Further Requirements for Animals Permitted for Consumption
47 With regard to animals that are permitted for consumption, you must additionally be proficient and practiced in the laws of ritual slaughter as well as expert in identifying the signs of fatal diseases or injuries for which you must inspect the animal after slaughtering it. Specifically, you must be easily able to distinguish between improper ritual slaughter, which causes the animal’s carcass to be ritually defiled, and proper ritual slaughter, which leaves the dead animal ritually undefiled. For example, if its trachea was cut only halfway, the slaughter is invalid and you will become ritually defiled if you touch the animal’s carcass, whereas if its trachea was cut even slightly more than halfway, the slaughter was valid and the dead animal does not impart ritual defilement. The difference between these two cases is very slight, so you must learn how to distinguish between them.
Similarly, when you examine an animal after it was properly ritually slaughtered, you must be able to distinguish between an animal that is allowed to be eaten and an animal that may not be eaten. Specifically, if there are indications that the animal had been suffering from a fatal disease or injury, it is forbidden for consumption—despite it having been proper ritually slaughtered; however, if it does show signs of disease or injury but only of one that is not fatal, it is permitted for consumption. The difference between these two cases can be very slight, so you must learn how to distinguish between them.”
Chasidic Insights
47 To distinguish between the defiled and the undefiled: Allegorically, this injunction also refers to making the moral distinction between what is acceptable behavior and what is not. This distinction is easy enough when matters are clear and obvious. But all too often, the distinction is blurred, and the defiled can easily be mistaken for the undefiled. Therefore, in order to fulfill the mandate of this final verse of the parashah, we are bidden to draw upon the lesson of its first verse: On the eighth day. As mentioned in the Overview, the number eight signifies transcendent Divinity, which is beyond the normal, natural cycle of seven. When we are attuned to Divine consciousness, to the “eight,” we instinctively know what is defiled and what is not; the rational mind cannot run circles around us and convince us that dark is light and bitter is sweet.
