Shechitah and Preparing Meat

The Torah says “you shall slaughter… as I have commanded you”; the oral tradition derives from this the exact procedure of slaughter (shechitah, שְׁחִיטָה), which the text of the Torah itself does not describe.¹

The slaughter is performed by a shochet (שׁוֹחֵט), a pious, trained specialist with a certificate (kabbalah). With a single smooth stroke of a very sharp knife free of nicks, he severs the trachea and the esophagus of a mammal; for a bird one of them suffices. The Mishnah sets how much of the “signs” (simanim) must be cut.^2,3

The Talmud names five faults that invalidate the slaughter: pausing during the cut (shehiyah), pressing with the knife (derasah), burying the knife under the skin (chaladah), cutting outside the prescribed area (hagramah) and tearing out the organs (ikkur). The shochet therefore checks the edge of the knife (chalaf, חֲלָף) before and after each slaughter.⁴

Traditional interpretations stress that a swift cut with a sharp knife is meant to cause the animal as little suffering as possible; this is an interpretation, however, not the halakhic reason for shechitah. Whether modern shechitah achieves this aim is a matter of public and scientific debate.

After slaughter, the animal is checked for a fatal defect (see treifah below). The most important step is the inspection of the lungs (bedikah, בְּדִיקָה) in cattle and other mammals: the shochet or an inspector (bodek) looks for adhesions (sirchot) and damage.⁵

The word “glatt” is now often used loosely to mean “strictly kosher”, even for poultry or non-meat products. In its proper sense it refers only to the lungs of mammals.

Nevelah (נְבֵלָה) is an animal that died or was killed other than by valid shechitah. Treifah (טְרֵפָה) is an animal with a fatal defect or injury, even if it was properly slaughtered. The Torah forbids both.^6,7

The Mishnah lists the kinds of defects that make an animal treifah (e.g. perforation of certain organs). In colloquial speech the word treif has spread to mean anything non-kosher, including pork or seafood.⁸

The prohibition of eating blood is repeatedly stressed in the Torah and justified by the statement that “the blood is the life”. It applies to mammals and birds, not to fish.^9,10,11

Blood is removed from meat by salting (melichah, מְלִיחָה): the meat is soaked in water (usually for about half an hour), salted with coarse salt, left to drain (usually for about an hour) and rinsed thoroughly. The Shulchan Arukh describes this procedure in detail; it should be done within three days of slaughter, otherwise the meat may only be broiled.¹²

Liver contains so much blood that salting is not enough: it is koshered by broiling over an open flame (cut open and salted), and only then may it be cooked further.¹³

Today kosher meat is almost always sold already salted and prepared by the butcher or slaughterhouse; salting at home is rare. Liver is often sold either already broiled or with a note that it must be broiled at home.

The Torah forbids certain suet (chelev, חֵלֶב) of cattle, sheep and goats, namely the fat that was offered on the altar in the Temple; ordinary fat marbled through the meat (shuman) is not forbidden. The sciatic nerve (gid ha-nasheh, גִּיד הַנָּשֶׁה) is also forbidden, in memory of Jacob's struggle with the angel.^14,15,16

Their removal is called nikkur (נִקּוּר), in Yiddish traboring. In the forequarter it is relatively simple; in the hindquarter (where the sciatic nerve and much of the chelev are located) it is laborious and requires a specially trained expert.

In practice, meat is bought from a certified butcher or with a hechsher that vouches for the whole chain: shechitah, bedikah, nikkur, salting and separate processing. Standards vary (e.g. glatt, the Sephardi chalak Beit Yosef); more in the article Certification and Hechsher.

Orthodox and Conservative (Masorti) Judaism require meat from shechitah. Reform Judaism treats this as a personal decision; some Jews across the movements also place emphasis on how animals are raised and treated (“ethical kashrut”).

Some European states and regions ban or severely restrict slaughter without prior stunning (examples cited include Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Belgian regions); Jewish communities there import kosher meat. EU law generally allows a religious exemption and leaves states room for their own rules.