Chullin Daf 110 (חולין דף ק״י)

📖 Breakdown

Amud Aleph (110a)

Segment 1

TYPE: תירוץ

Completing the answer from 109b: the baraita’s wording was borrowed from the kevah clause

Hebrew/Aramaic:

שֶׁבִּשְּׁלָהּ בַּחֲלָבָהּ – אֲסוּרָה, דַּאֲפִילּוּ דִּיעֲבַד נָמֵי לָא, תְּנָא נָמֵי רֵישָׁא שֶׁבִּשְּׁלָהּ.

English Translation:

of a suckling lamb or calf that one cooked together with the milk it contains is prohibited. There, even if one roasted it he may not eat it after the fact. To preserve symmetry, the tanna of the baraita taught in the first clause in this manner as well, stating: An udder that one cooked in its milk is permitted.

קלאוד על הדף:

The daf opens by finishing the sentence broken off at the end of 109b. The baraita’s past-tense phrasing about the udder — shebishlo, that one cooked — had suggested that roasting is permitted only bedieved. The answer is that the wording was carried over from the second clause about the kevah, where the past tense is genuinely needed because a kevah roasted with its milk is forbidden even after the fact. Roasting an udder is permitted lechatchila. This is the third time in two dapim that a source’s wording is explained by parallelism with an adjacent clause rather than read for legal implication.

Key Terms:

• דִּיעֲבַד = after the fact — as opposed to lechatchila, at the outset
• רֵישָׁא = the first clause of a source, as opposed to the seifa

Segment 2

TYPE: מעשה

Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi: Rav found an open valley and fenced it in

Hebrew/Aramaic:

כִּי סְלֵיק רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר, אַשְׁכְּחֵיהּ לִזְעֵירִי, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אִיכָּא תַּנָּא דְּאַתְנְיֵיהּ לְרַב כְּחָל? אַחְוְיֵיהּ לְרַב יִצְחָק בַּר אֲבוּדִימִי. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אֲנִי לֹא שָׁנִיתִי לוֹ כְּחָל כׇּל עִיקָּר, וְרַב – בִּקְעָה מָצָא וְגָדַר בָּהּ גָּדֵר.

English Translation:

§ The Gemara above cited a second version of Rav’s opinion, according to which an udder that was roasted without being torn is prohibited for consumption. The Gemara relates: When Rabbi Elazar ascended from Babylonia to Eretz Yisrael he found Ze’eiri and said to him: Is there a tanna who taught Rav that an udder roasted without first being torn is prohibited? Ze’eiri showed him Rav Yitzḥak bar Avudimi. Rav Yitzḥak bar Avudimi said to Rabbi Elazar: I did not teach Rav that an udder is prohibited at all; rather, Rav found an unguarded valley and fenced it in. Rav taught this stringent ruling as an additional safeguard in Babylonia, where Jews were not careful about the prohibition of meat cooked in milk.

קלאוד על הדף:

Rabbi Elazar, traveling to Eretz Yisrael, sought the tannaitic source behind Rav’s stringent version — that an untorn roasted udder is forbidden. He was directed to Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi, who denied ever teaching such a thing. Rav’s ruling was not received tradition but local legislation: bik’a matza vegadar bah gader, he found an unguarded valley and fenced it in. The phrase is one of the Talmud’s most vivid images for a Sage enacting a protective decree suited to the conditions of his own community rather than transmitting a received law.

Key Terms:

• בִּקְעָה מָצָא וְגָדַר בָּהּ גָּדֵר = he found a valley and fenced it in — a Sage instituting a local safeguard where the community was lax
• סְלֵיק = he went up — the standard term for traveling from Bavel to Eretz Yisrael
• זְעֵירִי = Ze’eiri, an amora of Eretz Yisrael

Segment 3

TYPE: מעשה

What Rav overheard in Tatlefush

Hebrew/Aramaic:

דְּרַב אִיקְּלַע לְטַטְלְפוּשׁ, שַׁמְעַהּ לְהַהִיא אִיתְּתָא דְּקָאָמְרָה לַחֲבִירְתַּהּ: רִיבְעָא דְּבִשְׂרָא כַּמָּה חֲלָבָא בָּעֵי לְבַשּׁוֹלֵי? אָמַר: לָא גְּמִירִי דְּבָשָׂר בְּחָלָב אָסוּר, אִיעַכַּב וַאֲסַר לְהוּ כַּחְלֵי.

English Translation:

The Gemara elaborates: As when Rav arrived in Tatlefush, he heard a certain woman saying to another: How much milk does it require to cook a quarter weight of meat? Rav said: Evidently, these people are not learned enough in halakha to know that meat cooked in milk is prohibited. Rav tarried in that place, and prohibited even udders to them, so that they would not come to violate the prohibition of meat cooked in milk.

קלאוד על הדף:

The Gemara supplies the incident that prompted the decree. Arriving in Tatlefush, Rav overheard one woman asking another how much milk was needed to cook a quarter of meat — a question that presupposed no awareness that the combination is forbidden at all. Recognizing that basar bechalav was simply unknown there, he stayed and forbade even udders, whose milk is not halachically milk. The stringency is calibrated to ignorance rather than to the substance: where the underlying prohibition is not known, the permitted borderline case becomes dangerous.

Key Terms:

• טַטְלְפוּשׁ = Tatlefush, a Babylonian locale whose residents were unfamiliar with the laws of meat and milk
• לָא גְּמִירִי = they are not learned — the diagnosis on which Rav’s decree rested

Segment 4

TYPE: לישנא אחרינא

Rabbi Yosei bar Abba’s version: Rav generalized a ruling about a nursing animal

Hebrew/Aramaic:

רַב כָּהֲנָא מַתְנֵי הָכִי. רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בַּר אַבָּא מַתְנֵי: אֲנָא, כְּחָל שֶׁל מְנִיקָה שָׁנִיתִי לוֹ, וּמִפִּלְפּוּלוֹ שֶׁל רַב חִיָּיא שְׁנָה לֵיהּ כְּחָל סְתָם.

English Translation:

Rav Kahana teaches that Rav Yitzḥak bar Avudimi replied to Rabbi Elazar in that manner described above. By contrast, Rabbi Yosei bar Abba teaches that Rav Yitzḥak bar Avudimi said: I taught Rav only that the udder of an animal nursing offspring is prohibited, as its udder contains much milk. And due to the sharp mind of Rav Ḥiyya, Rav’s teacher, he assumed that Rav too would understand this without his saying so explicitly. Therefore, he taught this halakha to Rav with regard to an unspecified udder. Rav mistakenly thought that the ruling applies to all animals.

קלאוד על הדף:

A second transmission gives a very different account. Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi did teach the ruling — but only about the udder of a nursing animal, which is full of milk. Trained under Rav Chiyya’s sharp method, he stated it without qualification, expecting Rav to supply the restriction himself. Rav did not, and took the ruling to cover every udder. On this version Rav’s stringency is not a deliberate decree but a misunderstanding produced by a teaching style that left too much unsaid.

Key Terms:

• מְנִיקָה = a nursing animal, whose udder is full of actual milk
• כְּחָל סְתָם = an unspecified udder — the unqualified form in which the ruling reached Rav
• פִּלְפּוּלוֹ שֶׁל רַב חִיָּיא = the sharp dialectical method of Rav Chiyya, which relied on students filling in unstated qualifications

Segment 5

TYPE: מעשה

Ravin declines a dish of udder at Rav Pappi’s house, and Abaye’s rebuke

Hebrew/Aramaic:

רָבִין וְרַב יִצְחָק בַּר יוֹסֵף אִיקְּלַעוּ לְבֵי רַב פַּפֵּי, אַיְיתוֹ לְקַמַּיְיהוּ תַּבְשִׁילָא דִּכְחָל. רַב יִצְחָק בַּר יוֹסֵף אֲכַל, רָבִין לָא אֲכַל. אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: רָבִין תַּכָּלָא, אַמַּאי לָא אֲכַל? מִכְּדֵי, דְּבֵיתְהוּ דְּרַב פַּפֵּי בְּרַתֵּיה דְּרַבִּי יִצְחָק נַפָּחָא הֲוַאי, וְרַבִּי יִצְחָק נַפָּחָא מָרֵיהּ דְּעוֹבָדָא הֲוָה, אִי לָאו דִּשְׁמִיעַ לַהּ מִבֵּי נָשָׁא לָא הֲוָה עָבְדָא.

