Chullin 65

Hook

Picture this: It’s the final night of the camp season. The sun has dipped below the pine-rimmed horizon of the lake, leaving a bruised-purple sky in its wake. We are all squeezed together on those splintery wooden benches around the campfire ring. The heat of the embers is hitting your face, while the cool night air kisses the back of your neck. Someone starts strumming a guitar—maybe a gentle, rolling G-chord—and we begin to sing that classic, haunting melody of Bilvavi (In my heart):

“Bilvavi mishkan evneh, l'hadar k'vodo...” (In my heart, I will build a sanctuary to honor God's glory...)

Let’s hum that together for a second. Lai-lai-lai-lai, lai-lai-lai-lai-lai... Feel that vibration in your chest? That’s the feeling of total belonging. At camp, everything feels aligned. The boundary between the wild outdoors and our sacred community completely dissolves. You look up at the stars through the canopy of leaves, and you know, without a shadow of a doubt, exactly where you fit in the universe.

But then, the buses roll in. We pack our duffels, smelling of woodsmoke and damp lake water, and head back to the "real world." Back home, the wild forest gets replaced by manicured lawns, sterile drywall, and the relentless hum of screens and schedules. The clear, natural boundaries of camp get messy. We find ourselves asking: How do I keep that sacred fire burning inside these four walls? How do I bring that wild, campfire Torah back home into my everyday, adult life?

Today, we are diving deep into a text that is all about sorting through the wild. We’re opening up the Talmud, specifically Chullin 65a, a page of Gemara that looks like a dry, ancient manual on birdwatching and bug-collecting. But if we look closer—with our camp eyes wide open—we’re going to find a beautiful, radical blueprint for how we build our homes, how we choose our crew, and how we make space for the beautiful, long-headed outliers in our lives. Grab your flashlight, pull up a camp chair, and let’s gather around this text.

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Context

Before we unpack the Talmudic knapsack, let’s lay out the trail map. To understand what’s happening in Chullin 65a, we need to get our bearings with three crucial contextual coordinates:

• The Wilderness of Chullin: Tractate Chullin literally means "ordinary" or "profane" things. It’s the manual for how we bring holiness into the mundane act of eating. While other parts of the Talmud dwell in the pristine, manicured halls of the Temple, Chullin is out in the fields, the pastures, and the barnyards. It’s the ultimate "outdoor Torah." It asks: How do we take the wild, chaotic natural world and make it a home for the Divine?
• The Trail Marker Metaphor: Think of the kosher signs (simanim) discussed in this tractate like trail markers—those little painted blazes on the trees or the stone cairns built along a mountain path. When you are deep in the backcountry, those markers are the difference between a safe hike and getting hopelessly lost in the brush. The Sages are looking at the wild animal kingdom—specifically birds and grasshoppers—and carving out clear, recognizable trail markers to help us navigate what elevates us and what degrades us.
• The Hermeneutical Compass of Rabbi Yishmael: In this section of Chullin, we encounter the "School of Rabbi Yishmael," who uses a highly sophisticated method of textual interpretation called Klal u'Prat (Generalizations and Details). It’s a way of reading the Torah not as a flat list of rules, but as an elastic, breathing document. By analyzing how the Torah groups general categories and specific examples, the Sages find hidden permissions and inclusions that aren't obvious at first glance. It’s like learning how to read the topography of a map to find a hidden spring that isn't explicitly marked.

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Text Snapshot

Let’s look directly at the ancient fire we're warming our hands by. Here is a curated snapshot of the raw text of Chullin 65a:

"Others say: If a bird dwells with non-kosher birds, it is non-kosher; if it dwells with kosher birds, it is kosher... Rabbi Eliezer says: It was not for naught that the zarzir (starling) went to dwell with the crow, but because it is of the same species."

