We have learned that, barring variations and complications, when a pregnant animal is slaughtered, the fetus it carries can be eaten. Since the fetus is considered part of its mother’s body, it does not require its own slaughter. The mishnah on today’s daf offers a little more nuance:
One who slaughtered an animal and found within it an eight-month-old fetus, alive or dead, or a dead nine-month-old fetus — should tear it and remove its blood. If he found a live nine-month-old fetus, it requires its own slaughter, and one is liable for violating the prohibition against slaughtering an animal itself and its offspring on the same day. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir.
Rabbi Meir distinguishes between two types of animal fetuses one might find in a slaughtered mother: those that cannot live on their own because they are either pre-term or stillborn, and those that are full-term and still alive. He argues that only those fetuses which cannot live on their own should be considered part of their mother and rendered edible by the slaughter of the mother. In order to eat them, then, all one needs to do is remove their blood, just as one would have to do with any kosher meat. But for Rabbi Meir, a fetus that could live independently after its mother was slaughtered is not considered part of its mother and should be treated like a completely separate animal, requiring its own slaughter to be eaten. He is in the minority:
And the rabbis say: The slaughter of its mother renders it permitted.
Help us keep Jewish knowledge accessible to millions of people around the world. With your help, My Jewish Learning can provide endless opportunities for learning, connection and discovery.
The rabbis insist that whether or not the animal fetus could live independently, it is “covered” by its mother’s kosher slaughter and does not require its own slaughter. In the true improv spirit of “yes, and,” the mishnah then takes this idea to its logical conclusion:
Rabbi Shimon Shezuri says: Even if (the nine-month-old fetus that survived the slaughter of its mother) is now five years old and plowing in the field, the slaughter of its mother rendered it permitted.
If a fetus in utero is rendered edible by its mother’s kosher slaughter, then it should continue to be edible if it survives that event — even if it isn’t killed immediately but allowed to grow up. Presumably, then, this five-year-old ox can be eaten even if it is not properly slaughtered. Does this seem ridiculous? Perhaps. Note that in his commentary on the Mishnah, Maimonides is quick to insist that the halakhah doesn’t follow Rabbi Shimon Shezuri. Presumably, he thinks that the fetus should be killed and eaten immediately or, if allowed to live for many more years, slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law before being consumed.
Over the next few pages, the Talmud is going to discuss further ritual implications of the status of the fetus of a slaughtered animal, if allowed to live. In our own fraught political context, it’s difficult not to read debates about whether an animal fetus is part of its mother’s body through the lens of contemporary debates about abortion. The notion that a calf is part of its mother’s body until it is born seems to have significant resonance for debates about when life begins and the rights of an unborn human child. Abortion did exist in the ancient world, so the rabbis could have analogized their discussion to it. But they didn’t. The mishnah on today’s daf reminds us that this debate has many other implications important for ritual life, for what we eat, and for how we treat the other creatures with whom we share our world.
Read all of Chullin 74 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 13, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
