And Rabbi Elazar also says: The dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and the rabbis is only with regard to a male pheasant, but with regard to male birds in general, all agree that one is exempt from the mitzvah of sending away the bird from the nest.

In species where female birds traditionally brood, no one — not even Rabbi Eliezer — assumes that a male bird found on the nest is actually warming the eggs or chicks. And this exempts a person from the law of shiluach haken in those cases.

Rabbi Eliezer’s view is tantalizing for its brief flash of functional egalitarianism — the idea that “motherhood” might be defined not by biology or gender, but by the physical act of caretaking. The Gemara’s final consensus reels that radical possibility back in, acknowledging the involved bird father only if his entire species has normalized his labor. For the solitary, non-traditional male bird holding down the fort against all odds, the law remains unmoved. He isn’t a mother; he’s just an anomaly.

Yet even if the consensus remains bound to traditional categories, there is something moving about Rabbi Eliezer’s impulse. At its core, shiluach haken is driven by a mandate of empathy — a refusal to inflict gratuitous pain on a creature doing the vulnerable and devoted work of caregiving. By extending that benevolence to male pheasants, Rabbi Eliezer signals that compassion shouldn’t be constrained by strict gender roles. The law may take time to widen its scope, but the underlying instinct feels right: Wherever dedicated caretaking happens, it should be honored and protected.

Read all of Chullin 140 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 17, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.