English Translation:

The Gemara relates that Ravin and Rav Yitzḥak bar Yosef arrived at the house of Rav Pappi. The servants brought before them a dish made of udder. Rav Yitzḥak bar Yosef ate of it, but Ravin did not eat. Abaye said: Bereaved Ravin, why do you not eat? After all, Rav Pappi’s wife is the daughter of Rabbi Yitzḥak Nappaḥa, and Rabbi Yitzḥak Nappaḥa was a master of good deeds, who was meticulous in his performance of mitzvot. Had Rav Pappi’s wife not heard in her father’s house that such a dish is permitted, she would not have made it.

קלאוד על הדף:

At Rav Pappi’s table Rav Yitzchak bar Yosef ate the udder dish and Ravin abstained. Abaye criticizes the abstention on an evidentiary rather than legal ground: Rav Pappi’s wife was the daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha, a meticulous observer, and she would not have prepared the dish had she not learned in her father’s house that it was permitted. The argument treats a woman’s transmitted household practice as reliable testimony to the halakha — the conduct of a punctilious home functioning as evidence in its own right.

Key Terms:

• מָרֵיהּ דְּעוֹבָדָא = a master of deeds — one meticulous in practice, whose household conduct is halachically probative
• תַּכָּלָא = bereaved — an expression of exasperated affection used by Abaye toward Ravin

Segment 6

TYPE: מנהג ומעשה

Sura abstains, Pumbedita eats: Rami bar Tamrei gathers the discarded udders

Hebrew/Aramaic:

בְּסוּרָא לָא אָכְלִי כַּחְלֵי, בְּפוּמְבְּדִיתָא אָכְלִי כַּחְלֵי. רָמֵי בַּר תַּמְרֵי, דְּהוּא רָמֵי בַּר דִּיקּוּלֵי, מִפּוּמְבְּדִיתָא אִיקְּלַע לְסוּרָא בְּמַעֲלֵי יוֹמָא דְכִפּוּרֵי. אַפְּקִינְהוּ כּוּלֵּי עָלְמָא לְכַחְלִינְהוּ שְׁדִינְהוּ, אֲזַל אִיהוּ נַקְטִינְהוּ אַכְלִינְהוּ.

English Translation:

The Gemara relates: In Sura they would not eat udders at all, even torn and roasted. But in Pumbedita they would eat udders. Rami bar Tamrei, who is also called Rami bar Dikulei, from Pumbedita, arrived in Sura on the eve of Yom Kippur. Since it is a mitzva to eat and drink then, large quantities of meat were cooked, and everyone brought out their udders from the animals they had slaughtered and threw them away. Rami bar Tamrei went and gathered the udders, roasted them, and ate them, in accordance with his custom.

קלאוד על הדף:

The Gemara records a settled divergence of custom between the two great Babylonian academies — Sura would not eat udders at all, Pumbedita would. Rami bar Tamrei of Pumbedita arrived in Sura on erev Yom Kippur, when much meat was being prepared, and found the townspeople discarding their udders. He collected, roasted, and ate them according to his own custom. The scene sets up the daf’s central legal question about a traveler bound by two sets of local practice, and introduces one of the Talmud’s most memorable characters.

Key Terms:

• סוּרָא וּפוּמְבְּדִיתָא = Sura and Pumbedita, the two principal Babylonian academies, here differing in local custom
• רָמֵי בַּר תַּמְרֵי = Rami bar Tamrei, also called Rami bar Dikulei, a sharp-witted visitor from Pumbedita
• מַעֲלֵי יוֹמָא דְכִפּוּרֵי = the eve of Yom Kippur, when it is a mitzva to eat and drink

Segment 7

TYPE: מעשה והלכה

Rav Chisda invokes the rule of local stringencies; Rami answers that he ate outside the boundary

Hebrew/Aramaic:

אַיְיתוּהּ לְקַמֵּיהּ דְּרַב חִסְדָּא, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אַמַּאי תַּעֲבֵיד הָכִי? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מֵאַתְרָא דְּרַב יְהוּדָה אֲנָא, דְּאָכֵיל. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: וְלֵית לָךְ נוֹתְנִין עָלָיו חוּמְרֵי הַמָּקוֹם שֶׁיָּצָא מִשָּׁם וְחוּמְרֵי הַמָּקוֹם שֶׁהָלַךְ לְשָׁם? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: חוּץ לַתְּחוּם אֲכַלְתִּינְהוּ.

English Translation:

The residents of Sura brought Rami bar Tamrei before Rav Ḥisda, who said to him: Why did you do this? Rami bar Tamrei said to Rav Ḥisda: I am from the place of Rav Yehuda, who eats udders, and this is the accepted custom in Pumbedita. Rav Ḥisda said to him: And do you not hold by the principle that the Sages impose upon a traveler the stringencies of the place that he left and also the stringencies of the place to which he went? You should have accepted the stringency of Sura and not eaten the udders. Rami bar Tamrei said to Rav Ḥisda: That principle applies only to one who remains in the place he is visiting, but I ate the udders outside the boundaries of Sura.

קלאוד על הדף:

Brought before Rav Chisda, Rami invokes his home custom, and Rav Chisda counters with the governing principle: a traveler carries the stringencies of the place he left and assumes those of the place he entered. Rami’s reply is a precise piece of lawyering — he ate the udders chutz latechum, outside Sura’s Shabbat boundary, and therefore was never within the jurisdiction of its custom at the moment of eating. The exchange establishes that the rule of local stringency is territorial in the strict sense.

Key Terms:

• חוּמְרֵי הַמָּקוֹם = the stringencies of the place — the rule binding a traveler to both his origin’s and his destination’s customs
• חוּץ לַתְּחוּם = outside the boundary — beyond the techum, the Shabbat limit that defines a locality’s territory

Segment 8

TYPE: מעשה

The grape seeds and the concern of yayin nesech

Hebrew/Aramaic:

וּבְמָה טְוִיתִינְהוּ? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: בְּפוּרְצָנֵי. וְדִלְמָא מִיֵּין נֶסֶךְ הֲווֹ? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: לְאַחַר שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר חֹדֶשׁ הֲווֹ.

English Translation:

Rav Ḥisda further asked Rami bar Tamrei: And with what did you roast the udders? Rami bar Tamrei said to him: I roasted them with grape seeds [purtzenei] I found in the vines there. Rav Ḥisda objected: But how could you roast the udders with grape seeds, as perhaps they were from wine used for a libation to idolatry, from which it is prohibited to derive benefit. Rami bar Tamrei said to him: These were old seeds that still lay there after twelve months had passed since the grapes were used, and any prohibition had expired, as by that point they are assumed to have lost any prohibited liquid that previously remained inside.

קלאוד על הדף:

Rav Chisda shifts from the udders to the fuel. Rami roasted them over grape seeds gathered from the vines, and Rav Chisda raises the possibility that they derived from wine used in idolatrous libation, from which no benefit may be taken. Rami answers that the seeds were more than twelve months old, by which point any residual prohibited liquid is presumed to have dissipated. The interrogation has now moved well past the udder question into a general test of Rami’s halachic alertness.

Key Terms:

• יֵין נֶסֶךְ = wine used for an idolatrous libation, from which benefit is forbidden
• פּוּרְצָנֵי = grape seeds and skins left after pressing, here used as fuel
• לְאַחַר שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר חֹדֶשׁ = after twelve months — the period after which residual wine in the pressings is presumed gone

Segment 9

TYPE: מעשה

The concern of theft, answered by ye’ush

Hebrew/Aramaic:

וְדִלְמָא דְּגָזֵל הֲוָה? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: יֵאוּשׁ בְּעָלִים הֲוָה, דִּקְדַחוּ בְּהוּ חִילְפֵי.

English Translation:

Rav Ḥisda further objected: But perhaps these seeds were from stolen property, i.e., they belonged to someone and it was prohibited for you to take them. Rami bar Tamrei said to him: Even so, in this case there was certainly despair of the owners of recovering them, as grass was growing among them. Since the owners had allowed them to lie there for so long, they had clearly given up all hope of retrieving them.

קלאוד על הדף:

Rav Chisda presses further: the seeds belonged to someone, so taking them was theft. Rami answers with ye’ush be’alim, the owners’ abandonment of hope — demonstrated by the grass that had grown up among the seeds, proof that they had lain untouched long enough for any expectation of recovery to have lapsed. Each of Rami’s answers supplies not just a legal category but the concrete evidence establishing it, which is what makes the sequence a display of reasoning rather than mere evasion.

