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SHEMOT

The Quail That Exploded in the Oven

The Quail That Exploded in the Oven

Part of Shemot · 19:32

A textual question on whether the quail (shliav) were slaughtered or merely spread out, the four types of quail, and why their fattiness caused ovens to explode.

Audio Transcript
Kaddish Request and Tehillim Recitation

I'm sorry for the disturbance, but I just arrived from Israel and I have to say a Kaddish. You want to say yourself? So you want to say, which kind of Kaddish? Kaddish Derabbanan or Kaddish Yasom? Kaddish Yasom. So let's all say a kapitel Tehillim and you'll be able to say a Kaddish after. למנצח מזמור לדוד יענך ה' ביום צרה ישגבך שם אלהי יעקב ישלח עזרך מקדש ומציון יסעדך יזכור כל מנחתך ועולתך ידשנה סלה יתן לך כלבבך וכל עצתך ימלא נרננה בישועתך ובשם אלהינו נדגל ימלא ה' כל משאלותיך עתה ידעתי כי הושיע ה' משיחו יענהו משמי קדשו בגברות ישע ימינו אלה ברכב ואלה בסוסים ואנחנו בשם ה' אלהינו נזכיר המה כרעו ונפלו ואנחנו קמנו ונתעודד ה' הושיעה המלך יעננו ביום קראנו. יתגדל ויתקדש שמיה רבא. אמן. בעלמא די ברא כרעותיה וימליך מלכותיה ויצמח פורקניה ויקרב משיחיה. אמן. בחייכון וביומיכון ובחיי דכל בית ישראל בעגלא ובזמן קריב ואמרו אמן. אמן. יהא שמיה רבא מברך לעלם ולעלמי עלמיא. יתברך וישתבח ויתפאר ויתרומם ויתנשא ויתהדר ויתעלה ויתהלל שמיה דקודשא בריך הוא, אמן, לעלא מן כל ברכתא ושירתא תושבחתא ונחמתא דאמירן בעלמא ואמרו אמן. אמן. יהא שלמא רבא מן שמיא וחיים עלינו ועל כל ישראל ואמרו אמן. אמן. עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל ואמרו אמן. אמן.

Interpretation of שטוח vs שחוט and Printing Error

Good. So it says that the שליו that came, it became like a carpet. אמר ריש לקיש, Reish Lakish said different: אל תקרי וישטחו אלא וישחטו. Don't read it וישטחו, but וישחטו. It's a print, it's a print. Yeah, this is a טעות הדפוס. מלמד שנתחייבו שונאיהם של ישראל שחיטה. Shows that the Yidden deserved to be geschochet. Who's this? Because they of the שליו. And then it says the word שטוח he deytsh't it's different now. It says it, no, they died, and you know many of them died right away, many of them died after a month. That was the whole, was that when they, was that when the snake? No, no, that was a, that was the snake, snakes were bitten, yeah. שטוח, תנא משמיה דרבי יהושע בן קרחה, the word שטוח Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha learns, אל תקרי שטוח אלא שחוט. Melamed, it teaches us, שירד להם לישראל עם המן דבר שטעון שחיטה. When the slav came together with the man, so the pasuk tells you that this needed shechitah. As if saying that we didn't know the dinim of shechitah till now. Now when the birds came, that's when the אויבערשטער gave a remez that you need shechitah. אמר ליה רבי, רבי said, וכי מכאן אתה לומד? From here, this is where we know the din of shechitah? והלא כבר נאמר, it says, וימטר עליהם כעפר שאר וכחול ימים עוף כנף. That it says in the, that He gave them עוף כנף, and that means that a, this was a din of a bird, דתניא, it says, רבי אומר, רבי says, וזבחת כאשר צויתיך, it says by shechting it says you should, when you want to eat meat, you should שחט כאשר צויתיך, like I commanded you. Now, in chumash