"The Sages taught in a baraita: ... Why must the verse state 'after its kinds' four times? It is to include four similar species: The vineyard bird, and the Jerusalem yoḥana, and the artzuveya, and the razbanit, which are also kosher... One might have thought that any ḥagav is kosher, even if it does not have all these signs. Therefore, the verse states: 'After its kinds,' indicating that even if it is called a ḥagav it is not kosher unless it has all these signs."

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Close Reading

Now, let’s get our hands dirty. We’re going to do a slow, careful read of this text, unpacking the Hebrew and Aramaic commentaries like we’re learning how to read animal tracks on a muddy riverbank. We have two major insights to unpack that will change the way you look at your friendships, your family dynamics, and your home.

Insight 1: The "Zarzir" and the Crow—The Hidden Ecology of Our Friendships and Homes

Let’s start with the birds. The Gemara is trying to figure out how we identify non-kosher birds when we don't have an explicit tradition about their names.

Before we even get to the starlings and crows, the Talmud looks at a fascinating scribal detail regarding the bat ya'ana (often translated as the ostrich). The Torah lists the bat ya'ana as non-kosher. But the Gemara asks: is bat ya'ana one name or two?

Look at what Rashi says on Chullin 65a:1:1:

בתרתי - בשתי תיבות (In two—meaning, in two words.)

And the Steinsaltz commentary on Chullin 65a:1 expands on this:

בתרתי [בשתי] תיבות (מילים) — שמע מינה [למד מכאן] כי תרי [שני] שמות נבדלים נינהו [הם] (In two [in two] words (terms)—learn from here that they are two distinct, separate names.)

The scribe actually splits the name bat ya'ana into two words, and can even split it across two different lines of the Torah scroll! The Gemara contrasts this with the name "Chedorlaomer" Genesis 14:4, which can be split into two words on the same line but never across two lines. Why? Because Chedorlaomer is fundamentally one entity, while bat ya'ana represents a composite identity.

Think about what this means for a second. In our own lives, we often treat our identities as single, unyielding blocks. "I am an anxious person." "I am a corporate worker." "I am a cynic." But the Torah teaches us that some identities are actually composites—split across two lines. You are not just one thing. Your identity is a dialogue between your internal spark (bat—daughter) and the environment you respond to (ya'ana—from the root anah, to answer or react). We are composite creatures, shaped profoundly by what we interact with.

This brings us straight to the famous ecological observation in the baraita:

"Others say: If a bird dwells with non-kosher birds, it is non-kosher; if it dwells with kosher birds, it is kosher."

How do we test a bird's character? We look at its neighborhood! We look at its flock. The Gemara asks: whose opinion is this? It sounds like Rabbi Eliezer, who famously said:

"It was not for naught that the zarzir (the starling) went to dwell with the crow, but because it is of the same species."

Think about the zarzir—the starling. Starlings are gorgeous, iridescent birds. From a distance, they look sleek, almost magical. But where do they hang out? They fly with the crows. Crows are predators, scavengers, consumers of carrion. The starling might look beautiful on its own, but by choosing to nest, fly, and feed with the crow, it reveals its true nature. It aligns its destiny with the predator.

This isn't just ancient ornithology; it’s a profound psychological truth about the "human flock." In camp, we talk about the power of the cabin. On the first day of camp, you get thrown into a bunk with seven strangers. You sleep on creaky bunks, sweep the floor together, and share your deepest secrets during flashlight time. Slowly, through the sheer force of proximity and shared ritual, you start to talk alike, laugh alike, and look out for one another. You become a flock.

When we leave the bubble of camp and enter the default world, we often forget that we still have the power to choose our flock. We let our social circles form by accident—by algorithms, by office layouts, or by default social climbing. We end up "dwelling with the crows"—spending our time with people who gossip, who are cynical, who value status over soul, who consume the emotional "carrion" of drama and negativity. And then we wonder why we feel exhausted, spiritually drained, and disconnected from our values.

The "Others say" opinion in the Gemara is issuing a loving but fierce warning: Your environment is your destiny. If you dwell with the non-kosher, you will eventually absorb that non-kosher energy. You cannot fly with crows and expect to remain a songbird.

