Today, we reach the end of Tractate Chullin. Congratulations to everyone who made it through this difficult and “meaty” tractate!
Over the last few months, we’ve explored the fine points of kosher slaughter, which species are kosher, the laws of treifa and neveila, the prohibitions on eating the sciatic nerve as well as mixing meat and dairy, the obligation to cover the blood of a slaughtered wild animal or bird, priestly gifts, and the obligation to send away a mother bird (shiluach haken) — in addition to many other smaller topics and side adventures that have come up along the way. Today’s daf concludes the discussion of the mitzvah of shiluach haken by returning us to emotional material on this subject you might remember from Tractate Kiddushin.
The Torah promises long life as a reward for the person who performs the mitzvah of shiluach haken (Deuteronomy 22:7). From this, the mishnah infers:
And if with regard to the sending away of the mother bird, which is a mitzvah whose performance is simple, as it entails a loss of no more than an issar (the value of the mother bird) the Torah says: “That it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days” (Deuteronomy 5:30), it may be derived by kal v’chomer (a fortiori) inference that the reward is no less for the fulfillment of the mitzvot in the Torah whose performance is demanding.
If the relatively “inexpensive” commandment to send away the mother bird comes with the promise of long life, all the more so, argues the mishnah, does the performance of other commandments, which require more effort and expense, lead to long life.
As beautiful as this notion might be, the Talmud immediately acknowledges that the world doesn’t actually appear to work in this way. Good people routinely lead tragically short lives. The Gemara therefore tries to make sense of the mishnah’s assertion:
The school of Rabbi Ya’akov taught that Rabbi Ya’akov says: There is not a single mitzvah written in the Torah whose reward is stated alongside it, which is not dependent on a belief in the resurrection of the dead.
According to Rabbi Ya’akov, the long life promised in Deuteronomy — which is attached to both the mitzvah of shiluach haken and the commandment to honor one’s father and mother — has nothing to do with our mortal world. Instead, by fulfilling these two commandments, a person secures that reward in the World to Come.
Rabbi Ya’akov, the Talmud tells us, came to this conclusion in the wake of a famous tragedy, recounted previously in Tractate Kiddushin:
There was one whose father said to him: “Climb to the top of the building and bring me fledglings.” He climbed to the top of the building and sent away the mother bird and took the offspring but as he returned he fell and died. Where is the length of days of this one? And where is the goodness of the days of this one? Rather, the verse “that your days may be long” is referring to the world that is entirely long, and “that it may be well with you” means in the world where all is well.
Despite the child simultaneously fulfilling both commandments associated with long life — shiluach haken and honoring his parent — he immediately falls off a ladder and dies. Rabbi Ya’akov makes sense of this tragedy by concluding that the long and satisfying life promised by the Torah cannot be a life in this world, but rather only in the World to Come.
But Rabbi Ya’akov’s solution does not work for everyone. As the Gemara next reminds us, there was another sage who had a very different response to this tragedy:
Rav Yosef said: Had Aher (“the Other”) interpreted homiletically this aforementioned verse: “That it may go well with you” (Deuteronomy 5:16) as referring to the World to Come, as did Rabbi Ya’akov, the son of his daughter, he would not have sinned.
Rabbi Ya’akov’s grandfather was Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, known in the Talmud only as Aher, because he left the rabbinic fold. It was this incident that caused him to leave the rabbinic movement. Watching this child die led him to question everything about the movement he’d once been part of.
This is not a happy or uplifting ending to this tractate, but it is typical for the Talmud to use the final lines of a tractate to wax more philosophical on the themes of life and death, reward and punishment — and to even acknowledge the fragility of the entire rabbinic project.
How we interpret the law makes all the difference in whether people can actually live with it.
Read all of Chullin 142 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on September 19, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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