[Avodah] Shechting animals upside down

[Zev Sero]

Michael Makovi wrote:
>>  I am absolutely stunned by this. This practice of only shechting when
>>  the animal is on it's back has become very widespread and has led to
>>  many problems. To find out that it has no halachic basis is very
>>  disturbing.
> 
> Did anyone ever claim that it DID have halachic basis? I thought it
> was universally understood that there was no basis for this, and it
> was all a senseless chumra?

What have you been reading.  That is certainly *NOT* universally
"understood".  And the Israeli Rabbanut will not allow the import of
meat that is not shechita munachat.

 
> Think about it: in Biblical times, did they have giant steel conveyor
> belts that could be used to hoist a cow upside down? And what do you
> think they did in Yemen? Obviously, they had no way AFAIK to feasibly
> hoist it upside down, and therefore, it cannot be a halachic
> requirement. Aside from what the textual sources say, the practical
> impossibility of it in non-technological circumstances guarantees IMO,
> AFAIK that it could never have been a chiyuv.

No technology is needed to lie an animal down on the ground and roll
it over, which is what was done.  Shechita munachat is *not* some
recent invention.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas