Chullin

first because of the violent ones among them,1 and secondly because they might sell him meat of a nebelah or trefah animal. The Master said: ‘To a gentile, however, whether [he sends it] cut up or whole, he need not remove beforehand the sciatic nerve’. But what are the circumstances? If we are dealing with a place where they do proclaim it,2 then in the case where it has been cut up why [do you say,] he need not remove beforehand the sciatic nerve? [Is it not to be feared that,] since no proclamation was made, people will buy from him? Obviously then we are dealing with a place where they do not proclaim it. Consider now the middle clause which reads: ‘For two reasons, they said, a man should not sell to a gentile animals that have become nebelah or trefah: first because he is deceiving him, and secondly because he in turn might sell it to another Israelite’. If, as you say, we are dealing with a place where they do not proclaim it, then surely no one would buy from him. Obviously then we are dealing with the place where they do proclaim it.3 Consider now the final clause which reads: ‘A man should not say to a gentile. "Buy for me meat with this denar", for two reasons: first because of the violent ones among them, and secondly because they might sell him meat of a nebelah or trefah animal’. Now if, as you say, it is a place where they do proclaim it, then surely if there happened a trefah it would have been proclaimed.4 Obviously then we are dealing with the place where they do not proclaim it; so that the position is: The first and last clauses deal with a place where they do not proclaim it, whilst the middle clause deals with a place where they do proclaim it! — Abaye answered: It is so. The first and last clauses deal with a place where they do not proclaim it, but the middle clause deals with a place where they do proclaim it. Raba answered: The whole [Baraitha] deals with a place where they do proclaim it; and in the first and last clauses the case was that a proclamation had been made [this day],5 but in the middle clause the case was that no proclamation had been made.6 R. Ashi answered: The whole [Baraitha] deals with a place where they do not proclaim it;7 but the ruling in the middle clause8 is merely a precautionary measure lest he sell it to the gentile in the presence of another Israelite.9 What is the form of the proclamation? — R. Isaac b. Joseph said: ‘Meat has fallen into our hands for the army’.10 And why not proclaim, ‘Trefah meat has fallen into our hands for the army’? — They would not then buy it. Are we not then deceiving them? — No. They are deceiving themselves.11 As in the following incident. Mar Zutra the son of R. Nahman was once going from Sikara12 to Mahuza, while Raba and R. Safra were going to Sikara; and they met on the way. Believing that they had come to meet him he said: ‘Why did the Rabbis take this trouble to come so far [to meet me]?’ R. Safra replied: ‘We did not know that the Master was coming; had we known of it we should have put ourselves out more than this’. Raba said to him, ‘Why did you tell him this; you have now upset him’? He replied: ‘But we would be deceiving him otherwise’. ‘No. He would be deceiving himself’.13 A butcher once said to his fellow, value of a denar without payment. gentile. For the form of the proclamation v. infra. trefah meat from the gentiles without being aware of the fact. meat for him. is made of this fact. from the gentile. In the first clause, however, we do not apprehend this, for there it refers to a private transaction, where a Jew sends a thigh to the gentile, and it is not likely that any other Jew would know of this; hence there is no reasonable ground for imposing a precautionary measure. On the other hand, the Tanna of our Mishnah does feel the necessity for such a measure. V. Rashi. were the soldiers of the army who were stationed there.