Inside/Outside: The Rabbinic Negotiation of Binaries BT Me‘ilah 15b–16a

In this article I examine the feminist implications of an excerpt from BT Me‘ilah 15b–16a. The sugya concerns categories of neveilah (flesh from the carcass of an animal that was not properly slaughtered), which may not be eaten and also transmits impurity to those who touch it. Small amounts, encountered separately, would be considered negligible from a halakhic point of view. If encountered together, do they combine to constitute a minimum halakhic measurement from the point of view either of consumption or of transmitting impurity? Whereas the mishnah considers all manner of neveilah combinable for both those purposes, three amoraic responses to the mishnah each take a different stance on the issue. My paper analyzes the ways in which the binary categories that are set up and then broken down further might inform our understanding of the role of hierarchical binaries that govern sex and gender and define men as center and women as “other.”