Chullin 98 – It Wasn't Always One-In-Sixty

There was a case of a half an olive volume of prohibited fat that fell into a pot of meat. Mar bar Rav Ashi considered measuring the pot and nullifying the prohibited fat in the proportion of one-in-thirty. His father Rav Ashi told him, “You think that you can use the rule of treating the laws of the Sages leniently. Further, you think that half an olive volume is not even considered eating. However, that is wrong. Eating any amount of prohibited food is still prohibited by the Torah, just that one does not get lashes for it, the taste of the prohibited food is considered as the food itself, and the correct proportion is always one-in-sixty.”

Rabbi Chiya bar Abba said in the name of Bar Kappara that all prohibited substances nullify one-in-sixty, but Rav Assi said in the name of the same teachers that it is one-in-a-hundred. Both derived their opinion from the case of a cooked foreleg of a ram offering, but one included the bones in the estimate, while the other one didn't.

Art: Antoine Vollon - Brass Cooking Vessel