But there’s a flip side, a beautiful ruling by the Sages. The Gemara notes that even the Rabbis—who disagree with Rabbi Eliezer and actually deem the starling kosher because it doesn't physically resemble the crow—still agree with the psychological principle. They say a bird is only deemed non-kosher by association if it both dwells with the non-kosher bird and resembles it in its behavior.

This is the ultimate home-building insight. When we build our homes, we are building a sanctuary—a mishkan, just like we sang in Bilvavi. We have to be intentional about who we invite across our threshold. Who sits at your Shabbat table? Who do you text when you’re falling apart at 2:00 AM? Are they people who elevate you, who help you "peel your gizzard" (remain open, soft, and digestible), or are they people who claw at the world?

If you want to bring the campfire home, you have to curate your flock. You have to find your fellow starlings who want to fly toward the light, and you have to build a sanctuary where you can soar together.

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Insight 2: The Long-Headed Grasshopper—Making Room for the Outliers in Our Sacred Circles

Now, let’s move from the sky down to the grass. Let’s talk about grasshoppers. Yes, grasshoppers!

The Torah tells us that certain jumping insects are kosher. But how do we know which ones? The Mishna lists the physical signs: four legs, four wings, jumping legs (kerayim), and wings that cover most of its body.

But then the Gemara gets incredibly granular. What does "most of its body" mean?

"Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Most of its length. And some say that he said: Most of its circumference. Rav Pappa said: Therefore, we require that the wings cover most of its length, and we also require that they cover most of its circumference."

Talk about high standards! Rav Pappa says it’s not enough for the wings to cover the length; they have to wrap around the width too. There must be a total, protective embrace of the body by the wings.

But then, the Gemara introduces a wild teaching from the School of Rabbi Yishmael. Let’s look at Rashi's commentary on Chullin 65a:10:1:

דבי ר' ישמעאל תנא - הנך למינהו לאו פרטי נינהו... אלא כללי נינהו ויש כאן כללי כללות ופרטי פרטות... (The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: These occurrences of "according to its kind" are not details... rather they are generalizations, and we have here generalizations of generalizations and details of details...)

Rabbi Yishmael's school is looking at the repetitive use of the Hebrew phrase l'minehu ("after its kind") which appears four times in the verse about kosher grasshoppers Leviticus 11:22. Why the repetition?

Let’s unpack this using the words of Rabbeinu Gershom on Chullin 65a:5:

אלו כללי כללות ואלו פרטי פרטות כללי כללות ציפורת כרמים זה כלל אחד אושכף זה כלל אחר כרספת ושיחלנית זה כלל שלישי ראשו ארוך זה כלל רביעי... (These are the generalizations of generalizations and these are the details of details... the vineyard bird is one generalization, the ushkaf is another, the karsefet and shachlanit are a third, and the long-headed [grasshopper] is the fourth...)

Look at how deep the Rabbis are going! They are using these repetitive words to bring in all the weird, anomalous grasshoppers that don't fit the standard picture. They list the vineyard bird (which has tiny hairs on its head), the ushkaf (which has a completely smooth forehead), the karsefet (which has a tail), and finally, the most bizarre outlier of all: the long-headed grasshopper (reishah aroch, known in Aramaic as the shushifa).

Imagine this grasshopper. It has the four legs, the four wings, and the jumping legs. It satisfies all the core spiritual and physical signs of being a kosher, jumping creature. But its head is... weird. It’s elongated. It looks alien. It doesn't look like a classic, cute little grasshopper.

The Gemara goes through a beautiful, exhausting intellectual exercise to defend this long-headed creature. The Sages try to build a "common denominator" (banyan av) from the three explicitly permitted grasshoppers: the arbeh (locust), the ḥargol, and the solam. They argue:

• The arbeh doesn't look like the ḥargol (one has a tail, one doesn't).
• The ḥargol doesn't look like the solam (one has a smooth forehead, one doesn't).
• But they all share those four essential signs: four legs, four wings, jumping legs, and wings covering most of the body.

