Mishnah Chullin begins with the phrase:
Everyone slaughters, and their slaughter is valid.
This phrasing troubles the Gemara. In the legal language of the mishnah, the words “everyone slaughters” suggest everyone (or, as we learned yesterday, almost everyone) is pre-approved to perform ritual slaughter. But in a legal analysis, the words “their slaughter is valid” suggest that not everyone is pre-approved — however, if they go ahead and perform a ritual slaughter, it is deemed valid after the fact. This irks the Gemara because the two halves of the phrase are in tension. If everyone is pre-approved for slaughter, why state that their slaughter is approved after the fact?
To resolve this problem, the Gemara explores a number of alternative readings of the mishnah, including this one attributed to Ravina:
This is what the mishnah is teaching: “Everyone slaughters” — that is, everyone who is an expert in the halakhot of ritual slaughter. All experts are qualified to slaughter, even if they are not established.
Ravina suggests that what the mishnah is trying to tell us is that legal expertise matters: Everyone who is an expert in the laws of kosher slaughter is pre-approved to do the deed. Non-experts, however, are not. The second half of the mishnah’s phrase indicates that if a non-expert goes ahead and slaughters an animal regardless, and if it is later determined that they are proficient in the law, the slaughter is valid. If their proficiency is found to be lacking, however, it is not — and the animal may not be eaten.
A second interpretation attributed to Ravina is as follows:
“Everyone slaughters” — that is, everyone who is established as a butcher slaughters. All those established are qualified to slaughter, even if it is not known if they are experts.
This competing tradition, attributed to the same sage, suggests that the mishnah is talking about someone who is established as a kosher butcher, which the Gemara defines as a person who has been observed performing ritual slaughter two or three times without fainting. Established butchers are pre-approved to perform the ritual. So why do we need the second half of the mishnah’s phrase? According to Ravina:
If he slaughtered an animal and said: “It is clear to me that I did not faint,” his slaughter is valid.
When a person who lacks the necessary track record slaughters, the meat is kosher — provided they succeeded in the butchering correctly and without fainting.
The mishnah, as originally understood, extends approval to everyone, with a few exceptions, to perform ritual slaughter. But both of Ravina’s interpretations suggest that the mishnah is far more restrictive. Depending on which version of his teaching you follow, one must already be recognized as a legal expert or have a proven track record of successful butchering. Those who do not have these qualifications and proceed with the slaughter can be assessed after the fact. This makes the mishnah’s phrase “everyone slaughters” less literal (since clearly not “everyone” is meant), but it helps explain why the mishnah has a second clause explaining how slaughters are sometimes approved only after they have taken place.
The Gemara tells us that Ravina’s peers do not agree with him. They hold that the majority of those associated with slaughter are experts. In other words, if someone appears in your town and claims to be a shochet, a kosher butcher, one can assume that they are. For the sake of the talmudic conversation, this means that Ravina’s teachings do not explain the problematic opening phrase of the mishnah, and we must continue to search for a teaching that does.
Curiously, although Ravina’s opinions were rejected by his colleagues, over time they became the Jewish norm. In our day, to become a shochet, one must undergo extensive study and an apprenticeship. Amateurs who attempt kosher butchering in their backyard are not assumed to have succeeded.
Read all of Chullin 3 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 3, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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