The Torah relates at the beginning of this week’s parshah that Yosef informed his father, Yaakov, that his brothers were doing several things wrong. Rashi elaborates: Yosef reported that his brothers were eating eiver min hachai, degrading the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah by referring to them as slaves, and suspected of having immoral relations.
Yosef was punished for all three accusations measure for measure. For the accusation of eiver min hachai, he was punished when his brothers killed a wild animal and used its blood to convince Yaakov that Yosef had been killed. For the accusation that they had referred to Bilhah and Zilpah’s children as slaves, Yosef was sold as a slave. And for the accusation that they were suspected of having immoral relations, Yosef had to deal with Potifar’s wife.
While Yosef was punished for these accusations, it seems that they were not baseless. The Shela Hakadosh points out that the wording of the Torah is “vayavei deibasam ra’ah.” Had Yosef’s accusations been completely false, the Torah would have used the wording “motzei diba.”
But how could there have been any validity to Yosef’s allegations? After all, we are talking about the sons of Yaakov Avinu – the shevatim – who were all known to have been great tzaddikim.
The Shela Hakadosh suggests that Avraham Avinu had knowledge of Sefer Yetzirah and taught its contents to Yitzchak who taught them in turn to Yaakov. The Gemara (Kedushin 71a) states that one should only teach sisrei Torah to meyuchasim. Therefore Yaakov Avinu only taught the contents of Sefer Yetzirah to the sons of Leah, who were more meyuchas. With their knowledge of Sefer Yetzirah, the shevatim were able to create an animal, as certain Amora’im many centuries later did as well (see Sanhedrin 65b). The Shela posits that such an animal does not require shechitah. Therefore, Leah’s sons would eat the animals they created without shechting them. Yosef was unaware of this law, and assumed that his brothers were eating eiver min hachai.
The Shela explains further that the allegation that Leah’s sons were degrading the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah came as a result of the former refusing to teach the latter how to create an animal via Sefer Yetzirah. They told them they could not share their knowledge because they – the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah – were not meyuchasim. Yosef thought this answer degrading. However, the sons of Leah were in fact correct that their knowledge was reserved for meyuchasim.
The Mizrachi suggests that the shevatim would shecht an animal and cut meat from the shechitah wound while the animal was still mifarcheses (shaking). The Gemara (Chullin 33) argues that doing so is healthy and brings refuah. Yosef, though, thought the act forbidden since the animal was still shaking.
The halacha is that if one cuts off the limb of an animal while it is still alive, the limb is forever forbidden for consumption. Even if the animal is later shechted, the limb is considered an eiver min hachai and forbidden. If one cuts off a limb after the animal has been shechted, however, the limb is not considered eiver min hachai although one must wait until after the animal stop shaking before eating it.
Why it is forbidden to eat from the animal while it is still shaking? The simple explanation is that doing so is a separate din which we derive from the same pasuk from which we derive the law of eiver min hachai.
An alternative explanation is that until the animal has stopped shaking, the shechitah process is incomplete. Therefore, if one cuts off a limb from such an animal, one violates eiver min hachai. This is what Yosef thought. The halacha, however, is that even though the shechitah is incomplete, it is complete enough for one to cut off a limb from the animal. It is only insufficient to allow one to actually eat the limb.