Shechitah Absence in Chumash and Oral Tradition

there's no commandment on shechitah. It doesn't say how to shecht, where to shecht. Melamed, that shows us, שנצטווה משה, that Moshe was told בעל פה על הושט ועל הקנה, the two windpipe, the windpipe and the food pipe, and the דין, רוב אחד בעוף, that by one, by a bird you could shecht enough one of the two simanim to cut, the majority, ורוב שנים בבהמה, by behemah you have to have two. Wow. How does, how is it shown? No, this doesn't show it. Here it just says כאשר צויתיך. You should shecht. What does the kapitel, the, the pasuk from Tehillim say? That He gave them like a, it's a עוף כנף, it's like a bird. It's a bird. What about it? And then here it says you should shecht, so you put the two together. A winged bird. A what? Winged. A winged bird. But why did, why did they connect the וזבחת together with of? No, from the vezavachta we know that you have to shecht. But birds? And, and we learned from this, and the, and the Rebbe says what was included in that shechitah? רוב אחד בעוף. And the pasuk says that they got an עוף. שליו is an עוף. Maybe שליו is not an עוף, maybe שליו is a fish, I don't know, שליו is an עוף. So from that we know that you have to shecht. But by the way, this is one of the re'ayot from Chumash that there is תורה שבעל פה. Cuz otherwise who, how do you know? But otherwise, so then, why does it have, why is it not in the Chumash? Meaning why is it not in the Chumash, yeah, why did it have to be? Cuz the Oibershter gave בעל פה a lot of דינים, but the Torah indicates that there was something given בעל פה. The Torah says, you should do like I told you. So if there would be pesukim earlier, you could say, okay, it refers to those pesukim. Doesn't say anywhere in the Torah how to shecht, and it says shecht as I told you. A סימן that Hashem had told them. But the