Therefore, says the Gemara, any grasshopper that has these four signs should be kosher—even the long-headed one!

But then Rav Achai refutes this. He says: "No, you can't prove that! Maybe the arbeh, ḥargol, and solam are only kosher because none of them have long heads! Maybe a long head is a dealbreaker!"

Think about the tension in the study hall. The Sages are standing at the edge of the boundary. They are looking at this weird, long-headed shushifa grasshopper, and there is a voice (Rav Achai) saying: "It’s too weird. It doesn't look like us. Its head is too long. We have to exclude it."

But the Torah cannot let that stand.

Let’s look at Tosafot on Chullin 65a:10:1. Tosafot dives into this exact debate, explaining how the Sages resolve this tension:

...וסלעם למישרי ראשו ארוך כדמסקינן... (...And the "solam" is written as a redundant word to permit the one with the long head, as we conclude...)

The Sages realize that the word solam in the Torah is actually redundant. Why did the Merciful One write solam if we could have derived its kosher status from the other grasshoppers? It was written specifically to teach us that the long-headed grasshopper is kosher!

The Torah literally went out of its way, adding extra, seemingly redundant words, just to build a bridge of inclusion for the weird, long-headed outlier.

This is a massive, life-shifting insight for our families and our homes.

Think about your own family bunk, your own "cabin" at home. We all have a picture in our minds of what a "kosher" family member looks like. They are well-behaved, they follow the straight path, their "head" is shaped just like ours—meaning they think like us, vote like us, have the same career goals, and communicate in the exact same style.

But then, you get a "long-headed grasshopper" in your family. Maybe it’s a child who is neurodivergent, who doesn't fit into the standard school system, whose brain jumps in wild, non-linear patterns. Maybe it’s a sibling who chooses an unconventional, artistic life path that makes the rest of the family nervous. Maybe it’s a partner who processes emotion differently, who needs more space, whose "head is long" and takes a while to get to the point. Maybe it’s you—feeling like the outlier in your own family of origin, always wondering if your "long head" makes you unkosher, unlovable, or outside the boundary of the flock.

What does the Torah do? It doesn't say, "Well, try to squeeze your head into a normal shape." It doesn't say, "Go perform surgery on your forehead so you look like an arbeh."

No! The Torah writes a whole extra word—solam—just to say: "I see you, long-head. You have the jumping legs. You have the wings. You have the core essence of holiness. You are kosher. You belong inside the circle."

Look at how Tosafot continues, quoting a fascinating discussion from Tractate Shabbat Shabbat 90b about a sage named Rav Kahana:

...דרב כהנא מעבר שושיפא אפומא א"ל רב שקליה כי היכי דלא נימרו מיכל קא אכיל ליה... (...Rav Kahana passed a shushifa [long-headed grasshopper] over his mouth. Rav said to him: Take it away, so that people do not say you are eating it [and violating "do not make your souls detestable"]...)

Rav Kahana loved this little long-headed grasshopper! He was playing with it, passing it over his mouth, treating it with affection and playfulness. Even though other people might look at it with suspicion, the Sages knew its inner holiness.

When we bring Torah home, our job is to be like the School of Rabbi Yishmael. Our job is to look at our children, our partners, and ourselves, and say: "You don't have to fit the standard mold to be sacred. You have wings? You have jumping legs? You are trying to elevate your life? Then your long head is beautiful. We will build an extra 'redundant' word in our family vocabulary just to make sure you know you are home."

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Micro-Ritual

So, how do we take these two beautiful insights—the intentionality of our flock (the zarzir and the crow) and the radical inclusion of the outlier (the long-headed grasshopper)—and bring them into our actual homes this Friday night?

We do it by introducing a simple, powerful tweak to our Shabbat table ritual. We call it "The Perch and Wing Check-In."

