@Shokhet @DoubleAA Thanks! judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/50918/…

Should we assume that this suggested edit is from the (unregistered) OP? ....the suggested edit uses the first person

Hello @darthnesscoveredthesky! ;-)

@Shokhet Hello! This is a pretty chatroom. The pings are blue!

@darthnesscoveredthesky :) .....each chat room that belongs to a graduated site gets the graphics redone; the Junk Drawer has the default "beta" color scheme.

@Shokhet Thanks for explaining. I think I'll get a account, but I'll only fav and vote, I might post, but I'm not that good at this stuff.

Not to be insulting, of course!

That's all right @darthnesscoveredthesky; no one said you have to post :)

@IsaacMoses

^^^ the answer took way more effort than I originally thought it would. I knew all the relevant information, but writing it down and sourcing it (one source eluded me for a while) took some time.

@Shokhet that's an awesome answer.

@YeZ Thank you :)

AFAICT, this is the third post that was made because of Winterbash. Here are the first and second ;-)

@YeZ I edited the question for a typo; I haven't yet edited the answer.

@Shokhet That's funny - I had the kisuy question without having seen that you already talked about it in your answer.

@Shokhet you just became a front-runner for "people I would choose to be trapped on a desert island with." NB: I'm not a cow.

@IsaacMoses :P

@YeZ Huh.

I'm assuming it's a desert island with cows, of course.

@IsaacMoses I actually wouldn't be able to be menaker that cow -- you're better off with some type of bird; that much I can do myself.

.....I just totally ignored that in my answer, but I don't care :P

But it was good that I chose the cow instead of the bird -- no כיסוי הדם issues.

@Shokhet could you scrape some dirt off of the unwashed skin of your fellow pirates?

@IsaacMoses :P

....doubt I would get enough.....depends on the number of pirates and their personal hygiene, though ;-)

@Shokhet how much do you need? There's probably some sort of filth in the bottom of the ship.

@IsaacMoses Enough to cover the ground that the blood goes on (really should get all the blood, but בדיעבד just a drop is fine), and cover over that so that no blood is showing.

There's a mishna somewhere that talks about covering the blood that's on the knife, in case you don't have any other blood to cover

sefaria.org/Mishnah_Chullin.6.6

@all: should I leave a comment when an answer is posted with information and sources that are completely contained in a previous answer?

( I'm a little biased, as my answer was first )

@Shokhet Yes.

@YeZ Thanks

.....glad I left that comment; it's actually not a duplicate answer

@Shokhet I think he's right. I mean, I don't know what Torah Temima says, but if you are both accurately quoteing

@YeZ If we're both accurately quoting then I agree with him/you/whoever I'm supposed to agree with :P

@DoubleAA Now we have to kill you. Or @Shokhet. Or someone; I'm confused.

@Shokhet You can simply eat the front, as we do hereabouts.

Anyone get the joke?

@IsaacMoses @DoubleAA Can this be unpinned yet?

Hey folks, there was a hackathon in New York City a few weeks ago for shomrei shabbat. The organizers made tee shirts. You should order one: teespring.com/dont-hack-on-shabbos

@msh210 It's more complicated than that -- there are veins and fat and stuff up front that need to be taken out; I wasn't even thinking about ניקור אחוריים.....I've done both types of ניקור, but I wouldn't trust myself to do it again w/o someone watching

@msh210 Why me? :P

.....if I'm right, then the answer is NAA, right?

@Scimonster yes.

@Scimonster done.

@msh210 I think so.

I hit the rep cap before I logged in to MY for the first time this morning :(

It was probably that cutlass question :P

@Shokhet you must have known that would happen, though. Plus: first-world problems. :-) (Some poor Yodeyans almost never hit the rep cap, you know... :-) )

It's a fun question, so I'm glad you posted it.

:)

@MonicaCellio Me too....it accidentally became an intro to a lot of hilchos shechita

@Shokhet great! So it prompted further learning -- sounds like a fine outcome.