Clarifying the Source of Shechitah Rules

bottom line is that it's not from the פסוק שטוח, שחוט that we know we have to shecht. אלא מה תלמוד לומר שחוט, or שטוח, what does it mean שטוח? מלמד When did He tell him? Before מתן תורה or after מתן תורה? After מתן תורה. The also the בעל פה part? Yeah, בעל פה was also after מתן תורה, sure. How did they shecht at the who told them how to shecht in the קרבן פסח? Well, they knew from before. So how'd they know if He Right, but it wasn't נצטווה, they weren't commanded. I understand, but the the concept of shechitah was by Yosef yet. Yosef told them to שחט, so the brothers should be able to eat, they should שחט. Avraham didn't שחט to the to the מלאכים? It doesn't say. I'll say no, there it says. Rashi says, says וטבוח טבח, no וטבוח טבח והכן. Rashi says showed showed them how to שחט it properly. But that means, but Hashem what we're saying here Hashem did was not command them, just showed them, but it like But I told you, but I told you before whole מסכת, too. Yeah, but that wasn't commanded for always. Not for this pasuk, you wouldn't have to שחט. You could kill an animal and eat. Here it says, It says שחט, it says in the Torah שחט. No, here it says וזבחת. Torah says what? שחט. שחט, we don't know how, but it says שחט, you can't No, but this pasuk, no, but if not for this pasuk, we wouldn't have to שחט. This is the pasuk which says that an animal has to be נשחט. Right, and that's not, that's No, that's in the Torah. Right. How to שחט? How to שחט He says as I told you. And when did He tell us? From Matan Torah. But that could be before Matan Torah. No. Before Matan Torah, anything we were told before Matan Torah, we don't have to keep. No, he didn't he didn't This is this is a a way, it's a it's a process, it's not a mitzvah. It's a גילוי מילתא, it's a גילוי מילתא like we always say. Did He teach it only first to Moshe Rabbeinu or to the Yidden? To Moshe. Did He teach No, and then he should tell the Yidden. No, but if but it says וזבחת doesn't mean Moshe, it says to Moshe, but Moshe should tell it to the Yidden. Like I told the Yidden, like I told you before to tell the Yidden. Even ברית מילה? You can't, because it's after מתן תורה. Yeah, but ברית מילה He told them how to do it beforehand. Did He command it did He from after And later when He commanded, He told them over again. Okay, exactly. Yeah, He told them exactly how to do it, yeah. Yeah. But what does אלא מה תלמוד לומר שטח? שטוח, שטיחה? What does that mean שטיחה? He says מלמד שיורד להם משטיחין משטיחין. In other words, when the flock came, it became like like a carpet, layers. Carpet and on top of that like full, when you looked down the whole thing was covered, the whole floor, everything was covered with layers upon layers. And where did they find the man? Huh? Above the flocks. The man came too. Yeah, during the morning. Different different times. Morning and evening. Man came in the morning, שלו came in the evening. שליו before, right? Yeah, yeah, pashut, פוקס. Best. Okay. Kativ, it says בנוגע המן, in one place it's called it lechem, bread. Kativ, one place it calls it shemen, כטעם השמן, it says looks like a shemen, tastes like oil. Kativ another פסוק, devash, honey. אמר רבי חנינא הא כיצד? Which one is it? לנעורים לחם, for youngsters it was like it was bread, because for them it's healthy to eat bread. Tasted like bread or felt like bread? Huh? It tasted like bread? Probably had the Tasted like bread. Oh, it felt, it tasted like whatever you wanted. Right. So you could have any taste you want. But it was Basically, what he's saying, it gave everything, every person, every type of person what it needed, what he needed. So for the person that needed bread, this was the bread of that needed. That was it had the the nutrition that needed for every person. For bread, לזקנים שמן, for old, it's important to have oil. And לתינוקות, for children, it's devash, it's honey. So like, while they were eating, it could change taste? Like, they had one they had one omer and and they could eat a piece of it and it would taste like one thing, and then they eat another piece and it would take it like Could they have have in mind one should be milk, one should be meat? Yeah. בשר בחלב. How does that work? What if you had in mind cheese Cheeseburger, burger. Probably could. Just to think of it is טרף. What about What? Cheetos? Whatever Cheetos taste like, I want it to taste like that. Okay, the Gemara ווייטער, כתיב, it says, the פסוק says שלו with a שׂ, שׂ. וקרינן סלו, with a ס, but really it says שׂ. אמר רבי חנינא, חנינא said like this, שלו comes from the word שלוה, שלוה means peace. צדיקים אכלו ליה בשלוה, צדיקים ate it peacefully. רשעים אכלו ליה, the רשעים ate it, ודומה להן כסלוין, כסילונין, that tasted or felt like thorns. It wasn't worth to be a רשע in the מדבר. But who was a רשע in the מדבר? How can you be, you just got The whole ערב רב. Just after Torah came, uh, I don't know, whole thing. And and the עגל how did they make it? They were at least thousand before, the ways from there. No! 40 days after מתן תורה, 40 days after מתן תורה! Just 40 days! For the עגל, they had a good kavana, they had the right kavana, they wanted to get back to Hashem. So, it wasn't like a rasha doing it lechatchilah. No, but not when they were dancing and doing all those things. But, uh, he killed so many people, it's It's not pashut then. Not pashut.

Four Types of שליו (Quail) Explained

אמר רב חנא בר אבא, Rav Chana bar Abba said: ארבעה מיני שליו הן, there are four types of this שליו. How do they say שליו in English? Quail. Quail. Is that? Yeah. ואלו הן: שיבלי, קיבלי, פסיוני, and שליו. Partridge, pheasant. Roasted? Delicious. Huh? You had that? Oh, sure. Kosher? Sure it is. So proud that the Shluchim's convention that time, the Prime Minister said that he had roasted pheasant when he was giving a speech about what they had with Menachem Begin when he came to America or something. Yeah, that's what they served and they made a whole big thing out of that. מעליא דכולהו שיבלי, the best of all four is the first for שיבלי. גריעא דכולהו, the worst is the one מין that's called שליו. They're all called שליו, but there's one in this מין that has a specific name of שליו, and that's the worst. שיכלי, no? שי? שיכלי? No, it's a שיבלי. Is it with a כ? Here's with a ב. שיבלי with a ב. שיכלי, it says with a כ? That's what you have. No, it defines it down in this line. Yeah. שיכלי, it says with a כ. It's definitely with a כ. Really? Ein Yaakov says with a ב. With a ב, yeah. שיכלי. Okay. דהבא כיתפירסא, it tastes like a bird, ומלחו ליה, they would salt it, ומותבי ליה בתנורא, you put it in the oven, ותפח, so fat, פשוט blows up, ורווי עד דמלי ליה לתנורא. It