This ritual is inspired by Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Tzadok, who says on Chullin 65a:

"One stretches a line, and the bird perches on it. If it splits its feet on the line, with two digits here and two there, it is non-kosher. If it places three digits here and one there, it is kosher."

And it is also inspired by Rav Pappa’s ruling that a kosher grasshopper must have its wings cover both its length and its circumference—a total, protective wrap.

This Friday night, after you light the candles, sing Shalom Aleichem, and sit down at the table, before you dive into the food, take a moment to pause.

Here is how you facilitate The Perch and Wing Check-In:

Step 1: The Perch (The Alignment Check)

Pass around a simple piece of string, or just have everyone look at the line of the table runner. Ask everyone at the table to share: "Where did you perch this week?"

• The Prompt: "A kosher bird perches with balance—three toes forward, one back. This week, did you feel balanced in your 'flock'? Did you spend your time with people who helped you fly higher, or did you find yourself 'dwelling with the crows'—absorbing gossip, stress, or negativity? How can we help you realign your perch this coming week?"

Step 2: The Wing Cover (The Protection Check)

Remember Rav Pappa’s rule: the wings must cover both length and circumference. The wings represent our protective boundaries, our self-care, and the shelter we offer to one another. Ask everyone: "How are your wings holding up?"

• The Prompt: "Are your wings covering your whole body, or do you feel exposed to the elements? Where do you need a little extra 'wing cover' from this family/friend group right now? Do you need us to cover your 'length' (your long-term goals and dreams) or your 'circumference' (your daily, immediate needs and anxieties)?"

Step 3: The "Solam" Blessing (The Long-Head Appreciation)

Before you break the Challah, look around the table. Identify one "long-headed" quality in someone else—a quirk, an unconventional way of thinking, a unique sensitivity—and call it out as a blessing.

• The Formula: "I want to offer a Solam blessing to [Name]. This week, I saw your 'long head' in the way you [mention unique action/quirk]. It doesn't fit the standard mold, and that is exactly why it is holy. Thank you for bringing your unique shape to our flock."

By doing this, your Shabbat table ceases to be just a place where you consume calories. It becomes a sanctuary. It becomes a camp fire circle in the middle of your dining room, where everyone is seen, everyone is protected, and even the wildest, most long-headed starlings find their perch.

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Chevruta Mini

Now, it’s your turn to talk. Find a partner—your partner, your kid, your best camp friend, or even just your own journal—and wrestle with these two questions:

1. Who is in your "flock" right now? If you look honestly at the five people you spend the most time with, are they "crows" or are they "kosher starlings"? Do they claw at the world, or do they help you peel your gizzard and stay soft? What is one boundary you need to set this week to protect your spiritual ecology?
2. Where is your own "long head"? What is the part of yourself that you have been trying to shrink or hide because it doesn't fit the "standard mold" of your family, your job, or your community? How can you use the Torah's "redundant word" (solam) to give yourself permission to occupy your full, beautiful, quirky space?

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Takeaway

As the Embers of our study session begin to cool, let’s bring it all back to the circle.

The Talmud in Chullin 65a isn't just a dusty catalog of ancient wildlife. It is a mirror. It reminds us that holiness isn't found in a sterile, perfect vacuum. It is found in the way we navigate the wild.

It tells us that we are composite creatures, constantly reacting to our environment. It tells us that our flock matters, that we must build homes that are sanctuaries of elevation, not nests of cynicism. And most of all, it tells us that the Divine architect of the universe loves the outliers. The Torah went out of its way to write an extra word just to make sure the long-headed grasshopper knew it had a place on the table.

So, pack up this Torah, throw it in your spiritual duffel bag, and carry it home. Keep your wings wrapped around your length and your circumference. Watch where you perch. And the next time you feel like a weird, long-headed creature who doesn't fit in, just remember: You are kosher. You are sacred. You are exactly who you were meant to be.

Let's close with one more hum of that melody... Lai-lai-lai-lai, lai-lai-lai-lai-lai...

Shabbat Shalom, campers. See you on the trail.