I'll often look at a knife or sword and try to figure out if I could use it, keeps me sharp :P

@MonicaCellio Yup :)

@Shokhet I would think anything longer than a shortsword would be difficult to use for shechita. That one can precisely handle a weapon for the purpose of killing the guy standing in front of you doesn't automatically mean you can use it to kill a cow in a kosher manner. But I've never done or even observed shechita, so this is purely a guess. (I do know a little about swords.)

@MonicaCellio The blade for a cow knife is actually ~3 feet long. A chicken knife (like the one in my userpic) is usually ~8 inches.

@Shokhet really? Three feet? Wow. Does it have handles on both ends or just one? (Or does it even make sense to hold the knife with two hands, assuming someone else is holding the cow's head?)

@MonicaCellio Handle on one end; it's handled like a knife.

@Shokhet what's the shape of the blade? (Do you have a picture handy?) And where is the balance point?

I don't know if it's possible to shecht a cow solo -- either someone else has to hold it still, or it has to be held in place by a pen or chains

@Shokhet yeah, I first thought one person but that seemed really hard, so then I thought two people (or other ways of holding it) which left both hands available to hold the knife, which made me wonder whether you did.

@MonicaCellio It's the same shape as the one in my profile pic, and illustrated in the answer......but bigger :P ....it tapers to a razor sharp edge on the bottom.

@MonicaCellio There is a method of shechting calves and sheep by sitting on their back, but it's not recommended.

@Shokhet ah, so sort of cleaver-shaped, then. (And yes, I assumed a razor-sharp edge.) I'm still trying to imagine holding and precisely aiming that one-handed... I guess you learn.

@MonicaCellio The motion of cutting is not like a cleaver, though -- you have to slice back and forth; if you hack with the knife it's treif (neveilah, for you pedants out there)

@Shokhet right, I meant cleaver-shaped, not used like one. I do know that much, at least. :-)

@Shokhet judaism.stackexchange.com/q/9112/472 for the pedants. :-)

Oh wait; you've been there already.

:)

@Shokhet what can we as a community do to help Joseph write posts that will be better-received? I think we're dealing with somebody who has some sources and a willingness to use them, but not always the background knowledge to understand what he's looking at. He is not Jewish so I assume he hasn't had a Jewish education. He keeps trying to participate and producing reactions like that; is there anything we can do to make it better?

@MonicaCellio I simply don't know. His answers were part of why I asked this question, so we might have a clearer "right way" of doing things that can be shown to someone else.

....though this answer is not the same as the other one he posted to a question of mine -- this one brings a lot of relevant sources, but doesn't answer the question at all, if I read it right.

@Shokhet ah, gotcha. (I didn't make the connection when I first saw the question.) And he does have upvoted answers, so he's hitting the mark at least some of the time. I just can't always tell if he's actually answering the questions or just finding some relevant commentary and sharing it (and maybe the votes are for the info, even if it's not connected into a full answer).

@MonicaCellio His answers are a little harder to read than the average answer on this site....though they are clear and well-structured.

@mods

Just takes some extra thinking sometimes.

@Shokhet ok. I'll try harder. Thanks.

@Scimonster Why not VTC yourself?

@Shokhet No answers.

I tried.

@Scimonster Ah, I didn't see that. Got it.

If the second one gets answers, then the first might be closed as a duplicate of that one.

@Scimonster ah, ok. Thanks; I was wondering why you commented without voting but I forgot about that. And thanks for finding that; I knew we'd had that question before but I hadn't yet located it.

@Scimonster done.

@YeZ You're right, that is a confusing wording.....but "all" isn't much better, as it sounds like you need to bury the knife completely, Ehud (Eglon) style. .....do you have a better suggestion?

@Shokhet "if the entire knife is covered it is forbidden" or "if no part of the knife is uncovered it is forbidden" - ?

