Fowl Play at YU

It is Friday morning and most of the classrooms on the YU campus are dark and deserted, but the doors are open and the lights are on in the MTA biology lab. Inside, a group of students, looking older than the average high school senior, wear grim faces and wield sharp knives. No, this isn’t a remedial high school class that managed to smuggle their weapons past Burns security, this is Shchita 101, with the master of slaughter himself, Rabbi Serels.

The class entitled shchita, which literally means the process of ritual slaughter, teaches and graphically depicts the laws and process of kosher schita. The class is open to all students at YU. Every year after Succot, Rabbi Serels offers this class which meets on Friday mornings throughout the remainder school year. Fifteen to twenty is the mean number of students that generally sign up for the class, however about a third of these don’t make the cut, literally speaking. The reason is quite simple. After two weeks, Rabbi Serels makes the cut on a large chicken and only those with a powerful stomach continue on.

Fowls are the only animals on the menu in Rabbi Serels’s course. Each week the class studies the various laws of slaughter from the halachic texts and then they or Rabbi Serels slaughter a bird. Passing the written and practical examinations on slaughtering fowl are the goals of the class. After learning the laws, students are given the opportunity to visit a slaughterhouse and slaughter 35 to 40 fowl in preparation for the test

One of the most important aspects of the class entails learning how to sharpen the shchita knife. Each student must be able to conclude whether or not the knife is properly sharpened. Nigh the end of the course, students should be able to determine the knife’s merit by simply running a fingernail along the edge. Additionally, Rabbi Serels not only instructs his students on the art of slaughter, he also educates them in culinary technique, for instance, how to salt and soak meat. This way can travel directly from slaughter to Shabbat dinner without the middle man.

Aside from providing practical knowledge of ritual slaughter, Rabbi Serels explained that the class indirectly provides his students with an enhanced value of life. "The class teaches about life," he said, "…one minute the chicken is alive, and the next it is dead. When you see this you realize how fragile life is. In this class students begin to learn about themselves. It is interesting to note that most people think of shochtim as cruel people. But most of the students have become much more sensitive since they began taking this class."

Rabbi Serels’ statement that students become "more sensitive" was attested to by one student, Neil Berman. Since enrolling in the class, Berman has developed increased sensitivity to his father’s desires, stating, "My father has high expectations for next Thanksgiving."