We learned yesterday that if a priest appropriately slaughters an animal with a knife, and if the animal is then discovered to be unfit, the animal does not have the ritual status of a neveilah, a carcass, and so does not render those who eat it impure. But what happens if the priest sacrifices a bird properly through the ritual of melikah, pinching its neck and using his fingernail to sever the spine, and then the bird is discovered to be damaged in some way that disqualifies it from sacrifice?
The mishnah yesterday introduced a dispute between two early rabbis. Rabbi Meir argued that because the bird was pinched correctly, it does not have the status of a carcass and does not render someone who eats it impure. Rabbi Yehuda disagreed and said that the bird is now impure, and anyone who eats it is made impure. (Fun fact: One thousand years later, Maimonides will side with Rabbi Yehuda.)
On today’s daf, the rabbis examine Rabbi Meir’s position.
Rabbi Yohanan says: Rabbi Meir deemed pure only unblemished birds, but not blemished.
And Rabbi Elazar says: Even blemished.
According to Rabbi Yohanan, Rabbi Meir thought neck pinching was equivalent to slaughter with a knife only if the bird was visually fit to be sacrificed. Rabbi Elazar thinks that Rabbi Meir thought neck pinching was equivalent to sacrifice done with a knife even if the dove turns out to have had a visible difference that would disqualify it from being sacrificed.
It was also stated that Rav Beivai says that Rabbi Elazar says: Rabbi Meir would deem pure blemished birds, and even geese and chickens.
Rabbi Elazar takes it a step further and says that Rabbi Meir believes neck pinching is equivalent to ritual slaughter with a knife, even for birds that were never appropriate to be sacrificed, because they were the wrong species.
These three rabbis offer a spectrum of interpretations of Rabbi Meir’s position, from the most limited position where it only works when the bird is discovered after death to be unfit, to the most expansive position where obviously unfit birds do not take on the status of neveilah if their necks are pinched.
It’s worth noting that neck pinching was a form of ritual slaughter only as part of bird sacrifices in the Temple. If an average person wanted to slaughter a chicken for their Shabbat meal, they would have used a knife. And I’m guessing that after years of performing this ritual, the priest would have been able to distinguish between a dove and a goose and would not have performed melikah on the goose. Very relatable. Who has time to do extra work that you know won’t count?
This debate is thus theoretical, an attempt to test the limits of Rabbi Meir’s position. And while Rabbi Meir’s initial position does not win the argument, the later rabbis’ interest in understanding its scope points to an idea that keeps coming up in Tractate Zevachim. As many of those on our journey through the daf have already noted, it’s not clear whether the rabbis understood the study of Zevachim as replacing the performance of the sacrifices, or whether they were actively planning for these laws to be enacted — in their own lifetimes, or in some future messianic age. But today’s exploration of a minority opinion (we almost never see Rabbi Meir winning a halakhic argument) suggests that their purpose might have been — at least in part — a little less utilitarian.
After all, if we don’t follow Rabbi Meir, the limits of his ideas don’t actually matter. But instead, the rabbis of the Talmud remind us that learning, thinking and testing the limits of ideas is always important, even if it doesn’t have immediate practical implications for our lives. Perhaps learning to think critically — even about topics that are somewhat obscure — is its own reward.
Read all of Zevachim 70 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 23, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