Fattiness of the Quail and Oven Explosion

blows up so much that it fills up the whole, it takes up the whole oven, it fills up. ומסקי ליה, you take it, ומותבי ליה אאתליסר ריפתא, you put it down on 13 breads. 13 slices? No, but it looks like a 13 breads. ובתרייתא דכולהו לא מיתאכלא אלא בתערובת, and even the last one also is so fat that cannot be eaten unless you mix it with other stuff. Or if all the fat dripped down into the bread, I guess it soaked with oil and fat. One might think there's some aggadata on this, like some peirush? No? Not worried about cholesterol. Hmm? They're not worried about cholesterol. Not worried about cholesterol. Why, it's a peshat. It's very fatty bird. They're fat. You know, you eat such a bird. No, they asked for meat, and the Aibishter gave them שליו, which is the closest in birds, in chicken, in birds, meat closest to a beheima. Huh? Even more fat than meat. Meat, yeah. It's not unusual. You know how fat it was. Soaking from a lot of fat. Shmaltz. Yeah. That sounds like a guzma to me. You know, blows up and fills up the whole oven? How big how big is an oven? It came from the sky and it fit in the oven. Exactly, he said. It came from the sky and it fill up the oven. You can't understand it fill up the oven? But it took it took like it was real birds, regular birds. Yeah, I guess into regular birds. They got to shecht them. Did they have to shecht them? Or just as says, they shecht it. If it came from the sky, they were migrating from Canada to wherever. And I don't think it came from the sky. Aibishter brought them. The fact that they came, He made them come from some countries. Yeah. Yeah. They were delicious. Delicious. Oh, sure. Yeah. All right, they weren't indigenous to the desert or the desert area, so like you said, it's still miraculous that The miracle not that they were created miraculously. They were brought. Like the Makkos, the צפרדעים came, צפרדע came from who knows, from the Yam Suf and ארבה came also, like gigantic was. ארבה also. רב יהודה משכח ליה ביני דני, רב יהודה would find amongst the barrels, he would find these birds, ורב חסדא משכח ליה ביני ציבי, amongst the wood, between the wood, he would find these birds. רבא הוה רגיל מייתי ליה ציידא כל יומא מאגמא, that Rabba the seder was that every day this guy would bring him, this hunter would bring him from the אגם, from the swamp, would bring him these birds. ההוא יומא לא אייתי ליה, one day he didn't come to bring him. אמר: מאי האי? What happened today is different? סליק לאגרא, he went up to the roof. שמע, from the roof he heard a child, ינוקא, a child דקאמר, quoting a פסוק: שָׁמַעְתִּי וַתִּרְגַּז בִּטְנִי, I heard something and my stomach started turning. אמר: שמע מינה נח נפשיה דרב חסדא, such a remez, assumed that something terrible happened, Rav Chisda, who was his rebbi and his father-in-law, died. ובדיל רבא אכל תלמידא, and from here that's why the guy stopped bringing me, because I assumed that in the zechut of my רבי, I got this bird, this geshmaka bird every day. The day that he died, so that zechut is not open no more, and therefore he stopped bringing me. כתיב, one pasuk says: וּבְרֶדֶת הַטַּל עַל הַמַּחֲנֶה לַיְלָה יֵרֵד הַמָּן עָלָיו, the tal came down the dew came down, the man came on top. So it seems like the tal was on the bottom and the man was on top of the tal. כתיב, another pasuk says ותעל שכבת הטל. That's when the tal went away, they saw the man. That means that the tal was on top of the man. אמר רבי יוסי בר חנינא, חנינא said טל מלמעלה וטל מלמטה. Yeah, there was tal on the bottom, tal on top, כמי שמונח בקופסא, it looked like it was in a box, it was laying in a box like Clear, no? Was the man glistening or something? What? The man itself was, yeah. Okay. So the box, no, the tal was like a box, like a