We learn from a mishnah on today’s daf that a bird struck in the head by a weasel is a treifa — that is, ineligible for ritual slaughter and consumption. The concern here, as spelled out in the Gemara, is that the weasel bite may have pierced the membrane of the brain, causing a fatal injury.
About this mishnah, Rav, Shmuel and Levi teach:
(After slaughter), one inserts his hand in and inspects it. If it emerges and rises, it is a treifa. And if not, it is kosher.
After slaughtering such a bird, the nerve tissue is pushed with the finger. If it emerges through the hole in the skull, the bird is considered a treifa because the membrane has obviously been perforated. If not, the animal is kosher. A weasel bite, therefore, does not automatically disqualify the bird, but rather triggers an investigation to determine if the bite caused mortal damage or not. If it did, the animal’s meat is not kosher.
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Ze’eiri has a different view. He says:
There is no inspection for a weasel, because the teeth are thin.
A weasel’s teeth are too thin to inflict a mortal wound. As a result, not only is there no need to inspect, but given the inability of a weasel to do sufficient damage, there is no need to prohibit the bird in the first place.
The mishnah seems to assume that weasel bites are severe enough to prohibit meat from any bird who receives one. In good talmudic fashion, Rav, Shmuel, Levi and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish limit the scope of the mishnah. While the mishnah rules out all cases of weasel bites, they limit the prohibition only to birds that fail the inspection after being bitten. Ze’eiri’s position is radical: It reverses the mishnah altogether, permitting the meat of birds that have been bitten by weasels based upon a zoological claim.
I can imagine the Gemara coming to Ze’eiri’s defense by arguing that weasels of the mishnaic era were sharp-toothed and their descendants not as much. Or that the mishnah was talking about weasels from the land of Israel and Ze’eiri about small-toothed Babylonian ones. Or any of several other conceivable distinctions to reconcile Ze’eiri’s apparent disagreement with the mishnah. Instead, the Gemara reports that Ze’eiri retracted his position:
When Ze’eiri went up to Neharde’a, he sent to them: The matters that I stated before you are an error on my part. In fact, they said this in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish: One inspects a weasel with the hand, but not with a nail.
There is no way to know for sure what caused Ze’eiri to change his mind. Did he defer to the teaching of Rav, et. al., because of their greater rabbinic authority or because they convinced him that weasels’ teeth are sharper than he thought they were?
Whatever argument convinced Ze’eiri that he was in error, he owned up to it and announced it publicly. In the midst of a detailed anatomical conversation about the kashrut of birds, I am glad that the Talmud took a moment to shine light on the humility and courage that it took him to do so.
Read all of Chullin 56 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 25, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
