A kosher mother is slaughtered, and inside her — alive — a fully formed kid: a
בֶּן פְּקוּעָה, permitted by his
mother's knife. But then he stands up. He plows. He breeds.
You keep the herdbook, and every page must be stamped —
only the stamp depends on whose lens you read it through. Rav Kahana's first tanna,
Rabbi Shimon Shezuri, Rabbi Yoḥanan, and Rav Mesharshiyya each redraw the whole flock.
First, though: the fishmonger has a question.
0 of 8 sealed on the first stamp
אוקצין
the fish stallדָּגִים, מֵאֵימָתַי מְקַבְּלִין טוּמְאָה?
the herdbookפִּנְקַס הָעֵדֶר
אImma — the kosher mother, slaughtered properly. Inside her,
alive: a nine-month kid. Her knife is where every page of this book begins
(Mishna, Chullin 74a).
the daf rules
נִסְתַּיֵּם הַפִּנְקָס
The herdbook closes. Adda bar Ḥavu's goat was slaughtered in time; the wonder-hoofed one
grazes unstamped; Pele stands in his pen, unanswerable; and somewhere off amud alef, a fish
with a perforated gut is still swimming through an unresolved
תֵּיקוּ.
Learn the real daf
Everything in this game is on
Chullin 75a
and
75b.
The game plays the fish of Okatzin and the whole ben pekua herd sugya — but the daf holds more
that never made it into the ledger:
· A dry slaughter — Reish Lakish opens the daf answering that a baraita speaks of a slaughter that drew no blood, so the mother was never made susceptible to impurity (75a:1).
· Can living flesh be "food"? — R. Yosei HaGelili (with Beit Shammai, says R. Yoḥanan) holds a live ben pekua can take food-impurity once wetted; the Rabbis refuse impurity to anything alive (75a:2–3).
· The fat of the fetus — R. Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish dispute whether a fetus's ḥelev carries karet, in two versions (birth vs. completed months), trading objections from the guilt-offering's "fat and two kidneys" (75a:8–14).
· Four simanim — a live nine-month fetus inside a tereifa mother: R. Ami, Rava and Rav Ḥisda debate whether the Torah gave this one animal four pipes fit for the knife — its mother's two and its own (75a:15–75b:5).
· The silence of Reish Lakish — R. Zeira asks whether Reish Lakish disputed the four-simanim rule; Rav Asi: I don't know — he was waiting for R. Yoḥanan to retract… or he was drinking (75b:6–7).
Most-linked commentaries on this daf via Sefaria: Rashi (60) · Steinsaltz (34) · Rabbeinu Gershom (20) ·
Tosafot (10) · Beit Yosef (10) · Rashba (9).