Key Terms:

• יֵאוּשׁ בְּעָלִים = the owners’ despair of recovery, which affects the status of abandoned property
• דִּקְדַחוּ בְּהוּ חִילְפֵי = grass had sprouted among them — the physical evidence that the seeds had long been abandoned

Segment 10

TYPE: מעשה

Why Rami wore no tefillin: intestinal illness

Hebrew/Aramaic:

חַזְיֵיהּ דְּלָא הֲוָה מַנַּח תְּפִילִּין, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מַאי טַעְמָא לָא מַנְּחַתְּ תְּפִילִּין? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: חוֹלֵי מֵעַיִין הוּא, וְאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: חוֹלֵי מֵעַיִין פָּטוּר מִן הַתְּפִילִּין.

English Translation:

Rav Ḥisda saw that Rami bar Tamrei had not donned phylacteries, and said to him: What is the reason that you have not donned phylacteries? Rami bar Tamrei said to him: He, i.e., I, am suffering from intestinal illness, and Rav Yehuda said that one who has intestinal illness is exempt from the mitzva of phylacteries, which require a clean body, because he would have to remove them constantly to defecate.

קלאוד על הדף:

The interrogation turns from Rami’s actions to his person. Observing that he wore no tefillin, Rav Chisda asks why, and Rami cites Rav Yehuda’s ruling exempting one with intestinal illness, since tefillin require a clean body and such a person must repeatedly remove them. Every answer Rami gives is sourced to Rav Yehuda, the head of Pumbedita — the pattern quietly asserting that his conduct is not idiosyncratic but the practice of his own academy.

Key Terms:

• חוֹלֵי מֵעַיִין = one suffering from intestinal illness, exempt from tefillin
• גּוּף נָקִי = a clean body — the condition tefillin require, which the exemption presupposes

Segment 11

TYPE: מעשה

Why Rami wore no tzitzit: a borrowed garment (continues on 110b)

Hebrew/Aramaic:

חַזְיֵיהּ דְּלָא הֲוָה קָא רָמֵי חוּטֵי, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מַאי טַעְמָא לֵית לָךְ חוּטֵי? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: טַלִּית שְׁאוּלָה הִיא, וְאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה:

English Translation:

Rav Ḥisda further saw that Rami bar Tamrei had not placed the threads of ritual fringes on his garment and said to him: What is the reason that you do not have the threads of ritual fringes? Rami bar Tamrei said to him: It is a borrowed robe, and Rav Yehuda said:

קלאוד על הדף:

Rav Chisda notices the absence of tzitzit and receives the same form of answer: the robe is borrowed, and Rav Yehuda ruled that a borrowed garment is exempt for a period. The amud breaks off mid-quotation with the length of that period supplied at the top of 110b — the page division falling, as it did between 109b and 110a, in the middle of a cited ruling.

Key Terms:

• טַלִּית שְׁאוּלָה = a borrowed garment, exempt from tzitzit for an initial period
• חוּטֵי = the threads, i.e., the ritual fringes of tzitzit

Amud Bet (110b)

Segment 1

TYPE: הלכה

The completion: a borrowed garment is exempt for thirty days

Hebrew/Aramaic:

טַלִּית שְׁאוּלָה כׇּל שְׁלֹשִׁים יוֹם פְּטוּרָה מִן הַצִּיצִית.

English Translation:

With regard to a borrowed robe, during all of the first thirty days that one borrows it, one is exempt from performing the mitzva of ritual fringes with it.

קלאוד על הדף:

Rav Yehuda’s ruling is completed: a borrowed garment is exempt from tzitzit for the first thirty days. The underlying logic is that the obligation attaches to a garment through a settled relationship of ownership or long-term use, which a short-term loan does not establish. With this the last of Rav Chisda’s four challenges to Rami is answered, every one of them out of Rav Yehuda’s teachings.

Key Terms:

• שְׁלֹשִׁים יוֹם = thirty days — the threshold after which a borrowed garment becomes obligated in tzitzit

Segment 2

TYPE: מעשה

A man who dishonored his parents is brought in to be flogged

Hebrew/Aramaic:

אַדְּהָכִי, אַיְיתוּהּ לְהָהוּא גַּבְרָא דְּלָא הֲוָה מוֹקַר אֲבוּהּ וְאִמֵּיהּ, כַּפְתוּהּ.

English Translation:

Meanwhile, as Rav Ḥisda and Rami bar Tamrei were talking, the attendants brought in a certain man to Rav Ḥisda’s court who would not honor his father and mother, and they tied him to a pillar in order to flog him.

קלאוד על הדף:

The scene shifts abruptly. While the two are speaking, court attendants bring in a man who failed to honor his father and mother and bind him to a pillar for flogging. The interruption is not a digression but the setting for Rami’s final and most impressive intervention, moving him from defendant to authority within the same conversation.

Key Terms:

• כַּפְתוּהּ = they bound him — the preparation for judicial flogging
• מוֹקַר אֲבוּהּ וְאִמֵּיהּ = honoring his father and mother, the positive mitzva at issue

Segment 3

TYPE: מעשה וברייתא

Rami stops the flogging by citing the rule about mitzvot with stated reward

Hebrew/Aramaic:

אֲמַר לְהוּ: שִׁבְקוּהּ, דְּתַנְיָא: כׇּל מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁמַּתַּן שְׂכָרָהּ בְּצִדָּהּ – אֵין בֵּית דִּין שֶׁלְּמַטָּה מוּזְהָרִין עָלֶיהָ. אֲמַר לֵיהּ חֲזֵינָא לָךְ דְּחָרִיפַתְּ טוּבָא. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אִי הֲוֵית בְּאַתְרֵיהּ דְּרַב יְהוּדָה, אַחְוִינָא לָךְ חוּרְפַּאי.

English Translation:

Rami bar Tamrei said to them: Leave him alone, as it is taught in a baraita: With regard to any positive mitzva whose reward is stated alongside it in the Torah, the earthly court below is not warned to enforce it through punishments such as flogging. And it is stated after the mitzva of honoring one’s father and mother: “That your days may be long, and that it go well with you” (Deuteronomy 5:16). Rav Ḥisda said to Rami bar Tamrei: I see that you are very sharp. Rami bar Tamrei said to Rav Ḥisda: If you were in the place where Rav Yehuda resides, I would be able to show you my sharpness of mind far better than here.

קלאוד על הדף:

Rami intervenes with a baraita: a court below is not charged with enforcing any positive mitzva whose reward is stated alongside it in the Torah. Honoring parents carries exactly such a reward — that your days may be long and that it go well with you — so its enforcement belongs to Heaven, not to the beit din. Rav Chisda concedes that Rami is exceptionally sharp, and Rami’s parting line, that in Rav Yehuda’s place he could show his sharpness far better, retroactively recasts the entire interrogation as a demonstration that the customs of Pumbedita rest on learning rather than laxity.

Key Terms:

• מַתַּן שְׂכָרָהּ בְּצִדָּהּ = whose reward is stated alongside it — the category of mitzvot the earthly court does not enforce
• בֵּית דִּין שֶׁלְּמַטָּה = the court below, as opposed to the heavenly court
• חֲזֵינָא לָךְ דְּחָרִיפַתְּ טוּבָא = I see that you are very sharp — Rav Chisda’s concession

Segment 4

TYPE: מעשה ובעיא

Abaye sends Rav Safra to ask about liver in Eretz Yisrael

Hebrew/Aramaic:

אֲמַר לֵיהּ אַבָּיֵי לְרַב סָפְרָא: כִּי סָלְקַתְּ לְהָתָם, בְּעִי מִינַּיְיהוּ: כַּבְדָּא, מָה אַתּוּן בֵּיהּ? כִּי סְלֵיק, אַשְׁכְּחֵיהּ לְרַב זְרִיקָא. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אֲנָא שְׁלַקִי לֵיהּ לְרַבִּי אַמֵּי, וַאֲכַל.

English Translation:

§ Pursuant to the discussion of different local customs, Abaye said to Rav Safra: When you ascend there, to Eretz Yisrael, ask the Sages there: With regard to liver, how do you treat it? When Rav Safra ascended to Eretz Yisrael he found Rav Zerika and asked him this question. Rav Zerika said to him: I cooked liver for Rabbi Ami and he ate it.

קלאוד על הדף:

Following on the theme of divergent local practice, Abaye commissions Rav Safra to ask the Sages of Eretz Yisrael how they treat liver. The concern is that liver is saturated with blood and might transfer it to other food. Rav Safra put the question to Rav Zerika, who answered from practice: he had cooked liver for Rabbi Ami, and Rabbi Ami ate it. Sending a traveling scholar to carry a question across academies is itself a recurring mechanism of Talmudic transmission.

