Kosher slaughter of a mammal requires cutting both simanim (the windpipe and the gullet) in a relatively brief span of time. It also requires that the animal is not mortally injured in a different organ before the slaughter. Given these requirements, the following statement from Reish Lakish on yesterday’s daf is surprising:
If one cut the windpipe, and then the lung was perforated before he cut the gullet, the animal is (nonetheless) fit for consumption.
Ordinarily, a major injury to the lung before the completion of slaughter renders an animal treifa; its meat is not kosher. But in this unusual case, Reish Lakish permits the meat if the animal’s lung is perforated after the trachea has been severed but before the esophagus has been cut. Why? Essentially, because this no longer constitutes a mortal injury. Once the windpipe is severed, the lung is treated as if it were “in a basket” — that is, separate from the body. The subsequent damage to it is therefore of no legal consequence.
It’s hard to imagine the circumstances in which a shochet, ritual slaughterer, would cut the trachea, then pause long enough for the lung to sustain damage, and then finish the slaughter by cutting the esophagus. But that’s not the point. The purpose of this hypothetical is to understand a legal principle: An injury to the flesh of the animal renders it treifa when that injury will lead to organ failure. But, in a case in which the respiratory system is already in failure as a result of the ritual slaughter, a subsequent injury to the lungs does not prevent the animal from being kosher.
On today’s daf, Rav Aha bar Yaakov draws an interesting inference from Reish Lakish’s statement:
Learn from this that one may invite Jews to eat the internal organs, but one may not invite gentiles to eat the internal organs.
While non-Jews are not restricted to meat that has undergone kosher slaughter, according to rabbinic tradition they are obligated to follow the seven Noahide Laws, which include a prohibition against eating from a live animal. A consequence of Reish Lakish’s teaching seems to be that lungs become permissible to Jews as soon as the trachea is cut, but before the animal is fully dead. Rav Aha bar Yaakov infers that we end up with a peculiar situation in which, for a brief moment, the lungs are permitted to Jews but forbidden to non-Jews.
Again, it is difficult to imagine this actually happening. It is a theoretical scenario that helps us understand a legal principle.
And Rav Pappa has a problem with this conclusion:
Rav Pappa said: I was sitting before Rav Aha bar Yaakov, and I sought to say to him that his statement is difficult: Is there anything that is permitted for a Jew but prohibited for a gentile? But I did not say that to him, as I said to myself: Didn’t he say a reason?
Inherent to rabbinic Judaism is the notion that Jews operate under a more restrictive set of obligations than non-Jews. Non-Jews may work every day; Jews are restricted from work on Shabbat and festivals. Circumcision is optional for non-Jews; it is required for Jews. Non-Jews may eat any kind of meat; Jews may only consume certain species that have been slaughtered in a certain way. That is both the burden and the blessing of being God’s holy people. And that is why Rav Pappa is taken aback by Rav Aha’s conclusion: How can it be that there is any situation in which something is permitted to Jews and forbidden to non-Jews? That’s not how the rabbinic system works!
But rather than give voice to his objection, Rav Pappa holds back, leaving his question unasked. Even though he didn’t challenge Rav Aha directly, however, Rav Pappa held on to his objection, recalling it before his colleagues and/or students some time later. Which leads to yet another question for us: Did the Talmud preserve Rav Pappa’s statement so that we would all see the preposterousness of Rav Aha’s teaching? Or is it telling us that Rav Pappa held his tongue in order to encourage us to do the same?
Read all of Chullin 33 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 2, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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