88 Comments

This is the content I come here for and bought your books for. Keep it up.

Thank you for a great post.

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Love these kind of posts, please post more of these 🙏 and please let us know when volume 2 of the Torah Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom will be released.

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Run it by R Herschel Schachter

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Serious question: Do you need a mesorah to identify a bird as definitely *not* kosher?

If somebody ate secretary bird meat while touching terumah, would we burn it or leave it as safek?

Or let's say you were starving and had nothing but cassowary and ostrich. Should you eat the cassowary first, or does it not matter? (You could argue that regardless eating something that's explicitly forbidden by the pasuk is worse, but the kal vachomer from camel-hare-hyrax-pig to animals that don't have either kosher sign would seem to contradict that idea.)

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A very interesting and, as advertised, highly technical post.

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This is fascinating. One point, however, is not entirely clear. In a previous post you explained why a peelable gizzard is inherently related to a bird not being a predator. But how do a crop and a hind toe contribute to demonstrating that the bird is ipso facto non-predatory? In fact, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_(anatomy) notes that most raptors, including hawks, eagles and vultures, have a crop, but owls do not. So it would seem that this characteristic is unrelated to the predatory or non-predatory nature of a bird. What is the significance of this characteristic (and maybe also the hind toe) in the view of the majority of the Rishonim, and why did Chazal include it? Interestingly, Rambam in Hilchot Ma'achalot Asurot 1:16 & 1:19 states for a non-predatory bird, any one of these 3 characteristics is sufficient to know that it is permitted, but in practice we rely on this only if the one characteristic is the peelable gizzard.

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Turkeys are kosher because they are native to North America and did not exist in the Eastern Hemisphere until they were imported there after 1500. So none of the bird names in the Torah could mean "turkey".

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Interesting, but even if true - I have not checked your citations or the sources you didn't cite - it would be just one of countless cases in which the law is based on a mistaken premise. This works both in the direction of kula and chumrah, and applies not only to halacha based on mistakes, but also to halacha based on then available evidence that shouls theoretically change due to new evidence, manuscripts, etc. It's a very old issue, already recognized in the Gemara itself, and true of other legal systems too, not just halacha. How law is made or followed is rarely black and white.

In any event, good luck with the dinner.

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Trying to continue an earlier thread. I said absence of evidence doesn't imply absence, Natan Slifkin said it does, this is my response.

And expectations are also subject to what one wishes to believe about a topic. See all the discoveries that "upend everything science knows about a topic!"

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That is specfically about takanos and gezeiros, not interpretation of halachah.

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This article is deeply flawed, it assumes that the Rishonim were referring to the same bird that you identify as stork. This is despite the fact that they surely knew it didn't have webbed feet.

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Nice post!

"unless it has a [broad?] bill and webbed feet"

"and even with a [broad?] bill and webbed feet"

"Furthermore, they clearly do not possess either a [broad?] bill or webbed feet"

Unless there are birds without any bill.

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Can you list which birds would be permitted if one does not accept the Rema, but are prohibited according to the Rema?

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If actual behavior were the standard you would be hard pressed to find ANY kosher birds outside of the hummingbird which would qualify. That includes all the phasianids, pretty much every waterfowl (yes, even ducks, geese, and swans) all the diving birds, thrushes, etc cetera.

Fortunately for us actual phenomenological reality does not get a seat at the table.

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Fascinating post. I would just add that following the Rosh or Rashi and Rama in this case would most likely be the Halacha of אין בית דין יכול לבטל ב"ד אחר אלא אם כן גדולה מהם בחכמה ובמנין. I assume that is also in a case when the latter Bais Din is certain the first were mistaken.

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I can see why somebody would say that a stork has כף רגלה רחב even though they aren't exactly webbed https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/painted-stork-close-up-of-feet-gm1152335707-312591704 compared to eagle https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/eagle-claws-gm1419545982-465859093

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