Cohn, Jacob. The Royal Table - VWC: Faculty/Staff Web

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74 THE ROYAL TABLE
some of it is prohibited by the Torah proper, while the
rest is not used because of an ancient custom of absti-
nence. 6 Most of the intestines are covered with edible fat,
but about one cubit from either end of the intestine is
trimmed of its fat. 7 The spleen is covered with a cuticle
of inedible cheleb, which must be removed together with
the three veins which traverse the spleen. 8 The fat cover-
ing the kidney and the white fat which is in the kidney
near the ureter must be removed. 9
After the animal is trimmed of fat there still remains
the "sinew of Jacob," which must be excised. "And he
limped," says the Bible story of Jacob's wrestling with the
angel; "therefore the children of Israel do not eat the sinew
which slipped, which is on the hollow of the thigh, to this
day, for he touched Jacob's thigh
at the sinew which
slipped" (Gen. XXXII, 33). The sinew is prohibited only
in animals, which have a hollow in the thigh, but not in
fowl, the shape of whose thighs is different. However, if
a fowl should be found to have a thigh of the proper con-
figuration, its sinew should not be eaten.10 There are two
sinews the one inner, near the bone; the other outer,
near the flesh. They, together with their branches, must
be cut out. The branches, however, are forbidden only
by rabbinical ordinance, not by the Torah proper. 11
The last thing to be removed is the blood. The Torah
is very insistent in its demands that no blood whatsoever
should be eaten. "All fat and all blood ye
shall not eat
in all your dwelling places" (Lev. VII, 8). "Strengthen
c
Y. D. ibid 8, 9, 14.
7
Ibid 15, Ramah.
8
Ibid 10, 11.
9
Ibid 12, the Talmudic source for these laws is the brief treat-
ment in Hulhn 93.
10 Hullin 89b, Y. D. 65, 5.
11 Hullin 92, 93, Y. D. ibid. 8.