(assuming I am understanding the intent correctly here.)

....maybe "if part of the knife is entirely covered" is better?

.....again, you don't need to completely bury the knife to run afoul of חלדה

@Shokhet oh i get it - you mean "part of the knife" as opposed to the entire length of the knife, while I was referring to the width of the knife. So how about "If the entire width of the knife is entirely covered at any point ... it is forbidden"

@YeZ That sounds like it could work. Thanks!

....and done. Thanks @YeZ! :)

@Shokhet Y"K - unfortunately, I already did all the upvoting I'm allowed to on that answer.

@YeZ Don't upvote, no!! ....I hit rep cap before I logged in today :(

Someone needs to remind me to only do major Q/A sets toward the end of the day, so I won't kill a whole day of rep-earning :P

@Shokhet A little lishmo every now and then is good!

@YeZ you're looking even more decked-out than before! But what happened to the little sun/moon thingie?

@YeZ Remind us why we really do this, right?

@MonicaCellio I couldn't fit it into the gaudiness without blocking other things.

@YeZ wow, you actually ran out of room! Who knew? :-)

Don't take this the wrong way, @YeZ, but your userpic looks like a very eclectic, tilted lampshade right now.

@MonicaCellio well, it wasn't so much room, but that the circle didn't fit above other things, just over them.

@Shokhet with the tiny chat icon I just look, see a random pile of unparsable stuff (at that size), and figure it's gotta be @YeZ under there.

@Shokhet Out of curiosity, what is the right way to take that?

@MonicaCellio :)

@YeZ I don't know.....take it as a compliment? :P

@Shokhet sure, let's go with that. :-)

:)

....anyone have any luck figuring out what this question means? ....I gave it a try, but couldn't really figure it out. There's a bounty that ends in 6 hours.

Is there a way to bring the bountier to chat, so we could figure this out? (OP has been deleted)

Oy I hate when this happens. I have like 4 questions that I plan on answering at some point but don't have the time or energy to work on now. So all of them are open with the first 2 lines of an answer so that I don't forget about them later.

@Shokhet I assume (without having looked up the Rashi) that there is an off-by-one error involved, that Rashi counts either too many or too few posts compared to the construction instructions. Does that help?

@MonicaCellio That's what I figured also, but I couldn't spot it in the linked Rashis.

@Shokhet every time I read those parshiyot I mentally throw up my hands because I just can't visualize how the mishkan actually came together from that description. So I didn't even try the Rashi here, sorry.

:)

You ever try those picture books?

I haven't used it, but I'm told that this one is pretty good.

I haven't seen that one. (Probably not going to buy a book just to untangle this, but good to know it exists.)

It's time to do the end-of-calendar-year tzedakah; back later.

@MonicaCellio for some reason, a quick glance at your avatar looks like the community user.

@Shokhet LOL!

@MonicaCellio My go-to sefer for the mishkan

@MonicaCellio Like me

Oh, and 5k!

@MonicaCellio I don't know if we need to do anything differently than we are now. He seems to respond politely to polite criticism in comments, which is what we've been doing until now. For example, he edited the answer I left that comment on to add an answer to it (though it's debatable whether it's a good one).

For now I think we're doing this the right way.

News Review of the Year is currently covering Gaza

@Scimonster congratulations!

@Shokhet ok thanks. I just wanted to check with others on this.

@Scimonster Congrats! Didn't see that message, but I did notice on main, and meant to ping you about it here. You should go מחיל על חיל :)

@YeZ yeah, I'm probably going to change hats again soon -- too much light-blue helmet...

If there is a detective hat, I deserve it for this answer :P

.....but don't vote on that answer for another half an hour! :P

@msh210 If I'm not mistaken, a user who hasn't been here in a while will be notified of unopened inbox messages after (I think) a week, by email. If that user kept the same email address, he might see your message.

At least, that's what happened to my unread messages, when I went away to camp this past summer.