Shechita by an Elder -- article preview
This is my Jewish Link article for the upcoming week, but is based on today’s daf.
Chullin 24 discusses age restrictions for a kohen performing service in the beit hamikdash. A brayta says he may serve from puberty until he ages; a levi meanwhile is restricted by specific years, from 30 until 50. Defining “until he ages”, Rabbi Ill’a quotes Rabbi Chanina that this means until he trembles, which Rashi explains means that his hands and feet tremble from lack of strength. Regarding the definition of a young person, Rabbi Ill’a quotes Rabbi Chanina that anyone who can stand on one foot and don or doff his shoe is considered young. Indeed, they said about the same Rabbi Chanina that even at 80, he would stand on one foot and don and doff his shoe. He said, “the hot water and oil my mother smeared on me in my youth benefited me in my old age.”
Thus, age restrictions are defined by capability, rather than specific years. This stands in contrast to restrictions found in Eldad HaDani’s book, Hilchot Amar Yehoshua. I recently discussed this work in a Jewish Link article (“Female Shochatot”, April 30, 2026). Eldad HaDani lived in Geonic times, and was probably a convincing fraud. He claimed to have come from the tribe of Dan, among a group of others of the ten lost tribes living over the Sambatyon river, to have visited several other tribes, before arriving in Kairouan. He shared with the Jews a collection of laws, all of which were stated by Yehoshua bin Nun who heard them from Moshe who in turn heard them from the Almighty. I suggested that this was a problematic perversion of our masorah, and polite dismissal of a fraud’s innovations as mere stringencies allowed his fabrications to enter the world of halacha.
Aside from restricting women from shechting, he also ruled out the elderly. In paragraph 31, he writes: “And this shechita is invalid via a blind person, an amputee, an apostate Jew, and in the dark – but by the sun, moon, or lamp light it is permitted to shecht. And if the shechita was via a woman, via someone sterile from birth, via a lad, he should not shecht – until eighteen years have passed; nor via an elder after 80 years old, since his strength has gone from him and his wits are not collected, and his hands shake, and the knife in his hands will wobble – and when the knife reaches from his hands, the shechita will not come out well, for he will not cut the esophagus.”
Conflict With Talmudic Law
As with the rest of his work, many of these restrictions don’t match Mishnaic and Talmudic law. We’ve already discussed in the previous article how, according to the clear Mishnah and Gemara, women may shecht lechatchila. Similarly, what is disallowed in Talmudic law is slaughter by a minor, meaning someone less than thirteen years old. Even in such a case, there are distinctions made if they are skilled at the act of shechita, know the laws well, or have others supervising them. A lad who is thirteen years and a day is a perfectly valid shochet.
