A. One of the Ritual Slaughter’s (Shochet in Hebrew) main skills is to be able to sharpen/hone his blade to be perfectly smooth, even the slightest nick disqualifies the knife. The cut is to be as quick and painless as possible, without any “hesitation” in the cut, due to even the slightest nick in the blade. My grandfather was a Shochet, and would sometimes spend hours sharpening his knife over a stone and a bucket of water, while studying all the while.