Key Terms:

• כַּבְדָּא = liver, which is saturated with blood
• שְׁלַקִי = I cooked, boiled — the practice from which Rav Zerika answers

Segment 5

TYPE: תירוץ

Abaye clarifies: his question was whether liver forbids what is cooked with it

Hebrew/Aramaic:

כִּי אֲתָא לְגַבֵּיהּ, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: לְמֵיסַר נַפְשַׁהּ – לָא קָא מִיבַּעְיָא לִי, כִּי קָמִבַּעְיָא לִי – לְמֵיסַר חֲבִירְתַּהּ.

English Translation:

When Rav Safra returned to Babylonia and came before Abaye and reported what Rav Zerika had said, Abaye said to him: I do not raise the dilemma as to whether liver renders itself prohibited if cooked alone. It is clear to me that the blood that diffuses out of the liver is not absorbed again while it cooks. When I raise the dilemma, it is with regard to whether liver renders prohibited another piece of meat cooked with it. Rav Zerika’s statement therefore has no bearing on my question.

קלאוד על הדף:

On Rav Safra’s return, Abaye explains that the answer missed his question. Whether liver forbids itself was never in doubt — the blood diffuses outward and is not reabsorbed. His dilemma concerned whether liver renders prohibited another piece of meat cooked alongside it. Rav Zerika’s report, describing liver cooked and eaten on its own, does not touch the case. The exchange illustrates how a question can be answered accurately and still be unanswered.

Key Terms:

• לְמֵיסַר נַפְשַׁהּ = to forbid itself — whether the liver is rendered prohibited by its own blood
• לְמֵיסַר חֲבִירְתַּהּ = to forbid its companion — whether it prohibits other meat cooked with it

Segment 6

TYPE: קושיא ותירוץ

The mishna in Terumot seems to answer both halves; Abaye limits it to forbidden liver

Hebrew/Aramaic:

מַאי שְׁנָא לְמֵיסַר נַפְשַׁהּ דְּלָא מִיבַּעְיָא לָךְ – דִּתְנַן: אֵינָהּ נֶאֱסֶרֶת, לְמֵיסַר חֲבִירְתַּהּ נָמֵי לָא תִּבְּעֵי לָךְ! דִּתְנַן: הַכָּבֵד אוֹסֶרֶת וְאֵינָהּ נֶאֱסֶרֶת, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהִיא פּוֹלֶטֶת וְאֵינָהּ בּוֹלַעַת. אֲמַר לֵיהּ: דִּילְמָא הָתָם בְּכַבְדָּא דְּאִיסּוּרָא,

English Translation:

Rav Safra asked Abaye: What is different about the issue of the liver rendering itself prohibited, that you did not raise the dilemma with regard to this case? It is presumably because the answer is obvious to you, as we learned in a mishna: liver is not rendered prohibited by its own cooking. But if so, you should not raise the dilemma with regard to whether it renders the other piece of meat prohibited either, as we learned in that same mishna: Liver renders food cooked with it in the same pot prohibited but is not prohibited itself, because while it does expel blood as it cooks, it does not absorb this blood again, since the blood diffuses only outward. Abaye said to Rav Safra: That mishna does not answer my question, as perhaps there it is referring specifically to forbidden liver, e.g., the liver of a non-kosher animal.

קלאוד על הדף:

Rav Safra objects that the mishna Abaye relies on for the first half answers the second as well: liver forbids but is not forbidden, because it expels and does not absorb. If that settles the matter, Abaye’s dilemma should never have arisen. Abaye replies that the mishna may be speaking specifically of liver that is itself forbidden — from a non-kosher animal — where the prohibition comes from the liver’s own substance rather than from its blood, and nothing follows about permitted liver. The daf closes on that restriction, the discussion continuing on 111a.

Key Terms:

• פּוֹלֶטֶת וְאֵינָהּ בּוֹלַעַת = it expels and does not absorb — the physical premise explaining why liver is not itself forbidden
• כַּבְדָּא דְּאִיסּוּרָא = forbidden liver — liver of a non-kosher animal, prohibited in its own substance

📝 Summary

Overview

Chullin 110 completes the udder discussion and then broadens into two of the Talmud’s most illuminating treatments of local practice. The daf first dismantles Rav’s stringent ruling forbidding an untorn roasted udder, showing through two competing transmissions that it was either a protective decree enacted for an ignorant community or a misunderstood teaching about nursing animals. It then records the settled divergence between Sura, which would not eat udders at all, and Pumbedita, which would, and dramatizes it through the celebrated encounter between Rami bar Tamrei and Rav Chisda — an interrogation on four separate topics that turns into a display of Pumbeditan learning. The daf closes by opening a fresh dilemma about liver (kavda), which is saturated with blood: does it prohibit other meat cooked with it?

Amud Aleph Highlights

• The baraita’s past-tense wording about the udder (shebishlo) was borrowed from the kevah clause, where the past tense is genuinely required; roasting an udder is permitted lechatchila.
• Rabbi Elazar, ascending to Eretz Yisrael, investigates Rav’s stringency. Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi denies teaching it: Rav found an unguarded valley and fenced it in (bik’a matza vegadar bah gader).
• The prompting incident: in Tatlefush, Rav overheard a woman asking how much milk was needed to cook a quarter of meat, concluded that basar bechalav was unknown there, stayed, and forbade even udders.
• Rabbi Yosei bar Abba’s competing transmission: the ruling was taught only about the udder of a nursing animal (menika), stated unqualified in Rav Chiyya’s sharp style, and generalized by Rav to all udders.
• At Rav Pappi’s table, Rav Yitzchak bar Yosef eats the udder dish and Ravin abstains; Abaye rebukes Ravin, arguing that Rav Pappi’s wife, daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha, would not have prepared it unless she had learned it was permitted.
• Sura would not eat udders; Pumbedita would. Rami bar Tamrei arrives in Sura on erev Yom Kippur, gathers the discarded udders, roasts them, and eats them.
• Rav Chisda invokes the rule that a traveler assumes the stringencies of both the place he left and the place he entered; Rami answers that he ate chutz latechum, outside Sura’s boundary.
• Three further challenges, each answered from Rav Yehuda: the grape seeds were over twelve months old (no yayin nesech concern); the owners had despaired (ye’ush be’alim, proven by grass growing among them); intestinal illness exempts from tefillin.

Amud Bet Highlights

• The tzitzit answer completes: a borrowed garment is exempt from tzitzit for thirty days.
• A man who failed to honor his parents is bound for flogging; Rami stops it with a baraita that the earthly court is not charged with enforcing a positive mitzva whose reward is stated alongside it.
• Rav Chisda concedes Rami’s sharpness; Rami replies that in Rav Yehuda’s place he could display it far better.
• Abaye sends Rav Safra to ask the Sages of Eretz Yisrael about liver; Rav Zerika answers from practice — he cooked liver for Rabbi Ami, who ate it.
• Abaye clarifies that the answer missed his question: whether liver forbids itself was never in doubt; his dilemma was whether it forbids other meat cooked with it.
• Rav Safra objects from the mishna in Terumot — liver forbids but is not forbidden, because it expels and does not absorb. Abaye restricts that mishna to kavda de’issura, the liver of a non-kosher animal.

Key Disputes

Conclusions

Rav’s stringency is resolved as non-tannaitic — either decree or misunderstanding — and therefore not binding law elsewhere. The territorial rule of local stringency is affirmed but shown to be strictly geographic: outside the techum, a visitor’s home custom governs. The exemptions of intestinal illness from tefillin and of a borrowed garment from tzitzit for thirty days are stated as settled halacha, as is the principle that a beit din does not enforce a positive mitzva whose reward is stated in the Torah. The liver dilemma remains open, carried into 111a.

Key Figures

Tannaim: the anonymous tanna of the baraita on mitzvot with stated reward; the mishna in Terumot

Amoraim: Rav, Rabbi Elazar, Ze’eiri, Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi, Rav Kahana, Rabbi Yosei bar Abba, Rav Chiyya, Ravin, Rav Yitzchak bar Yosef, Rav Pappi, Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha, Abaye, Rami bar Tamrei (Rami bar Dikulei), Rav Chisda, Rav Yehuda, Rav Safra, Rav Zerika, Rabbi Ami

One-Line Takeaway

A stringency without a tannaitic source is a fence built for a particular valley — and the daf’s great set piece shows that a custom defended by learning, not laxity, can stand its ground even before the head of a rival academy.

🎯 ELI5 (Explain Like I’m 5)

The Big Picture 🖼️

Today’s daf is one of the most fun pages in the whole masechta. It starts by wrapping up the udder discussion, then turns into a detective story about where a famous strict ruling came from — and then becomes a full-blown courtroom comedy starring a traveler who has an answer for absolutely everything.

