Zevakhim 73 Two more kashrut principles

Today’s daf TB Zevakhim 73 discusses the application of two more kashrut principles. This is the scenario. There are nine animals waiting to be sacrificed. And ineligible animal gets mixed in with the other nine animals and we don’t know which one is the ineligible one. The Mishnah teaches us that all 10 become ineligible to be offered up on the altar. But what is the halakha if a kohen separates one out anyway and sacrifices it. Is this sacrifice acceptable or not?

The first principle is “Any item that separates from a group is assumed to have separated from the majority (כֹל דְפָרֵישׁ  מֵרוּבָא פָרֵישׁ). Accordingly, the animal that was sacrificed is presumed to be fit. One can continue in this manner until only two animals from the mixture remain.” (Sefaria.org translation) For this principle to be operative whatever separated from the majority must be in motion.

The second principle is “anything stationary is considered as though it was half and half (כׇל קָבוּעַ כְמֶחֱצָה עַל מֶחֱצָה דָמֵי), i.e., equally balanced, and it remains a case of uncertainty.”(Sefaria.org translation) thee classic example of this principle is the case where there are 10 butchers on the same street. Nine out of the ten are kosher butchers. If you find a piece of meat on the street and you don’t know which butcher shop it came from, because the butcher shops are stationary halakha considers that the meat has a 50% probability of coming from the nonkosher butcher. Consequently, one may not take this lost piece of meat, prepare it, and eat it.

The Gemara reaches the conclusion that the above kohen’s sacrifice is unacceptable even if you spook the animals to get them moving in order to apply the first principle. Rava explains the reasoning behind this decision. “Rava says that one may not allow the animals to be sacrificed by moving them due to a decree that if this is allowed, one may, in another circumstance, allow them to be sacrificed even when they are taken from a fixed location.” (Sefaria.org translation)