Is there anything in the Talmud about kosher killing? I heard that was when the priest would put his finger and thumb on the jaw of the sacrifice and he would stroke the head of the sacrifice to put the animal in a kind of sleep and then cut two small places on the neck so the blood would pour out. It was a painless killing.
There is indeed a method of kosher slaughter of animals but I’m not aware of any practical method of putting the animal to sleep beforehand. Stunning the animal (firing a stun-gun into the animal’s forehead – something done in many non-Jewish slaughterhouses) is forbidden by Jewish law and reportedly involves as much violence and pain to the animal as any other method.
Kosher slaughter involves a quick, single-stroke cut to both the esophagus and trachea (food pipe and windpipe) from the front of the neck. An obsessively (I can’t think of any more appropriate word!) sharpened knife (entirely free of any nick that might cause a tear rather than a clean cut) is required. The kosher slaughter used today is identical with that done while the temple stood (with one exception: see Levit. 1:15).
Also, I heard that at the end of the day the priest would stand before the door of the tent and extend his arms out to the side and say “It is finished!”
I’m not aware of any such reference in the Talmud, but I can’t guarantee it. Although, ironically, the Talmud does say that on the annual Day of Atonement, the High Priest would publicly read from a Torah scroll and, when he finished the appropriate section, would say, in effect, “I’m NOT finished” (“Much more is contained in this scroll than what I’ve just read…”).
Best wishes,
Rabbi Boruch Clinton