Today, the Talmud continues to explain the multi-generational rabbinic debate over whether Jews are allowed to eat animals slaughtered by Samaritans. On the previous page, we learned that Rabban Gamliel and his court forbade the consumption of Samaritan meat. On today’s daf, we learn why:
And what is the reason that the sages (Rabban Gamliel and his court) issued a decree (rendering it prohibited to eat meat slaughtered by Samaritans)? It is like that case involving Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar, in which Rabbi Meir dispatched him to bring wine from the area of the Samaritans. A certain elder found him and said to him: “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider well who is before you. And put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite” (Proverbs 23:1–2). Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar went and related those matters before Rabbi Meir, and Rabbi Meir issued a decree against them.
On yesterday’s daf, we learned that some sages deemed meat slaughtered by Samaritans kosher as long as a Jew is present at the slaughter. But Rabban Gamliel and his court were more conservative and did not permit any meat slaughtered by Samaritans, even if a Jew was present. This story explains their reasoning.
As we have learned previously, anonymous elders are traditionally assumed by the Talmud to be none other than Elijah the Prophet, so let’s think of him that way now. Intercepting Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar on his way to purchase wine from Samaritans, Elijah quotes a cryptic verse from Proverbs. Rabbi Shimon relates the verse to Rabbi Meir, and the latter immediately forbids Jews from purchasing wine from Samaritans altogether. What did Rabbi Meir understand this verse to be saying? The term “ruler” alludes to a Torah scholar. The Gemara reads the verse as adjuring a student to seek Torah from one who can explain it, and to stop talking (“put a knife to your throat”) if the teacher isn’t capable of doing so, while finding answers elsewhere (“if you are a man given to appetite”). The Samaritans are likened to the incompetent teacher.
The Gemara also gives an entirely different reason for the ruling of Rabban Gamliel and his court:
Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak said: At the peak of Mount Gerizim they found the image of a dove, which the Samaritan residents of Mount Gerizim would worship. Rabbi Meir issued the decree according to his line of reasoning that he takes the minority into consideration, and therefore he issued a decree rendering meat slaughtered by the majority forbidden due to the minority that worshipped that idol. And Rabban Gamliel and his court also hold in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Meir.
Meat slaughtered by idolaters is forbidden. Most Samaritans were not idolaters, but at least some who lived at Mount Gerizim worshipped the image of a dove. When presented with this evidence, Rabbi Meir — and indeed the entire court of Rabban Gamliel — forbade all Samaritan meat. Once again, an unnamed old man affirms this conclusion:
Rabbi Abbahu dispatched Rabbi Yitzhak ben Yosef to bring wine from the area of the Samaritans. A certain elder found him and said to him: “The people here are not keepers of the Torah.” Rabbi Yitzhak went and related the matters before Rabbi Abbahu, and Rabbi Abbahu went and related the matters before Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi, and they did not move from there until they rendered the Samaritans full-fledged gentiles.
No longer speaking in cryptic verses, Elijah says it plainly: The Samaritans do not keep the Torah. The logical conclusion is that we cannot trust their meat to be kosher.
Throughout the Talmud, the sages question the integrity of the Samaritans’ Jewish identity. Are they true converts, in which case one should certainly be able to eat meat slaughtered and drink wine prepared by them? Or have they so completely departed from the Torah that they should be considered gentiles? The daf’s struggle to articulate exactly why Samaritan meat should be avoided betrays the complicated nature of the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. By the time the Talmud was codified, the Samaritans had been socially and ritually separate from the majority of the Jews living in the land of Israel for hundreds of years. This may, in the end, be the real reason for the skepticism toward their meat.
Read all of Chullin 6 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 6, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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