This week we will learn about caesarean-born animals and the animal born after them: Rabbi Tarfon treats both as doubtful firstborns, while Rabbi Akiva says neither is a bechor. Chapter 3 then deals with an animal bought from a non-Jew whose birth history is unknown, using Rabbi Yishmael’s age brackets and Rabbi Akiva’s physical signs of a prior birth to decide. The section ends by assuming a nursing animal is nursing its own young, and not another animal’s.

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This week we will learn about which animals are and are not obligated in bechor, the first born of a kosher animal, including animals born from cross-species unions, animals bought from non-Jews, and cases where the fetus emerged unusually, with the underlying principle that only an animal that truly “opens the womb” in the normal sense acquires kedushah, sanctity. We will also learn about cases of safek (doubt) in bechor status, when two animals give birth simultaneously and it is unclear which offspring is the firstborn, or when one of the mothers had previously given birth and the other had not.

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This week we will continue learning about the sanctity of the first-born donkey, and why the donkey requires redemption. We will also learn that one may not derive any benefit from the carcass of a donkey killed by arifah (neck-breaking, the alternative to redemption), and that even a small sheep fulfills the mitzvah of redemption.

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We will begin Masechet Bechorot and learn that there are 3 types of firstborns: Kosher animals, Donkeys and Humans. Each type is redeemed in its own unique way. We will begin to learn about the first-born donkey this week.

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This week we will finish Masechet Chulin with the twelfth perek on shiluach hakan (sending away the mother bird), establishing that the mitzvah applies only to kosher birds encountered incidentally in the wild (ki yikarei). The Gemara asks the major question of whether one must proactively seek out a nest to perform the mitzvah or whether it only applies when one actually wants the eggs. We end the masechet with the conclusion that if the light mitzvah of shiluach hakan earns the promise of long life, how much more so do the weightier mitzvos, with the Gemara resolving that these rewards are fulfilled in olam haba, the next world.

Hadran Alach Masechet Chulin!

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This week, we will learn about the laws of matnot kehunah, the priestly gifts (the foreleg, jaw, and stomach) that anyone slaughtering a kosher animal must give to a kohen. We will learn what each gift is, who is obligated to give it, and who is exempt. We will then begin the final chapter in this masechet and learn about the mitzvah of Shiluach HaKen, the sending of the mother bird when collecting the eggs.

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This week we will learn about tumat neveilah (the ritual impurity of animal carcasses) and tumat ochalin (the impurity laws governing food), including the special case of ever min ha-chai, a limb hanging from a still-living animal. The Gemara also teaches about a dangling limb or piece of flesh still attached to a live animal, weighing whether it counts as food susceptible to impurity versus impurity from a limb of a living creature. We will also begin the 10th chapter, which discusses gifts that are given to the Cohen.

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This week we will learn about the rules of tumat ochlin (food impurity), which requires a minimum egg-sized amount but can be supplemented by the animal’s skin, solidified meat juice, bones, sinews, horns, or hooves, contrasted with tumat neveilah, which requires a kezayit (olive volume) of actual meat and cannot be supplemented. The Gemara also teaches about the concepts of yad (handle) and shomer (protection), establishing that a handle attached to food transmits tumah but does not supplement the food’s volume, while a shomer that protects the food both transmits tumah and supplements its volume.

For more info or to visit the main shiur page please visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://webyeshiva.org/course/daf-yomi-one-week-at-a-time-chulin/