In our ongoing discussion of animals slaughtered during a difficult labor, Rabbi Meir put forth a surprising position: If a fetus’s leg emerges from the womb, the mother is slaughtered, and the leg is subsequently cut off, that severed leg is considered a carcass — and it conveys ritual impurity to the rest of the fetus. Normally, when a pregnant animal is slaughtered, the fetus is considered part of the mother’s body; it therefore remains kosher and does not spread impurity. For Rabbi Meir, however, this specific sequence of events — the leg protruding before the slaughter, but being detached after — changes the equation. The leg is not only impure, it spreads impurity to the rest of the fetus.
The Gemara on today’s daf, in seeking to understand his reasoning, cites the following text:
We learned: When a vessel is immersed in a ritual bath, it is purified only if all parts of the vessel are submerged at the same time. But if there are handles of vessels that are too long and which will be cut off, the vessel need only be immersed up to the point of their eventual size. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. And the rabbis say that the vessel is not purified until he immerses all of it, including the (oversized) handle.
There are obvious physical parallels between the cases. In the first, we consider a fetus with a single limb that protrudes from its mother. In the second, we have a vessel with overly long handles that protrude from the mikveh. (Notice, incidentally, the poetic parallel between mikveh and womb — both chambers of purification and transformation.) The Gemara is troubled: In the second case, Rabbi Meir rules that the portion of a vessel that is never immersed (and will later be removed) does not prevent the rest of the vessel from being purified by the mikveh. Yet, in the first case, Rabbi Meir rules that the protruding leg of the fetus, when it is later removed, does impart impurity to the entire fetus. How can he reasonably hold both positions? The short answer: Despite the fact that we can see parallels between the two cases, they are different enough that the Gemara is ultimately not concerned with Rabbi Meir’s two apparently contradictory rulings.
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Let’s now switch over to critical analysis of the sources. The Gemara is full of technical terms that have specific meanings not apparent from their literal translations. On today’s daf, the Gemara introduces the second Rabbi Meir tradition with the term dit’nan which literally means “we learned.” This technical term implies that the ensuing source comes from the Mishnah. Indeed, the Koren-Steinsaltz translation and commentary provides a reference, Mishnah Mikvaot 10:5, which reads as follows:
Any handles of vessels which are too long and which will be cut short, need only be immersed up to the point of their eventual size. Rabbi Yehudah says: The vessel is not purified until he immerses all of it.
Here, the subject matter is the same, but there is no mention of Rabbi Meir. Instead, we have opinions from an anonymous source and Rabbi Yehudah. So can this really be the source for the teaching on today’s daf? Something doesn’t feel quite right.
Here’s what might have happened: It is possible that the text of the Gemara did not originally read dit’nan and instead said tanu rabbanan, “our sages taught.” This is a similar technical term but it has a different meaning. While dit’nan introduces a source from the Mishnah, tanu rabbanan introduces a beraita — a rabbinic source from the same period that did not make it into the Mishnah. So why does the Gemara, as we have it, use the wrong term? Perhaps a scribe misidentified the text as a mishnah and switched the term, believing they were correcting an error.
There is another possibility: Tractate Mikvaot, from which this source comes, is a part of the Order Taharot, the last of the six orders of the Mishnah. Evidence indicates the rabbis of the Gemara devoted far less attention to this material than to the other orders. As Mishnat Eretz Yisrael, a contemporary Israeli commentary on the Mishnah points out, “When the Talmuds cite laws related to the Tractates of the Order of Taharot, they demonstrate a lack of familiarity with these Tractates and they [regularly] cite baraitot that are similar [to the Mishnah] instead of laws [that appear in the Mishanah].” Note also that while the Mishnah has 12 tractates in Order Taharot, there is Gemara on only one of them: Niddah. So, given the rabbis’ relative lack of depth in this material, it is possible the source on today’s daf is just a misquote of the mishnah that Steinsaltz identifies.
Those of us studying Daf Yomi today likely find the Talmud vast and difficult to retain. We’re not alone. Not for nothing have serious students of Talmud compared it to an ocean for hundreds of years. But this confusion on today’s page is a helpful reminder that we’re not alone in feeling this way. The editors of the Talmud, too, it seems, found the Talmud to be staggering and, at times, overwhelming.
Read all of Chullin 73 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 11, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