Finishing Yesterday’s Sentence 📝

Yesterday’s page ended mid-thought. A בָּרַיְיתָא (baraita — an early teaching from the same era as the Mishna) had said ‘an udder that one COOKED is permitted,’ and that past tense was suspicious.

Why? Because saying ‘if you already did it, it’s fine’ usually hints that you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. That would mean roasting an udder is only OK בְּדִיעֲבַד (bedieved — after the fact, once the deed is done).

The answer: nope, don’t read into it. The sentence right next to it was about a calf’s stomach, and THAT one genuinely needs past tense. The tanna just kept the same grammar for both halves so they’d sound alike.

Think of it like… a restaurant menu that says ‘Grilled: served with fries. Fried: served with fries.’ The second dish really does come with fries — the first one just got the phrasing copy-pasted for symmetry.

The Simple Idea 💡: Roasting an udder is fine from the very start — the past tense was just borrowed grammar.

The Detective Story: Who Taught Rav That? 🔍

Rav had a very strict opinion: an udder roasted without first being torn open is forbidden. Everyone accepted it. But where did it come from?

Rabbi Elazar traveled from Babylonia up to the Land of Israel and basically asked around: ‘Is there any teacher who actually taught Rav this?’ He was pointed toward Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi.

And Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi said something remarkable: ‘I never taught him that. Not at all.’

Think of it like… tracing a company policy everyone follows, walking it all the way up the chain, and finding out nobody in HR ever wrote it down.

The Simple Idea 💡: Rav’s famous stringency had no earlier teacher behind it — it was something Rav himself created.

Finding an Open Valley 🌾

So what WAS it? Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi gave one of the Talmud’s most beautiful images: ‘Rav found an open valley and built a fence around it.’

A valley with no fence is wide open — anyone can wander in, animals can trample through. When Rav saw a community with no protection around a serious law, he built the fence himself.

That’s the difference between a received law (passed down through generations of teachers) and a rabbinic safeguard (a wall a Sage builds in his own time, for his own town’s needs).

Think of it like… a school with no rule about phones because nobody had ever brought one. Then a principal shows up, sees kids texting through every class, and writes a phone rule that day. It’s a real rule — it just wasn’t in the old handbook.

The Simple Idea 💡: Rav wasn’t reporting an ancient tradition — he was building a protective fence for a community that needed one.

What Rav Overheard in Tatlefush 👂

But why did Rav think this town needed a fence? Here’s the scene.

Rav arrived in a place called Tatlefush. He overheard one woman ask another a completely casual, everyday question: ‘How much milk do you need to cook a quarter of meat?’

Sit with that for a second. She wasn’t asking whether meat and milk go together. She was asking about the recipe ratio. Rav realized instantly: these people have never even heard that בָּשָׂר בְּחָלָב (basar bechalav — cooking meat and milk together) is forbidden.

So he stayed put and banned udders too — even though an udder’s milk isn’t technically milk at all, halachically speaking. Where people don’t know the main rule, even the safe borderline case becomes dangerous.

Think of it like… discovering a town where nobody knows that bleach and ammonia are dangerous together. You wouldn’t just teach the rule — you’d probably take the mildest lookalike bottle off the shelf too, just to be safe.

The Simple Idea 💡: Rav banned the permitted thing because the town didn’t yet know the forbidden thing existed.

But Wait — There’s a Second Version 🔀

The Talmud is honest enough to preserve a completely different account, from Rabbi Yosei bar Abba.

In this version, Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi DID teach the ruling to Rav — but only about a מְנִיקָה (menika — a nursing animal), whose udder is genuinely swollen with real milk. Obviously that one needs care.

So why did Rav think it applied to every udder? Because his teacher stated it without the qualifier. Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi had trained under Rav Chiyya, whose teaching style assumed students would fill in the unstated limits themselves. Rav didn’t fill it in — he took it at face value and applied it across the board.

That gives us two totally different Ravs: one who deliberately legislated a safeguard, and one who honestly misheard a narrow rule as a broad one. The Gemara doesn’t pick. It keeps both.

Think of it like… a coach telling a runner ‘always stretch before the race’ while meaning ‘before THIS kind of race.’ The runner hears a universal law and stretches before everything for the next forty years.

The Simple Idea 💡: Either Rav made a decree on purpose or he generalized a narrow rule by accident — and the Talmud preserves both possibilities.

The Dinner Party 🍽️

Now a scene at a table. Ravin and Rav Yitzchak bar Yosef were guests at Rav Pappi’s house, and out came a dish made of udder.

Rav Yitzchak bar Yosef ate it. Ravin wouldn’t touch it.

Abaye heard about this and was not impressed. His argument wasn’t a legal proof at all — it was evidence. Rav Pappi’s wife, he pointed out, was the daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha, who was famously meticulous about mitzvot. She grew up in that house. She would never have cooked and served this dish unless she had learned there that it was fine.

That is a genuinely striking move: a woman’s household practice, learned in her father’s home, is treated as real halachic evidence.

Think of it like… being nervous about the safety of a car until you notice it’s the exact model the world’s most cautious safety engineer bought for his own daughter. That tells you something.

The Simple Idea 💡: How a careful home actually behaves counts as evidence about what the law really is.

Two Cities, Two Customs 🏙️

Here’s the setup for the daf’s showstopper. Sura and Pumbedita were the two great academies of Babylonia — and they simply disagreed about udders. In Sura, nobody ate them. In Pumbedita, everybody did.

Enter Rami bar Tamrei of Pumbedita, who arrived in Sura on erev Yom Kippur — the day before Yom Kippur, when it’s a mitzva to eat well, so enormous amounts of meat were being prepared.

Rami walked through town and saw the people of Sura throwing all their udders in the trash. From his point of view, this was a citywide giveaway of perfectly good food. So he gathered them up, roasted them, and ate them.

Think of it like… visiting a town that considers a certain vegetable inedible, on the one day of the year they harvest tons of it, and finding crates of it curbside for free.

The Simple Idea 💡: One town’s garbage was, by another town’s custom, a genuine feast.

Hauled Before Rav Chisda ⚖️

The locals were not amused. They brought Rami before Rav Chisda, the head of the academy in Sura.

Rav Chisda invoked the standard travel rule: a visitor is bound by BOTH the strictness of the place he came from AND the strictness of the place he’s visiting. You don’t get to shop for the easier option.

Rami’s answer is pure, beautiful lawyering: ‘I ate them חוּץ לַתְּחוּם (chutz latechum — outside the town boundary).’ The custom of Sura is territorial. Step past the line, and you were never inside its jurisdiction when you ate.

Think of it like… a dry county with a liquor store parked exactly one foot past the county line.

The Simple Idea 💡: Local custom binds you inside the locality — and Rami had made sure he was standing outside it.

An Answer for Everything 🎤

Rav Chisda kept probing, and Rami had a comeback for every single question.

‘What did you roast them over?’ Grape seeds I found by the vines. ‘Those might be leftovers from wine used for idol worship!’ They were over twelve months old — any wine in them is long gone.

‘Maybe they were stolen?’ The owners had clearly given up — grass was growing up through the pile. That’s יֵאוּשׁ (ye’ush — when an owner abandons hope of recovery).

‘Why aren’t you wearing tefillin?’ I have an intestinal illness, and tefillin require a clean body, so I’m exempt. ‘Why no tzitzit on your robe?’ It’s borrowed, and a borrowed garment is exempt for thirty days.

Notice the pattern: every single answer is quoted in the name of Rav Yehuda — the head of Rami’s own academy back in Pumbedita. He’s quietly saying: I’m not a freelancer. This is my school’s Torah.

Think of it like… a student at a rival school being quizzed by a visiting principal and citing his own principal’s syllabus, chapter and verse, for every answer.

The Simple Idea 💡: Rami wasn’t improvising — he was showing that Pumbedita’s practices rest on real learning.

The Grand Finale 🛑

Then, mid-conversation, the court attendants dragged in a man who had mistreated his father and mother. They tied him to a pillar to flog him.

Rami stopped the whole thing cold: ‘Let him go.’ He cited a baraita: a human court is not charged with enforcing any positive mitzva whose reward is written right next to it in the Torah. And honoring parents comes with exactly that — so that your days may be long, and that it go well with you.

Meaning: this one’s collection is handled by Heaven, not by the earthly court’s whip.

Rav Chisda conceded: ‘I see that you are very sharp.’ Rami’s parting shot is unforgettable: ‘If you saw me back home in Rav Yehuda’s place, I’d show you real sharpness.’

