You may know the standard rule of kashrut: If a drop of milk accidentally falls into a pot of meat soup, the soup remains kosher as long as the milk makes up less than 1/60th of the total volume. Today’s daf reveals the origin of this famous “principle of 1/60th” (bitul b’shishim).
Yesterday’s mishnah established that if a sciatic nerve (which is forbidden) is cooked in a pot of otherwise permitted meat, the meat remains kosher as long as the nerve didn’t impart flavor to the dish. But this raises a practical dilemma: How do you verify whether flavor was imparted without tasting potentially non-kosher food?
On today’s daf, Ravin bar Rav Adda offers one workaround:
Once a non-kosher fish, known as kilkhit, fell into a stewpot, and they came to ask Rabbi Yohanan about its status. And he said to them: Let a gentile cook taste it.
Rava was delighted by this creative solution. It solved a puzzling beraita regarding porous ancient cookware, which absorbed and transferred flavors between consecutive dishes.
Rava said: Initially that which is taught in the following beraita was difficult for me: A pot in which one cooked meat, one may not cook milk in it; and if one did, it is forbidden according to the giving of flavor. If one cooked teruma, one may not cook non-sacred food in the same pot; and if one did cook it is forbidden (for an Israelite to eat) according to the giving of flavor.
The concern with teruma is similar but not identical to the concern about cookware used for consecutive meat and milk meals. Teruma is food given to priests; non-priests may not consume it. Even using a pot that has previously contained teruma could transfer the flavor to the next dish, rendering it forbidden to a non-priest. But there is no concern with a priest eating this mixture. Now let’s go back to the Gemara and see how Rava suddenly understands this beraita in light of Rav Adda’s teaching:
Granted, in the case of teruma, a priest can taste the food. But in a case of meat in milk, who can taste it? But now that Rabbi Yohanan said: We rely on a gentile cook (in the case of the fish), here also we rely on a gentile cook.
Rava realizes that just as a priest can taste a dish to check for forbidden teruma flavor, a non-Jewish chef can perform the exact same role for meat and milk. He now summarizes the options for deciding whether a suspicious mixture may be eaten:
Rava said: The sages have said (food may be permitted) through taste, and the sages said (food may be permitted) through a gentile cook, and the sages said (food may be permitted) through 60.
In Rava’s view, when no qualified taster is available, the 1/60th rule serves as a proxy for taste.
Other rabbis immediately challenge this uniform standard. For example, Rabbi Abbahu states that perhaps, given that we don’t always know the pungency of what has fallen in, we should assume the worst and simply treat all forbidden food like pepper, a spice that has significant impact on taste even when present well below the ratio of 1/60th. Ultimately, he questions the entire enterprise of nullifying non-kosher food in a mixture.
Abaye moves us back toward middle ground:
Abaye said to him: The sages assess that with regard to forbidden foods, there is nothing that imparts more flavor to a mixture than onion and leek.
Abaye supports the idea that you can estimate the amount of taste in a dish, using alliums as the standard, but it is unclear at this point in the Gemara whether he is more conservative than Rava (who applies the standard measure of 1/60th).
Ultimately, this sugya introduces 1/60th not as absolute law, but as a tool for estimation. Later commentators and halakhic deciders will likewise debate the finer points of the rule of 1/60th and add many caveats for specific cases: that it does not apply to spices or to enzymes that change the texture of the food, and so on. Yet the 1/60th rule persists in the practice of kashrut, perhaps because it is such a concrete and measurable standard — and because it doesn’t require anyone to take the risk of tasting something that might not be kosher.
See you tomorrow!
Read all of Chullin 97 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 5, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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.
