My Jewish Learning

The precious children of Zion, once valued as gold — alas, they are accounted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter’s hands (Lamentations 4:2).

This is one of countless lines in Lamentations, or Eicha, mourning all that has been lost and de...

On today’s daf we learn from a mishnah:

When the bone of an animal’s limb was broken and the limb was not completely severed and the animal was subsequently sl...

Today’s daf continues the discussion from yesterday’s mishnah, which deals with the ben pekua, an animal fetus removed after its mother was slaughtered.
 
Recall that in that 

We have learned that, barring variations and complications, when a pregnant animal is slaughtered, the fetus it carries can be eaten. Since the fetus is considered part of its mother’s body, it does not require its own slaughter. The mishnah on today’s daf offers a little more nuance:

One who slaughtered an animal and found within it an eight-month-old fetus...

In our ongoing discussion of animals slaughtered during a difficult labor, Rabbi Meir put forth a surprising position: If a fetus’s leg emerges from the womb, the mother is slaughtered, and the leg is subsequently cut off, that severed leg is considered a