Shechita

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Image:Schect.jpg Shechita (Hebrew:שחיטה) is the ritual slaughter of animals, as prescribed for slaughter of mammals and birds according to Jewish dietary laws.<ref> Deut. 12:21, Deut. 14:21, Num. 11:22</ref> The act is performed by drawing a very sharp knife across the animal's throat and allowing the blood to drain out. Islamic dietary laws requires a similar procedure.

The practice is based on the Biblical law that men must not eat the blood of animals.<ref>Lev. 7:26-27; Lev. 17:10-14; Mishneh Torah Kedushah, Forbidden Foods 6:1</ref> The animal must be killed with respect by a shochet who has in mind the life of the animal as he draws the knife across its neck. The animal can be in a number of positions; when the animal is lying on its back, this is referred to as shechita munachat. The aim is to sever all the major blood vessels in the neck, causing blood pressure in the brain to drop as instantaneously as the pain signal travels to the brain. With the animal rendered unconscious, the heart must continue to pump to aid the removal of blood from the rest of the carcass.

For these latter reasons, prior stunning by humane bolt or other methods are not permitted. The animal must be in good health, and is inspected after death to confirm that it was. Those animals which are not cleanly killed by shechita, or which, on inspection, are found to have unacceptable adhesions on their lungs (or one of many other infarctions), are declared non-kosher.

If the hindquarters (or sirloin) of kosher mammals are to be eaten by Jews, they must be 'porged' - stripped of veins, fats<ref>Mishneh Torah Kedushah, Forbidden Foods 8:1</ref> and sinews<ref>Mishneh Torah Kedushah, Forbidden Foods 6:1</ref> in accordance with a strict procedure. <ref>Eisenstein, Judah David. (1901-1906). "PORGING". Jewish Encyclopedia. LCCN:16014703. Retrieved on 2006-07-23.</ref> Because of the expense of porging and the skill required to properly separate out the forbidden parts, a large portion of the meat of kosher mammals slaughtered through shechita in the United States winds up on the non-kosher market.

1 Process
- 1.1 Minor Rules
2 The Knife
3 Animal Welfare controversies
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Process

The process of shechita has its origins in the oral law, and has been codified in halakha in various sources, most notably the Shulchan Aruch. In order to fulfill the basic law of shechitah, the majority of the esophagus and trachea of a land animal, or the majority of either of them in the case of birds, must be sliced through with a back and forth sawing motion without violating one of the five major prohibited techniques, or various more detailed rules. The five major forbidden techniques include: Pressing, Pausing, Tearing, Piercing, or Covering.

Pressing is accomplished when the ritual slaughterer, called a Shochet, pushes the knife into the animals throat, chops rather than slices, or positions the animal improperly so that either its head presses down on the blade as it expires or the shochet must push the knife into the throat against the force of gravity. It is forbidden to have the animal in an upright position during shechita due to the prohibition of pressing. The animal must be either on its back, laying on its side, suspended upside down by a rope or chain, or - as is done in most commercial slaughter houses - placed in a barrel like pen that restrains the animal's limbs while it is turned on its back for slaughter.

Pausing is performed by the shochet if he stops the slaughtering process after either the trachea or esophagus has been cut but before they have been cut the majority of the way through. Pausing can happen accidentally if muscle contractions in the animal's neck pull one of these organs out of contact with the blade. The latter case is especially common in Turkeys.

Piercing is the result of stabbing the animal in the throat, slicing the trachea or esophagus with a serrated knife, slaughtering with a rusty knife or one that has an imperfection that rises above the blade's surface, burning the animals throat, or slaughtering with a knife that is so hot it would cause a person to not touch it. Burning is always considered piercing in shechita, regardless of the motion of the knife.

Tearing is caused by using a knife with an imperfection on the blade, such as a scratch or nick, that causes a section of blade to be lower than the surface of the blade.

Covering is accomplished by either cutting into the animal's throat so deeply that the entire width of the knife disappears in the wound, using a knife that is too short so that the end disappears in the wound, or by having a foreign object fall over the knife so the shochet loses sight of the incision.

[edit] Minor Rules

In addition to the five major rules there are also various less likely prohibitions and requirements. The animal's blood may not be collected in a bowl, a pit, or a body of water, as these resemble ancient forms of idol worship. If the shochet accidentally slaughters with a knife dedicated to idol worship, he must remove an amount of meat equivalent to the value of the knife and destroy it. If he slaughtered with such a knife on purpose, the animal is forbidden as not kosher. It is forbidden to slaughter an animal in front of others, or to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day, even separately. This is forbidden no matter how far away the animals are from each other. An animal's "young" is defined as either its own offspring, or another animal that follows it around, even if of another species.

[edit] The Knife

The knife used for shechita is called a hallaf by Ashkenazim or a sacin by Sephardim. By biblical law the knife may be made from anything not attached directly or indirectly to the ground and capable of being sharpened and polished to the necessary level of sharpness and smoothness required for shechita. The universal custom is now to use a metal knife. In Jewish law, the universal custom of Jews who observe the Sabbath becomes a law equivalent to a rabbinical law, unless it contradicts a biblical or rabbinical law, or was created through transgression of a previous custom. Anything but a metal knife today would render the animal unfit to eat except in certain narrow circumstances.