Think of it like… the guy on trial not only winning his own case but stepping in as defense counsel for the next person in line — and then telling the judge he was only warming up.

The Simple Idea 💡: Some mitzvot the earthly court doesn’t enforce, because the Torah already attached the reward to Heaven’s account.

The Liver Question 🥩

The daf ends with a different kind of travel story. Abaye sent Rav Safra to the Land of Israel with a question about liver, which is soaked through with blood.

Rav Zerika answered: ‘I cooked liver for Rabbi Ami, and he ate it.’ Case closed, right?

Not at all. When Rav Safra came home, Abaye said he’d answered the wrong question. Whether liver ruins ITSELF was never in doubt — blood only flows OUT of liver, never back in. The real question was whether liver ruins OTHER meat cooked in the same pot.

Rav Safra pushed back: the mishna you’re relying on says both halves — liver forbids others and isn’t forbidden itself, because it expels and doesn’t absorb. Abaye’s reply: maybe that mishna is about liver from a non-kosher animal, which is forbidden in its own substance, an entirely different problem. And there the daf stops.

Think of it like… asking whether a strong-smelling fish stinks up the whole fridge, and being told ‘I ate one and it was delicious.’ True — and completely beside the point.

The Simple Idea 💡: A question can be answered accurately and still be left totally unanswered.

The Super Simple Summary 🎯

• Roasting an udder is fine from the outset; yesterday’s past-tense wording was just borrowed from the neighboring clause.
• Rav’s strict ruling had no earlier teacher — he found an open valley and fenced it in after overhearing a woman in Tatlefush casually ask how much milk to cook meat in.
• A second version says Rav simply generalized a narrow ruling about nursing animals; the Talmud keeps both stories side by side.
• At Rav Pappi’s table, Abaye argued that a meticulous woman’s cooking is real evidence about the law.
• Sura banned udders, Pumbedita ate them — and travelers are normally bound by both towns’ strictness.
• Rami bar Tamrei ate Sura’s discarded udders just outside the town boundary and then out-argued Rav Chisda on grape seeds, theft, tefillin, and tzitzit, quoting his own rosh yeshiva every time.
• He then stopped a flogging: courts below don’t enforce mitzvot whose reward the Torah states alongside them, like honoring parents.
• The daf closes with Abaye’s unresolved liver question — not whether liver spoils itself, but whether it spoils the meat cooked with it.

⚖️ Halacha

The Udder (Kachal): A Sage’s Local Safeguard Becomes Universal Law

Source in Daf: 110a, Segments 1-6

Shulchan Aruch — Yoreh De’ah 90:1

Hebrew:

הכחל אסור מדברי סופרים שאין בשר שנתבשל בחלב שחוטה אסור מן התורה. לפיכך אם קרעו ומירק החלב שבו מותר לצלותו ולאוכלו. ואם קרעו שתי וערב וטחו בכותל עד שלא נשאר בו לחלוחית חלב מותר לבשלו עם הבשר. וכחל שלא קרעו בין של קטנה שלא הניקה בין של גדולה אסור לבשלו. ואם עבר ובשלו בפני עצמו (וכל שכן אם צלאו) מותר לאכלו. ואם בשלו עם בשר אחר משערין אותו בששים וכחל מן המנין.

English:

The udder is prohibited by rabbinic order, considering that, according to biblical law, meat cooked in milk from a slaughtered animal is not forbidden. Therefore, one can grill and eat the udder after cutting and removing the milk it contains. If it has been cut in a cross shape and pressed against the wall, so that no trace of milk remains, it can be cooked together with other meat. If the udder is not cut beforehand, whether from a young animal that has not yet suckled or from a mature animal, it is forbidden to cook it. If this precept is transgressed and the udder is cooked alone (and even more so if it is grilled), it can be eaten; if cooked with other meat, the meat must present a quantity sixty times greater than that of the udder, including the udder itself.

Connection: The Shulchan Aruch opens by stating precisely the premise the whole sugya rests on — the udder’s prohibition is rabbinic (mid’divrei sofrim), because milk from a slaughtered animal is not biblically basar bechalav. That is why the daf can treat roasting as a genuine remedy and why Rav’s stringency in Tatlefush needed to be justified as a fence rather than as law. Two of the daf’s specific rulings are visible here: an udder cut and drained may be roasted and eaten (Segment 1’s conclusion that roasting is permitted lechatchila), and the codifier explicitly extends the prohibition on cooking an uncut udder to a young animal that never nursed as well as to a mature one — closing off the very distinction that Rabbi Yosei bar Abba’s version in Segment 4 attributed to Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi, who had taught the ruling only about a nursing animal’s udder. Rav’s unqualified reading, which the Gemara presented as possibly a misunderstanding, is what the halacha ultimately adopts.

The Traveler and Local Custom

Source in Daf: 110a, Segments 6-7

Shulchan Aruch — Orach Chayim 468:4

Hebrew:

ההולך ממקום שעושים למקום שאין עושים לא יעשה ביישוב מפני המחלוקת אבל עושה הוא במדבר. וההולך ממקום שאין עושים למקום שעושים לא יעשה, ונותנים עליו חומרי מקום שיצא משם וחומרי מקום שהלך לשם. ואף על פי כן לא יתראה בפניהם שהוא בטל מפני איסור, לעולם אל ישנה אדם מפני המחלוקת. וכן מי שדעתו לחזור למקומו נוהג כאנשי מקומו בין להקל בין להחמיר, והוא שלא יתראה בפני אנשי המקום שהוא בו מפני המחלוקת.

English: (No English version of this se’if is available on Sefaria; rendered here from the Hebrew above.)

One who travels from a place where they do work on erev Pesach to a place where they do not, shall not do it in an inhabited place, on account of dispute — but he may do it in the wilderness. And one who travels from a place where they do not do it to a place where they do, shall not do it; and we impose upon him the stringencies of the place he left and the stringencies of the place to which he went. Even so, he should not display himself before them as idle on account of a prohibition — a person should never deviate, on account of dispute. And likewise one whose intention is to return to his own place conducts himself like the people of his place, whether leniently or stringently, provided he does not display himself before the people of the place where he is, on account of dispute.

Connection: This is the direct codification of the principle Rav Chisda quoted to Rami bar Tamrei — notenin alav chumrei hamakom sheyatza misham vechumrei hamakom shehalach lesham. But the se’if also records two qualifications that the daf itself supplies through Rami’s answers rather than through abstract statement. First, the rule binds a person beyishuv, in an inhabited settlement; in the wilderness (bamidbar) it does not apply. That is exactly Rami’s chutz latechum defence — he ate the udders outside the boundary, where Sura’s custom had no territorial reach. Second, and this is the codifiers’ substantive narrowing of the daf: one whose intention is to return home (da’ato lachzor) follows his own home custom, leniently as well as stringently. On that ruling Rami, a Pumbeditan visiting Sura and returning, would have been permitted his udders even inside the town — subject only to the overriding condition that he not do so visibly, mipnei hamachloket. The Talmudic rule as Rav Chisda stated it is thus preserved in form but substantially restricted in application: what survives intact is not the obligation to adopt the local stringency but the obligation not to give public offence.

Shulchan Aruch — Orach Chayim 496:3

Hebrew:

בני ארץ ישראל שבאו לחוצה לארץ אסורים לעשות מלאכה ביום טוב שני ביישוב אפילו דעתו לחזור. וכל זמן שלא הגיעו ליישוב אפילו אין דעתו לחזור מותר, לפי שעדיין לא הוקבע להיות כמותן. אבל אם הגיע ליישוב ואין דעתו לחזור נעשה כמותן ואסור בין במדבר בין ביישוב. וכל חוץ לתחום אין נותנין עליו חומרי מקום שהלכו לשם.

English:

Residents of the Land of Israel who came to the diaspora are forbidden to perform labor on the second day of Yom Tov in an inhabited area, even if they intend to return. As long as they have not reached an inhabited area, even if they do not intend to return, it is permitted, since they have not yet become established as residents there. But if they reached an inhabited area and do not intend to return, they become like the locals and are forbidden both in the wilderness and in an inhabited area. One who is beyond the boundary does not take on the stringencies of the place to which he traveled.

Connection: Here the daf’s own vocabulary is quoted almost verbatim in a code: kol chutz latechum ein notnin alav chumrei makom shehalchu lesham — beyond the techum, we do not impose upon him the stringencies of the place to which he has gone. Rami bar Tamrei’s answer to Rav Chisda, which reads on the page as a clever piece of lawyering, has become settled halacha. The se’if also sharpens the distinction the previous source introduced: one who has settled permanently (ein da’ato lachzor) becomes a local outright and is bound even in the wilderness, since the exemption for open country depends on his not yet having been established as a resident. The territorial rule and the residency rule work together — Rami escaped Sura’s custom because he was both a visitor intending to return and physically outside the boundary.

