Procedure
Slaughtering poultry according to religious rules,
Shalom Koboshvili, 1940
The
shechita procedure, which must be performed by a
shochet, is described in the relevant texts
[5] only as severing the wind pipe and food pipe (trachea and esophagus). Nothing is mentioned about veins or arteries. However, in practice, as a very long sharp knife is used, in cattle the soft tissues in the neck are sliced through without the knife touching the spinal cord, in the course of which four major blood vessels, two of which transport oxygenated blood to the brain (the carotid arteries) the other two transporting blood back to the heart (jugular veins) are severed. The vagus nerve is also cut in this operation. With fowl, the same procedure is followed, but a smaller knife is used.
A
special knife is used, that is very long; and no undue pressure may be applied to the knife, which must be very sharp.
[6][7] The procedure may be performed with the animal either lying on its back (שחיטה מוונחת,
shechita munachat) or standing (שחיטה מעומדת,
shechita me'umedet).
[8] In the case of fowl (with the exception of large fowl like turkey) the bird is held in the non-dominant hand in such a way that the head is pulled back and the neck exposed, while the cut made with the dominant hand.
[9]
The procedure is done with the intention of causing a rapid drop in blood pressure in the brain and loss of consciousness, to render the animal insensitive to pain and to
exsanguinate in a prompt and precise action.
[10][11] It has been suggested that eliminating blood flow through the carotid arteries does not cut blood flow to the brain of a bovine because the brain is also supplied with blood by vertebral arteries,
[12] however other authorities note the distinction between severing the carotid versus merely blocking it.
[11]
If one did not sever the entirety of both the
trachea and
esophagus, then an animal may still be considered kosher as long as one severed the majority of the
trachea and
esophagus (windpipe and food pipe) of a mammal, or the majority of either one of these in the case of birds.
[6] The cut must be incised with a back-and-forth motion without violating one of the five major prohibited techniques
[13] (see
below), or various other detailed rules.
Forbidden techniques
- Shehiyah (שהייה; delay or pausing) - Pausing during the incision and then starting to cut again makes the animal's flesh unkosher.[14] The knife must be moved across the neck in an uninterrupted motion until the trachea and esophagus are sufficiently severed to avoid this.[6] There is some disagreement among legal sources as to the exact length of time needed to constitute shehiyah, but today the normative practice is to disqualify a kosher cut as a result of any length of pausing.[15]
- Derasah (דרסה; pressing/chopping) - The knife must be drawn across the throat by a back and forth movement, not by chopping, hacking, or pressing without moving the knife back and forth.[16] There are those[17] who assert that it is forbidden to have the animal in an upright position during shechita due to the prohibition of derasah. They maintain that the animal must be on its back or lying on its side, and some also allow for the animal to be suspended upside down.[18] However, the Rambam explicitly permits upright slaughter,[19] and the Orthodox Union as well as all other major kosher certifiers in the United States accept upright slaughter.[20]
- Haladah (חלדה; covering, digging, or burying) - The knife must be drawn over the throat so that the back of the knife is at all times visible while shechita is being performed. It must not be stabbed into the neck or buried by fur, hide, feathers, the wound itself, or a foreign object (such as a scarf) which may cover the knife.[21]
- Hagramah (הגרמה; cutting in the wrong location) - Hagramah refers to the location on the neck on which a kosher cut may be performed; cutting outside this location will in most cases disqualify a kosher cut.[22] According to today's normative Orthodox practice, any cutting outside this area will in all cases disqualify a kosher cut.[22] The limits within which the knife may be applied are from the large ring in the windpipe to the top of the upper lobe of the lung when it is inflated, and corresponding to the length of the pharynx. Slaughtering above or below these limits renders the meat unkosher.
- Iqqur (עיקור; tearing) - If either the esophagus or the trachea is torn during the shechita incision, the carcass is rendered unkosher. Iqqur can occur if one tears out the esophagus or trachea while handling an animal's neck or if the esophagus or trachea is torn by a knife with imperfection/s on the blade, such as nicks or serration.[23][24][25] In order to avoid tearing, the kosher slaughter knife is expertly maintained and regularly checked with the shochet's fingernail to ensure that no nicks are present.[26]
Breaching any of these five rules renders the animal
nevelah; the animal is regarded in Jewish law as if it were
carrion.
Temple Grandin has observed that "if the rules (of the five forbidden techniques) are disobeyed, the animal will struggle. If these rules are obeyed, the animal has little reaction."
[27]
Shechita - Wikipedia