דיני כחל — tables, golden rules, pitfalls and review
יורה דעה · סימן צ׳
דיני כחל
✨ Review Level · חזרה וסיכום
✦ ❖ ✦
Synthesis of Siman 90: comparative tables (roast / cook / fry / pâté), the golden rules for disgorging the milk, the ביטול בששים with כחל מן המנין, the classic pitfalls (dried udder, knife, spit, kevicha) and a quick memorization of the 4 seifim.
Topic: The keil (the udder) — synthesis and review Source: שולחן ערוך יורה דעה סימן צ׳
Compilation: הרב יוסף חיים סממה DAAT · daattorah.com
📑 Outline of the review
1.The 4 seifim on one page
2.The golden rules of the keil
3.The master table: roast / cook / fry / pâté
4.Disgorging the milk: קריעה, טיחה, מירוק
5.The ביטול בששים and כחל מן המנין
6.The classic pitfalls
7.Map of the machlokot Shach / Taz / others
8.Self-test for memorization
1. The 4 seifim on one page
Seif
Content
To remember
1
The keil is de-rabbanan (חלב שחוטה). Disgorging (קריעה / טיחה). Cooked by mistake: ביטול בששים, כחל מן המנין. Becomes חתיכה האסורה.
The foundation of everything: de-rabbanan + how to lift the prohibition.
2
Minhag not to cook it at all. Frying/pâté = like cooking. Roasting = slitting alone. Dried udder (30 days): permitted after the fact even with meat. Pâté permitted except in a pan.
Everything is minhag and gezera; the underlying law remains that of seif 1.
3
Knife, spit, dish that served for meat: permitted. Keil roasted properly = ordinary meat. No כבוש כמבושל when cold.
After disgorging + roasting, no more "milky character" remains.
4
Salting/roasting with meat = like the liver (כבד). Some even permit salting it on top. Skin of the emptied abomasum = ordinary meat.
Parallel to the liver; after the fact everything permitted.
2. The golden rules of the keil
Rule 1 — Everything starts from "חלב שחוטה": the milk of the keil is not a milk forbidden by the Torah (it never came out of the living animal). The prohibition is therefore only rabbinic. This is what makes the entire siman relatively lenient after the fact.
Rule 2 — Two levels of disgorging: to roast = cross-slit alone; to cook / fry / pâté = cross-slit + pressing against the wall (or: slitting it several times, still preferable — Rama).
Rule 3 — One does not cook the keil at all (minhag): by gezera (for fear of cooking it with meat). But this is only a custom — Shach s.k. 6: כל זה מצד המנהג.
Rule 4 — Cooked by mistake in a mixture: ביטול בששים, and the keil counts itself (כחל מן המנין). Sixty = the rest is permitted, the keil forbidden. Less than sixty = everything forbidden.
Rule 5 — The cooked keil becomes a "forbidden piece": if it falls into another pot, it renders it forbidden. If it had first fallen into less than sixty, it no longer joins the count (Rama, "וכן עיקר").
3. The master table — roast / cook / fry / pâté
Mode of preparation
Disgorging required (a priori)
After the fact (בדיעבד)
Roast (צלי)
Cross-slit (קריעה שתי וערב)
Even without slitting, if roasted alone → permitted (seif 1, Taz s.k. 1)
The hierarchy of severity, from lightest to heaviest: roasting < frying/cooking alone < cooking with meat. The more one "locks" the milk inside a liquid, the stricter one is.
4. Disgorging the milk — the three actions
Hebrew action
Translation
When
מירוק החלב
Drawing out / emptying the milk
Base level for roasting and eating
קריעה שתי וערב
Slitting crosswise (length + width)
Required for roasting; minimum for everything
טיחה בכותל
Pressing against the wall
In addition, for cooking with meat
The Rama (seif 2) teaches that slitting and incising several times crosswise over the entire surface is still preferable to pressing (וחתכו כמה פעמים... עדיף ומהני יותר). And the Shach (s.k. 9) reports that a press (מכבש) is equivalent to pressing against the wall.
