daf yomi arcade · chullin 76 · 2026-07-15
וְאֵלּוּ הֵן צוֹמֶת הַגִּידִין?
A hind leg severed below the joint is kosher; above it, the animal is a tereifa — and so is one whose convergence of sinews is removed (76a:1). But a cord in flesh does not announce itself. Abaye left four tests to find it by feel: proud of the flesh or sunk into it, hard or soft, thick or thin, white or at least glassy (76a:15–16, 76b:1). Then the sages argue over how much of it has to give — one thick strand and two thin ones, in an ox — before the leg does too (76b:2). Today, your hands do the learning. Feel out six specimens, then take a knife to three strands and watch two amoraim disagree in real time.
the mishnah's two doors — 76a:1–2
🖐️ Find the cord
Abaye's tests: prominent not sunk, hard not soft, thick not thin, white — or, per Mar bar Rav Ashi, at least glassy (76a:15–16, 76b:1).
🧵 Three strands, one ox
One thick, two thin (76b:2). Sever enough of them and Ameimar and Mar bar Rav Ashi read the same cut two different ways.
🐦 Birds get no majority
Sixteen strands. Sever even one, and it is a tereifa — no thick strand to outweigh the rest (76b:3).
🦴 A break is not a cut
The leg can stay whole and still split Rav from Shmuel — on where it broke, and how much flesh survived (76a:2, 76b:8–9).
learn the real daf
Chullin 76 is butcher's law argued like philosophy: where exactly is "the leg joint" the mishnah means (Rav Yehuda vs. Ulla vs. Rav Pappa's reconciliation, 76a:3–9)? How far up the leg does the convergence of sinews run, and in what — hardness, thickness, color — does its identity consist? The daf never quite settles how "a majority" of three strands is counted, and closes with a broken bone that never fully severs, dividing Rav from Shmuel until a ruling is sent, reversed, and sent again from Eretz Yisrael.