  We study nuclear physics in the chiral limit ($m_u$, $m_d=0$) in which the
pion mass vanishes. We find that the deuteron mass is changed little, but that
P--wave nucleon--nucleon scattering volumes are infinite. This motivates an
investigation of the possibilities that there could be a two--nucleon $^3P_0$
bound state, and that the nuclear matter ground state is likely to be a
condensed state of nucleons paired to those quantum numbers. However, the short
distance repulsion in the nucleon--nucleon potential is not affected by the
chiral limit and prevents such new chiral possibilities. Thus the chiral limit
physics of nuclei is very similar to that of nature. Using the chiral limit to
simplify QCD sum rule calculations of nuclear matter properties seems to be a
reasonable approximation.