sandwich. There really was a tal on top, tal on the bottom. So we cover the we cover the lechem mishneh. That's right. So the the board underneath is considered the Right, yeah. Don't we lift it up? What about lifting up the lechem mishneh? Isn't there a minhag to do that? You pick up make a berachah before you Yeah, could be. Then the pasuk has דק מחספס. What does that mean? Dak is thin. מחספס, אמר ריש לקיש: דבר שנמוח על פיסות היד. Mechaspes mean comes from the word moach and פיסות, something that melts in your hand. ורבי יוחנן אמר, and says: דבר שנבלע ברמ״ח איברים, something that melts in your body. M&M, melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Yeah. It melts in your hand, but this says not in your hand. The second peshat says it melts. Wants to show that something is so good, it takes so geshmak, so it melts in your hands, and here it will melt in your mouth. תני אושעיא: מחוספס בגימטריא הכי הוי. Mechusp as is the gematria 248. פרעגט די Gemara: מחוספס טובא הוי, no, מחוספס is more! Make the gematria, it's more, six more! אמר רב נחמן בר יצחק: מחספס כתיב, without a ו. It's written, you read it מחוספס, but it's written מחספס. So it's written without a ו. So without a ו, מ ח ס פ ס adds up to to 248. Maybe that's for women, how many extra do they have? Huh? Women have extra bones, right? How many? 6, 2, 3 Different opinions, that's why we don't use the lashon. Different opinions. We can learn another amud if you want, could be. תנו רבנן, the Rabbanan did learn: לחם אבירים אכל איש. Pshat pashut it goes on all the Yidden, they ate לחם אבירים. What's אבירים? אבירים, the malachim. לחם שמלאכי השרת אוכלין אותו. דברי רבי עקיבא. Akiva says that it means bread, mon was the food of the מלאכים. נשמעו דברים לפני רבי ישמעאל, when whatever said to רבי ישמעאל, אמר להו, he said to them: צאו ואמרו לו לעקיבא, tell עקיבא: עקיבא, טעית! Akiva, you made a mistake! וכי מלאכי השרת אוכלין לחם? Malachim eat bread? והלא כבר נאמר, it says: לחם לא אכלתי, and when I came to למעלה, I didn't eat any bread, and there is no need for it. אלא מה אני מקיים לחם אבירים? What does it say לחם אבירים? אל תקרי לחם אבירים אלא לחם איברים! אבירים is the מלאכים, איברים means the limbs, the bread of the limbs, לחם שנבלע ברמ״ח איברים, the bread that's absorbed into the 248 איברים. That's to teach us for sure that malachim don't eat bread? Yeah. מה אני מקיים ויד תהיה לך מחוץ למחנה? The Aibershter in the מדבר said that everyone should go around and have like a little hammer, a little nail, that when he has to go to the bathroom A shovel. Huh? Shovel. Yated. to go out, he should be able to go out of the מחנה to do his needs, and then be able to dig and cover it up. But if it got absorbed in the body, there was no פסולת, there was no waste. So they didn't need it. That's בדברים שמתגרי אומות העולם מוכרים להן, all the things that the גוים from all around countries, the merchants used to come and sell them all kinds of things. They used to buy all kinds of food. Those foods takeh had פסולת, so they needed it for that. But those that only ate מן טאקע didn't need it. So they had all the בהמות, they had the שליו, they also had the מן, and they still bought from them. From the peddlers From the peddlers they bought vegetables. The guy wanted a tomato, you know what he He says, talks about Moshe Rabbeinu. Hydroponic tomato? That's another peshat. פשוטו של פשט is those the people ate the מן. They have to also bring There was something talked about איש, and the Gemara says later איש. Moshe, Yehoshua How about the pregnant women? Didn't they crave something else That's what we learned yesterday, the five different things. And they had to buy that from other Yeah. Yeah. Onions, garlic. Not that they craved it, no.

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