Tefillin for One Who Is Ill

Source in Daf: 110a, Segment 10

Rambam — Hilchot Tefillin, Mezuzah veSefer Torah 4:13

Hebrew:

כל הפטור מקריאת שמע פטור מתפילין… חולי מעים וכל מי שלא יכול לשמור את נקביו אלא בצער פטור מן התפילין. וכל הטמאים כולן חייבין בתפילין כטהורים. מצטער ומי שאין דעתו מיושבת ונכונה עליו פטור מן התפילין שהמניח תפילין אסור לו להסיח דעתו מהן.

English:

All those who are exempt from the obligation to recite the Shema are exempt from the obligation to wear tefillin… A person with stomach problems and anyone who can contain his excretory functions only with difficulty are exempt from the obligation to wear tefillin. In contrast, all those ritually impure are obligated to wear tefillin like one who is pure. A person who suffers discomfort, or someone who is disturbed and cannot concentrate his thoughts, is exempt from the obligation to wear tefillin, since a person who wears tefillin is forbidden to divert his attention from them.

Connection: Rami answered Rav Chisda with Rav Yehuda’s ruling that a choleh me’ayim is patur min hatefillin, and Rambam preserves the term unchanged. What Rambam adds is the reasoning the daf only implies. The exemption is not a general dispensation for the sick — note the contrast Rambam draws with the ritually impure, who remain fully obligated. It rests on two specific incapacities that tefillin uniquely require: guf naki, the ability to maintain a clean body and control one’s excretory functions, and the ability to sustain attention without hesech hada’at. Rami’s condition disqualified him on the first ground; Rambam extends the same logic to a second category, the mitzta’er whose mind is unsettled, on the second.

Shulchan Aruch — Orach Chayim 38:1

Hebrew:

חולה מעיים פטור מתפילין. הגה: אפילו אין לו צער, אבל שאר חולה אם מצטער בחליו ואין דעתו מיושב עליו פטור, ואם לאו חייב.

English:

One who is ill in his intestines is dispensed from the commandment to wear tefillin. Rema: Even if he is not in pain. However regarding all other sick people, if he is in pain due to his illness and his mind is not at ease, he is also dispensed from the commandment. Otherwise he is obligated.

Connection: The Shulchan Aruch opens the entire siman on who is obligated in tefillin with the very ruling Rami cited, in the identical three words. The Rema’s gloss draws the line the daf leaves unstated: the choleh me’ayim is exempt afilu ein lo tza’ar, even absent pain, because the disqualification is structural rather than experiential — such a person simply cannot maintain guf naki. Every other category of illness is exempt only where the suffering actually unsettles the mind. This matters for reading the daf: Rami was not claiming an indulgence but invoking a categorical exemption, which is why the answer satisfied Rav Chisda without further inquiry.

Shulchan Aruch — Orach Chayim 38:9

Hebrew:

מצטער ומי שאין דעתו מיושבת עליו ונכונה פטור מפני שאסור להסיח דעתו מהם.

English:

One who is distressed, and one whose mind is not settled and ready is exempt from tefillin since it is forbidden to take one’s mind off of them.

Connection: The governing principle behind the whole cluster of exemptions, stated separately: tefillin demand undiverted attention, so any condition that makes sustained concentration impossible removes the obligation. Read alongside 38:1, this identifies the second of the two disqualifications Rambam listed and confirms that Rav Yehuda’s exemption for intestinal illness is one instance of a broader category rather than an isolated dispensation.

Tzitzit on a Borrowed Garment

Source in Daf: 110a Segment 11 and 110b Segment 1

Shulchan Aruch — Orach Chayim 14:3

Hebrew:

השואל מחבירו טלית שאינה מצוייצת פטור מלהטיל בה ציצית כל שלשים יום, דכתיב כסותך ולא של אחרים. אבל אחר שלשים יום חייב מדרבנן מפני שנראית כשלו. הגה: ואם החזירו תוך שלשים יום וחזר ולקחו אינו מצטרף, רק בעינן שלשים יום רצופים. שאלה כשהיא מצוייצת מברך עליה מיד.

English:

One who borrows from his friend a tallit that does not have tzitzit on it, he is exempt from putting tzitzit on it for thirty days, as it is written ‘your covering’ and not of others. But after thirty days, one is obligated, on a rabbinic level, to put tzitzit on it because it looks like it is his. Rema: And if he returns the tallit within 30 days and he borrows the tallit again, the days from the first and second borrowing do not combine; rather you need to have thirty consecutive days. If one borrowed it when it already has tzitzit, he should recite the blessing on it immediately.

Connection: This codifies Rav Yehuda’s ruling exactly as the top of 110b states it — talit she’ula kol sheloshim yom peturah min hatzitzit. The Shulchan Aruch supplies both the derivation and the character of the post-thirty-day obligation, neither of which appears on the daf. The exemption comes from kesutecha, your garment and not another’s, so the Torah-level obligation never attaches to borrowed cloth at all; what arises after thirty days is rabbinic, and its reason is appearance — mipnei shenir’eit keshelo, because by then it looks like his own. The Rema adds that the thirty days must be consecutive. Note the closing clause, which is the practical case today: a garment borrowed already fitted with tzitzit is blessed on immediately, so the exemption Rami invoked applies only to an unfringed garment.

Rambam — Hilchot Tzitzit 3:10

Hebrew:

היאך חיוב מצות הציצית. כל אדם שחייב לעשות מצוה זו אם יתכסה בכסות הראוי לציצית יטיל לה ציצית ואחר כך יתכסה בה. ואם נתכסה בה בלא ציצית הרי ביטל מצות עשה. אבל בגדים הראויים לציצית כל זמן שלא יתכסה בהן אדם אלא מקופלים ומונחים פטורין מן הציצית, שאינה חובת הטלית אלא חובת האיש שיש לו טלית.

English:

What is the nature of the obligation of the commandment of tzitzit? Every person who is obligated to fulfill this mitzvah, if he wears a garment requiring tzitzit, should attach tzitzit to it and then wear it. If he wears it without attaching tzitzit to it, he has negated this positive commandment. There is, however, no obligation to attach tzitzit to a garment which requires tzitzit, as long as it remains folded in its place, without a person wearing it. It is not that a garment requires tzitzit. Rather, the requirement is incumbent on the person wearing the garment.

Connection: Rambam does not address the borrowed garment here, but he establishes the principle that makes the thirty-day rule intelligible. Tzitzit is chovat ha’ish, an obligation on the person who has a tallit, not chovat hatallit, an obligation resting on the cloth itself. A folded garment in a chest is exempt no matter what it is made of. Since the duty attaches through a person’s relationship to a garment rather than through the fabric, a short-term loan — which creates use without the settled relationship the Torah calls kesutecha — does not trigger it. The thirty-day threshold marks the point at which sustained possession begins to resemble ownership closely enough for the Sages to impose the obligation anyway.

Court Enforcement of a Positive Mitzva Whose Reward Is Stated

Source in Daf: 110b, Segments 2-3

Shulchan Aruch — Yoreh De’ah 240:1

Hebrew:

צריך ליזהר מאד בכבוד אביו ואמו ובמוראם. הגה: ומכל מקום אין בית דין כופין על מצות כבוד אב ואם, דהוי ליה מצות עשה שמתן שכרה בצדה שאין בית דין כופין עליה.

English:

One must be very careful concerning his father and mother’s honor and fear. Rema: But nevertheless, the court does not enforce the honor of father and mother; since it is a positive commandment the reward of which is alongside it, such that the court does not enforce it.

Connection: This is Rami bar Tamrei’s intervention codified, and the Rema quotes the baraita’s operative phrase verbatim — mitzvat aseh shematan secharah betzidah, a positive mitzva whose reward is stated alongside it, which a beit din does not compel. The man bound to the pillar in Rav Chisda’s court would be released today on precisely the ground Rami argued. The placement is instructive: the Shulchan Aruch’s own text opens the siman by insisting that one must be exceedingly careful in honoring parents, and only then does the Rema add that the court will not compel it. The two statements are not in tension. Non-enforceability is a limit on judicial jurisdiction, not a downgrading of the obligation — the reward stated in the verse signals that this mitzva’s sanction belongs to the beit din shel ma’alah rather than to the court below.