5. The ביטול בששים and כחל מן המנין
Three key points from the Shach (s.k. 4):
One needs sixty times the WHOLE keil, not only the milk that came out of it (we do not know how much came out).
The keil counts itself in the sixty (כחל מן המנין), because its body is permitted meat (Rashba), or because it is permitted on its own (Rambam).
The same logic as in Siman 69 (unsalted meat: sixty against the meat, not only against the blood).
Total volume / keil
Status of the rest
Status of the keil
≥ 60 (keil counted)
🟢 Permitted
🔴 Forbidden
< 60
🔴 Forbidden
🔴 Forbidden
The keil is NOT a בריה: the Shach (s.k. 5) rejects the Ba'h on this point — unlike the gid hanasheh (סימן ק'), the keil is not a "whole creature" that is indivisible. It therefore does nullify in sixty.
6. The classic pitfalls
Pitfall 1 — "cooked alone = always permitted after the fact": FALSE. Cooked alone is permitted after the fact only if it was cross-slit AND pressed. Without disgorging, it remains forbidden even after the fact, unless there is sixty (Shach s.k. 16).
Pitfall 2 — "the pâté is always permitted": FALSE. The pâté of keil alone is permitted, but not in a pan (מחבת), which is equivalent to cooking in a pot (Rama; Shach s.k. 19).
Pitfall 3 — "30 days is an absolute rule": NUANCE. The 30 days are a presumption (מסתמא); if the udder is actually dry before then, it is already eased (Shach s.k. 17).
Pitfall 4 — confusing keil with true bassar be-halav: the keil is de-rabbanan (חלב שחוטה); it is not the de-oraita prohibition of Siman 87. That is why it nullifies in sixty and counts itself — impossible for a true de-oraita meat-and-milk mixture.
Pitfall 5 — the skin of the abomasum: once emptied of its milk and rinsed, it has no status of keil — it is ordinary meat (seif 4). Do not treat it as a keil.
7. Map of the machlokot
Topic
Lenient
Strict
Decided
חתיכה נעשית נבילה (< 60)
Rambam / Raa / B.Y. — rejoins
Rashba — no longer rejoins
Rama: like the Rashba ("וכן עיקר")
Cooked with meat, bedi'avad
Maharshal — even without hefsed
Ba'h — forbidden even bedi'avad
Rama / Shach: hefsed merubeh
כבוש when cold (chalav shechuta)
Taz — no כבוש כמבושל
Pri Megadim — possible to forbid
Pithei Teshuva cites both
Salting the keil onto meat
Rosh / Tur — permitted even a priori
Issur ve-Heter — not a priori
Rama: bedi'avad everything permitted
8. Self-test for memorization
Answer from memory, then check:
Why is the keil only de-rabbanan? (answer: חלב שחוטה — the milk is not a milk forbidden by the Torah)
What is needed to roast? To cook with meat? (slitting alone / slitting + pressing)
What does כחל מן המנין mean? (the keil counts within the sixty)
Is the keil a בריה? (no — Shach s.k. 5)
Is the pâté of keil permitted? (yes, except in a pan)
A dried udder cooked with meat by mistake? (permitted after the fact)
A meat knife + a raw udder full of milk? (permitted — seif 3)
Cooked with meat without sixty: when is it permitted after the fact? (hefsed merubeh, after disgorging)
The sentence to engrave: "The keil is meat that carries its milk — milk of a slaughtered animal, hence only de-rabbanan. We empty it (slitting + pressing), we avoid cooking it (minhag), and if it is cooked by mistake, it nullifies in sixty by counting itself."
To go further
📖 Level 1 — Base: the text of the 4 seifim, translation and concepts
📚 Level 2 — Lamdan: the pilpul, the machloket Rambam/Rashba, the sugya of כבוש כמבושל