2,346. Firing the Butcher

Maachalos Assuros 7:21

If a butcher trims meat and a prohibited cord or membrane is found afterwards, he is instructed and warned not to treat prohibitions frivolously. If forbidden fat is found and it’s the size of a barleycorn, the butcher is dismissed. If it’s the size of an olive – even fat from several places cumulatively – then he is given stripes for acting rebelliously and dismissed. This is because a butcher is believed when it comes to forbidden fats.

Maachalos Assuros 8:1

The prohibition of the sciatic nerve applies to kosher domesticated and wild animals, even neveilas and treifas; it applies to a fetus and to animals that were consecrated, whether they were consecrated for sacrifices we eat or for those we don’t eat. It applies equally to the right and the left thigh. Under Biblical law, only the nerve on the hip socket is prohibited, based on Genesis 32:33, “that is on the hip socket”; the rest of the nerve above or below the socket, as well as the fat on the nerve, are only prohibited under rabbinic law. There are two such nerves; the inner one by the bone is prohibited under Biblical law, while the outer is prohibited under rabbinic law.