Deuteronomy 22:6–7 establishes the prohibition of shiluach haken: One may not harvest both a mother bird and her offspring simultaneously. Rather, before collecting eggs or chicks, one must send the mother away. On today’s daf, the Gemara recalls an attempt to circumvent the rule:
A certain person clipped a mother bird’s wing and sent it away and thereafter caught it. Rav Yehuda flogged him and said: Go and let its wings grow back and then send it away.
By clipping the bird’s wings, the man ensured she could not escape. He went through the motions of sending her away, gathered the eggs, then immediately seized the mother — violating the spirit of the commandment while nominally honoring its letter. Rav Yehuda rejected this trickery, ordering corporal punishment and the bird’s eventual release. Case closed — or so it seems.
The Gemara questions whether Rav Yehuda’s ruling was unprecedented and overly severe. In the Mishnah, Rabbi Yehuda holds that taking the mother alongside her eggs warrants flogging, but not her subsequent release. Conversely, the sages hold that a transgressor must release the mother bird, but escapes corporal punishment. Neither tannaitic view supports applying both penalties at once. How, then, can Rav Yehuda’s double punishment be justified?
Rav Yehuda acted in accordance with the opinion of the rabbis (by requiring the person to release the bird) and the lashes were not imposed for transgressing the biblical prohibition; rather, they were rabbinic lashes for being rebellious.
The Gemara answers that Rav Yehuda was addressing two distinct infractions. He enforced the sages’ ruling by requiring the bird’s release, but the floggings were not for the biblical violation itself; they were disciplinary lashes for deliberate defiance. The punishment he meted out is a severe one. Normally, the rabbis limit the number of lashes to 39, but for rabbinic lashes punishing rebelliousness there is no limit. As Rashi points out, the lashing could continue until the violator truly repented.
It’s one thing, suggests Rav Yehuda, to violate a prohibition; it is quite another to orchestrate a scheme to circumvent divine law.
Read all of Chullin 141 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 18, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
Curious Minds Welcome. Whatever you're wondering about Judaism, My Jewish Learning has an answer, and it's free because readers like you make it so. Give to open more doors for Jewish discovery.
