Topics covered:
Answering a community question, why does a Torah scroll transmit ritual impurity? A rabbinic prohibition that evolved to protect Torah scrolls from mice and dirty hands. Back to our daf in Chapter 19, Mishnah 3. Tragic case of a baby with a congenital defect that dooms it to die. We donβt desecrate Shabbos to perform its circumcision on the 8th day. Unlike a stillborn, such a baby exempts a widow and her brother-in-law from yibum, levirate marriage, but they still perform the chalitzah ceremony to officially sever their bond due to doubt. If she becomes betrothed to a priest before the chalitzah is performed, however, we cancel the chalitzah ceremony because it would give her the status of a divorcee as well as a widow, and a priest is not permitted to marry a divorcee. A newborn kosher animal may be slaughtered, cooked and eaten on its first day, but it if it was born premature we must wait eight days to confirm that it was a viable animal, and thus not a treifah. A treifah is an animal that is doomed to die for physical reasons and thus not permitted for eating even if slaughtered properly. We do not mourn/sit shiva for a stillborn child. We do mourn/sit shiva for one that lived for 30 days or more. If it died within 30 days or less of its birth, one is not obligated to mourn/sit shiva, but if it can be established that the baby was born after a full nine month gestation, we do mourn/sit shiva.