Rambam — Hilchot Mamrim 6:1

Hebrew:

כיבוד אב ואם מצות עשה גדולה, וכן מורא אב ואם. שקל אותן הכתוב בכבודו ובמוראו. כתוב כבד את אביך ואת אמך, וכתוב כבד את ה’ מהונך. ובאביו ואמו כתוב איש אמו ואביו תיראו, וכתוב את ה’ אלהיך תירא. כדרך שציוה על כבוד שמו הגדול ומוראו כך ציוה על כבודם ומוראם.

English:

Honoring one’s father and mother is a positive commandment of great importance, as is fearing one’s father and mother. The Torah equates the honor and fear of one’s parents with the honor and fear of God Himself. Exodus 20:12 states: ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and Proverbs 3:9 states: ‘Honor God from your wealth.’ Similarly, with regard to one’s father and mother, Leviticus 19:3 states: ‘A person must fear his mother and father,’ and Deuteronomy 6:13 states: ‘And you shall fear God, your Lord.’ Just as He commands us to honor and fear His great name; so, too, He commands us to honor and fear our parents.

Connection: Rambam opens his treatment of the mitzva by ranking it as a mitzvat aseh gedolah and equating it with the honor due to God Himself. Set beside the daf, this is the resolution of an apparent paradox: the mitzva whose weight the Torah measures against reverence for Heaven is exactly the mitzva the earthly court will not flog a person for neglecting. The severity and the non-enforceability point in the same direction rather than opposite ones. Because the obligation is weighed against honor of the Divine Name, its accounting is reserved to the same Authority — which is what the stated reward, that your days may be long and that it go well with you, indicates.

Liver: Whether It Forbids What Is Cooked With It

Source in Daf: 110b, Segments 4-6

Rambam — Hilchot Ma’achalot Assurot 6:7

Hebrew:

הכבד אם חתכה והשליכה לתוך החומץ או לתוך מים רותחין עד שתתלבן הרי זו מותרת לבשל אותה אחר כן. וכבר נהגו כל ישראל להבהבה על האור ואחר כך מבשלין אותה, בין שבשלה לבדה בין שבשלה עם בשר אחר. וכן מנהג פשוט שאין מבשלין המוח של ראש ולא קולין אותו עד שמהבהבין אותו באור.

English:

If one cuts open the liver and casts it into vinegar or boiling water until it turns white, it is permitted to cook it afterwards. It has already become universal Jewish custom to singe it over a fire and then cook it. This applies whether one cooks it alone or one cooks it with other meat. Similarly, it is a common custom that the brains are not cooked nor roasted until they are singed over a fire.

Connection: Abaye’s dilemma on the daf was whether liver renders prohibited another piece of meat cooked with it — lemeisar chavirtah. Rambam’s answer is procedural rather than theoretical: prepare the liver first, and the question does not arise. Once the liver has been singed over fire, it may be cooked either alone or together with other meat. Note that Rambam presents this as universal custom (kevar nahagu kol Yisrael) rather than as a ruling derived from the sugya — the practical resolution of Abaye’s question came through established practice, much as Rav Zerika answered Rav Safra’s inquiry by reporting what he had cooked for Rabbi Ami rather than by citing a law.

Rambam — Hilchot Ma’achalot Assurot 6:8

Hebrew:

הכבד שבשלה ולא הבהבה על האור ולא חלטה בחומץ או ברותחין הרי הקדרה כולה אסורה, הכבד וכל שנתבשל עמה. ומותר לצלות כבד עם הבשר בשפוד אחד והוא שתהיה הכבד למטה. ואם עבר וצלאה למעלה מבשר הרי זה אוכלו.

English:

When a liver was cooked without being singed over a fire or cast into vinegar or hot water, the pot in which it was cooked is forbidden entirely: the liver and everything cooked with it. It is permitted to roast a liver together with other meat on one spit, provided the liver is positioned below the other meat. If one transgressed and roasted it while it was positioned above the meat, after the fact, one may eat it.

Connection: This is Rambam’s direct answer to Abaye’s question, and it is stringent on both halves. Untreated liver cooked in a pot forbids the entire contents — hakederah kulah asurah, hakaved vechol shenitbashel imah — so it forbids not only its companions but itself, going beyond the mishna in Terumot that Rav Safra quoted, which held that the liver forbids but is not forbidden. The second clause reflects the physical premise the daf stated as poletet ve’einah bola’at: since blood only travels outward and downward, roasting liver beneath other meat on one spit is permitted lechatchila, because nothing can flow from the liver up into the meat above it. Abaye’s dilemma is thus resolved by attending to direction of flow rather than to the liver’s abstract status.

Shulchan Aruch — Yoreh De’ah 73:1

Hebrew:

הכבד יש בו ריבוי דם, לפיכך לכתחלה אין לו תקנה לבשלו על ידי מליחה אלא קורעו שתי וערב ומניח חיתוכו למטה וצולהו (שיהא ראוי לאכילה) ואחר כך יכול לבשלו… ובדיעבד מותר אם נתבשל לבדו בקדירה (בלא צלייה), אבל הקדירה אסורה שפולטת ואינה בולעת, ויש מי שאוסר. הגה: וכן נוהגין לאסור הכל אפילו נמלחה הכבד קודם בשולה.

English:

The liver abounds in blood. Therefore, deliberately, it should not be cooked in a pot after salting, but an incision is made in it, and it is grilled with the cut side down, then it can be cooked in a pot… If faced with a fait accompli, the liver is permissible if cooked alone in a pot. Gloss: Without being grilled beforehand. But the pot is forbidden, as the liver expels blood but does not absorb it. One author declares the liver forbidden in this case. Gloss: This is indeed the custom, to declare everything forbidden, even if the liver was salted before cooking.

Connection: This is the central se’if for the daf’s closing sugya, and both halves of Abaye’s distinction are visible in it. The Shulchan Aruch’s own ruling matches Abaye’s stated certainty — liver cooked alone is permitted bedieved, because the blood diffuses outward and is not reabsorbed. The reason given is the daf’s own phrase in the language of the mishna in Terumot: poletet ve’einah bola’at, it expels and does not absorb. On the second half, Abaye’s actual dilemma, the codifiers rule stringently — the pot itself is forbidden, since what the liver expelled went somewhere. Salting alone is inadequate because liver is saturated with blood (yesh bo ribui dam); the required preparation is to cut it crosswise, place the cut side down so blood drains away, and roast it before any cooking. The Rema records that the accepted custom follows the stringent view entirely, forbidding everything in the pot even where the liver was salted first.

Shulchan Aruch — Yoreh De’ah 73:2

Hebrew:

ואם חלטו בחומץ או ברותחין ונקב והוציא מזרקי הדם שבתוכו, מן הדין מותר לבשלו, אלא שהגאונים אסרו לעשות כן, ובדיעבד מותר.

English:

If the liver is soaked in vinegar or boiling water, punctured, and freed from blood vessels, it can be cooked afterward according to the law; but the Geonim have forbidden this. If faced with a fait accompli, the liver is permissible in this case.

Connection: Rambam in 6:7 permitted the vinegar or boiling-water treatment (chalitah) as an alternative to singeing. The Shulchan Aruch concedes that min hadin, as a matter of strict law, this is correct — and then records that the Geonim prohibited relying on it, leaving it valid only bedieved. This is a clear instance of later practice narrowing what the sources permit, on the grounds that the technique requires an expertise no longer assumed. In practice, roasting is the only accepted preparation.

Shulchan Aruch — Yoreh De’ah 73:4

Hebrew:

אם צלאו עם בשר בתנורים שבימי חכמי הגמרא שפיהם למעלה יהיה הכבד למטה ולא למעלה, ובדיעבד מותר. ובשפודים שצולים אצל האש אסור לצלותן עם הבשר לכתחילה אפילו כבד למטה.

English:

When grilling the liver with other pieces of meat in one of those ovens used in the Talmudic era, whose opening is at the top, it should be placed below and not above the other pieces. Otherwise, it is permissible if faced with a fait accompli. Deliberately, it is forbidden to roast the liver with other meat on a spit, even placing the liver below the other pieces.

Connection: The Shulchan Aruch takes Rambam’s permission to roast liver beneath other meat and restricts it explicitly to the ovens of the Talmudic era, whose openings faced upward and in which position was stable. On the spits used for roasting beside an open fire, the arrangement is forbidden lechatchila even with the liver below, since a spit is turned and the liver will not stay underneath. This is a precise example of a Talmudic ruling preserved in principle while its practical scope contracts because the technology it presupposed no longer exists.

Summary of Rulings