The knife must be minimally 1.5 or 2 times as long as the animals neck is wide, depending on the species of animal and the number of strokes needed to slaughter the animal; but not so long that the weight of the knife exceeds the weight of the animals head. If the knife is too large, it is assumed to cause Pressing. The knife must not have a point. It is feared a point may slip into the wound during slaughter and cause piercing. The blade may also not be serrated, as serrations cause tearing.

The blade may not have imperfections in it. All blades are assumed by Jewish law to be imperfect, so the knife must be sharpened before each session. The shochet must run his fingernail up and down both sides of the blade and on the cutting edge to determine if he can feel any imperfections. He then uses a number of increasingly fine abrasive stones to sharpen and polish the blade until it is perfectly sharp and smooth. After the slaughter, the shochet must check the knife again in the same way to be certain the first inspection was properly done, and to ensure the blade was not damaged during shechita. If the blade is damaged, the meat may not be eaten by Jews. If the blade falls or is lost before the second check is done, the first inspection is relied on and the meat is permitted.

In previous centuries the hallaf was made of forged steel, which was not reflective and was difficult to make both smooth and sharp. The Baal Shem Tov, fearing that Sabatianists were scratching the knives in a way not detectable by normal people, introduced the Chasidische Hallaf. The Chasidische Hallaf differs from the previously used knife in that it was made from molten steel and polished to a mirror gloss in which scratches could be seen as well as felt. The new knife was controversial and was one of four reasons listed in the Brody Cherem for the excommunication of the Chassidim.

Today the Chasidische Hallaf is the only commercially available knife for shechita and is universally accepted.

[edit] Animal Welfare controversies

See also: Bans on ritual slaughter

The humane attitude towards the slaughtered animal expressed in shechita law limits the extent to which Jewish slaughterhouses can industrialize their procedures. The most industrialized attempt at a kosher slaughterhouse, AgriProcessors of Postville, Iowa, became the center of controversy in 2004, after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released gruesome undercover video of cattle struggling to their feet with their tracheas and esophagi ripped out after shechita. Some of the cattle actually got up and stood for up to a couple of minutes after being dumped from the rotating pen. [1]

The Orthodox Union, the leading certificating body for kosher food in the USA, concluded that AgriProcessors was observing proper procedures [2], though some changes could be made in consideration of marit ayin - community perceptions. The OU pointed out:

While unnecessary cruelty to even one animal is intolerable, one has to look at the total picture before judging the matter. To those unfamiliar with the slaughter industry-kosher or non-kosher-scenes showing post-shechita movement of several animals, such as are shown on the video, can be very disturbing. But it must be realized that during the six or seven weeks during which the video was taken, approximately 18,000 animals were slaughtered by the plant in question. With such numbers, it is inevitable that aberrations do sometimes occur, and those shown in the video represent only a tiny percentage of the total number processed in that time span. [3]

PETA was rebuked by several parties in the Jewish community for mounting what they considered to be a vindictive campaign so soon after Jewish organizations had criticized the group for its "Holocaust on your Plate" ad campaign promoting veganism. [4] Leading rabbis of the non-Orthodox movements in Judaism, allied with a small number of Orthodox rabbis including David Rosen, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, sided with PETA and condemned what they viewed as the inhumane methods used at AgriProcessors. [5]

The Nazi Party banned shechita in Germany in 1933, which has led many in the Jewish community to view all attempts to regulate shechita with suspicion, as being motivated by Anti-Semitism. Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden have longstanding bans on shechita, ostensibly on animal welfare grounds, requiring their Jewish populations to import kosher meat. The United Kingdom forbids shechita munachat, also on animal welfare grounds, requiring the use of upright pens instead. Other European countries have more recently attempted to ban or restrict shechita, although local Jewish communities have been able to defeat these measures.

Dr. Temple Grandin, a leading animal scientist in the field, has worked with kosher slaughterhouses to replace shackle-and-hoist equipment with upright pens, including one she designed. She has criticized the continuing widespread use of what she views as cruel methods of restraint used in kosher slaughterhouses in South America and Israel [6]. When Dr. Grandin was shown the PETA video of AgriProcessors, she called AgriProcessor's procedures "an atrocious abomination" and the worst she had ever seen in working at over 30 kosher plants around the world [7]. see also:- Kashrut and animal welfare

The Farm Animal Welfare Council says that the method by which Kosher and Halal meat is produced causes severe suffering to animals and it should be banned immediately. According to FAWC it can take up to two minutes for cattle to bleed to death, thus amounting to animal abuse. Compassion in World Farming also supported the recommendation saying "We believe that the law must be changed to require all animals to be stunned before slaughter."<ref>BBC: Should Halal and Kosher meat be banned?</ref><ref>BBC: Halal and Kosher slaughter 'must end'</ref>