Chullin 141 and 142 - The End

0:00Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard? But not the pipeline. That's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions. My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions. Cut the bullspend. See revenue? Not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $25 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, turn sick edition supply. Hey there and welcome back to take one. It is hard to believe we have come to this because it's been months and we've talked about barbecues and about sending birds away from the nests and about which parts of the animal if any.

1:00You could use as a handle. It's been attracted of so many gross and wonderful and mystical things, but now comes the time when we must bid farewell to our beloved, massive, masechet, chulin. And as always, when we look back, not an anger but an gratitude and we sum up the journey that we took. We turn to one man. We turn to our friend, to our teacher. The man behind the other great Talmud website. You must subscribe to right now daily Talmud dot org rabbi, David washevkin. Hi. Leo, what an absolute privilege and pleasure to be here today to close. What is probably the most central tractate to practical kosher laws, the tractate that is studied most carefully and most in depth in any rabbinical school. This is what they are studying and it seems very strange because the entire tractate is

2:01about slaughter and preparing meat and the principles of how taste our transfer. And you need to ask yourself like any Jew who has ever spent a moment taking Jewish life in Jewish practice seriously is going to ask the very obvious question, why is there such an emphasis on kosher and so many details of what makes something kosher. Beyond kosher meat, we learned in this tractate about how flavors can mix and all of these ways about how something can be made unfit to eat for those who are kosher observant. And I really think it is a fair question that merits emphasis. And I think when we emerge from this tractate, we see that the ultimate expression of Jewish specificity, the ultimate expression of Jewish particularism is always anchored in kosher. And the reason for that is because I believe that the very idea of eating meat is what

3:06gave birth to the first idea of particularism and that is the particularism of humanity. Where God gives special permission in the Torah following the flood, following the humanity's corruption, where after the flood, God says, if you act morally upright, if you really elevate yourself, then I will give you permission to once again consume meat. And the idea I think is that both vegetarians and meat lovers will appreciate this, is that we are making eating meat, eating flesh is a moral statement. And both sides agree this, whether or not you do or you don't. It is a moral statement about the particularism, not of the Jewish people, but the particularism of humanity, that human beings are capable if they are prepared correctly, if it slaughtered humanely of consuming the flesh of another.

4:08And it is really from this idea of requiring sustenance that the very idea of particularism emerges. And I think the really basic idea underlying everything is the reason why we express our humanity through eating meat, or that we express our very Jewish particular identity. Through kosher laws, what the foundation to all of this is that the very idea of requiring sustenance, the very idea of needing nourishment is the reminder that we are not self-contained machines. We require something from the outside. There is something that transcends our bodies and our identity that is beyond just me and the self. And that is why whenever we eat, we are reminded of the fact that I am not a self-contained automatic machine. I need sustenance from the outside world.

5:10And it's specifically through kosher that we sanctify that inherent need of humanity and say, whenever I am reaching out beyond myself in the most basic human way, I make sure that when I reach out, I use it as an opportunity to acknowledge the foundation of all life and that is God. And what kosher is doing is sanctifying our need for something beyond ourselves. It is sanctifying our need for sustenance. Our very Jewish identity is hinged on kosher, the idea of kosher, of having a kosher home as an expression of Jewish identity. What does that tell us? It means that when we are ultimately human, our deepest human need is for sustenance. We can't, our body doesn't create its own nourishment. And when we reach out beyond our body, we make sure that what we are reaching for and

6:10how we are reaching for it is all going to sanctify the interiority of our lives. That was so beautiful, but I believe there is one more thing left for us to do before we say our final farewell. Hadran al-Alaq masech eschulin vahadrach al-an. May we return to you, Traktate Khulin, and we hope and pray that Traktate Khulin returns to us. And by David Bachevkin, as always, thank you so much for being our guest. My absolute privilege and pleasure. This has been Take One. If you enjoy the show and we hope that you do, you are really going to love the new Ish book by Liel called How the Tomod Can Change Your Life, surprisingly modern advice from a very old book. You can get it now at your favorite local or online bookstore. Please go rate and review Take One on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

7:14Take One is a tablet studio's production. The show is hosted by Liel Liebowitz and produced by Josh Cross and Eli Axelrod with Tal Allroyd. You can email us at podcasts at tabletmag.com. I hope we have made your day a little bit more Tal Mutic.