Q&A: Meat and Milk
Meat and Milk
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Do you have a satisfying explanation for the enormous gap between the Torah’s wording, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk,” and the Jewish law that goes so far as to require separate cutlery for meat and dairy? After all, even the very expansion of the prohibition from “a kid in its mother’s milk” to all domesticated animal meat in any milk seems far from the plain meaning of the verses, which apparently emphasize three times specifically a kid and specifically its mother—which also seems morally understandable. All the more so when the prohibition is expanded to include poultry as well, and also the utensils in which one cooks or eats; that really seems excessive.
As a Jew who believes in the Oral Torah and in the authority of the Sages to institute safeguards and enactments, this does not particularly bother me. The question is what to answer a skeptic or denier who points to this as proof that “the rabbis invent baseless stringencies,” and the like. It seems to me that this is the clearest case of an expanded prohibition that appears disconnected from the plain meaning.
Answer
I need to formulate a more orderly account, but here are a few remarks that occurred to me off the cuff.
1. In many cases the Torah uses examples. “Tooth and eye” are examples of organs on which life depends. “If a man’s ox gores” is an example of any of my property that damages someone else, etc. So too, a kid and its mother’s milk may be an example of mixing meat and milk. It is possible that this example was chosen in order to teach the idea behind the commandment, which at root is meant to educate us morally (see below, 3).
2. The repetition three times is expounded because the extra wording teaches prohibition of benefit and eating as well (beyond cooking). Exegetical derivations are not supposed to meet the criteria of the plain meaning. They have criteria of their own.
3. Conceptually, it is possible that cooking a kid in its mother’s milk has a bad moral effect on the cook (instead of the milk nourishing the kid, the milk and the kid nourish us), and this is expanded to all meat with milk because every such mixture reminds us of offspring together with its mother’s milk. After all, this is not about doing harm to the kid or its mother, but about preventing an evil influence on our soul. The idea is that milk is supposed to nourish the meat (=the body), not that the two of them should nourish us. This is a reasonable extension of the moral plain meaning.
4. Expansions into broader circles are the way Jewish law works, like any legal system. If one may not eat meat and milk, it is necessary to define what counts as meat or milk, including what is absorbed in utensils. This is just drawing the line. Beyond that, the more we broaden it, the more strongly it acts on our soul and leaves a greater moral impression there (assuming that is the purpose of the prohibition).
5. Beyond that, the separation of knives and forks, etc., is mostly rabbinic, and then this is not an expansion of the Torah law but decrees and precautions. Some of it is of course only custom (such as waiting hours, separate glass utensils). Such expansions do not necessarily have to obey the logic of the core law.
6. In general, I do not see any reason (motivation) why the Sages would invent such a thing. Who gains from it? Therefore it is more reasonable that they truly thought this was the interpretation (both plain and exegetical), or that it is a tradition from Sinai. So even if we do not understand their reasons and rationale, that is not a reason to assume there is manipulation or error here. After all, the methods of exegesis have, by all accounts, been lost to us. The Sages apparently knew them and made use of them. It is completely clear that the use was not arbitrary (the proof being that there are many disagreements in the words of the Sages about methods of exegesis and their conclusions. That is, they saw this toolbox as something intelligible that could be used systematically, not as a cover for doing whatever they wanted).
Discussion on Answer
Line 1
It is possible that the expansive interpretation…
Maimonides also admits that the plain meaning of the verse is literal. The matter of expansion is from the oral tradition, and afterward the extension to poultry is so that people should not be negligent…
“And it is forbidden to eat it by the words of the Sages, so that the people should not be negligent and come to a Torah prohibition of meat in milk, and eat the meat of a kosher domesticated animal with the milk of a kosher domesticated animal. For the implication of the verse is only a kid in its mother’s milk literally. Therefore they forbade all meat in milk.”
As for the plain meaning of the Torah: in general, one should ask whether it means milk or fat. Based on the contexts in the Torah:
“And Abel, he also brought from the firstlings of his flock and from their fat.”
“The first of the first-fruits of your land you shall bring to the House of the Lord your God. Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.”
(the preceding verse) “You shall not sacrifice the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall the fat of My feast remain overnight until morning.”
If we did not know the vocalization, there would be room to think the intention is fat and not milk.
With God’s help, 10 Sivan 5780
It is possible that the expansive interpretation of “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” stems from its being the “bottom line” of the law collection known as the “Book of the Covenant,” both the covenant before the sin of the Golden Calf (chapter 24) and the covenant after the sin of the Golden Calf (chapter 34).
It seems that what the Torah places at the conclusion of the “Book of the Covenant” has special significance. Maimonides wrote in Guide for the Perplexed that cooking meat in milk was a kind of idolatrous ritual intended to increase the fertility of the land (Prof. M. D. Cassuto brought something similar from the Ugaritic texts), and therefore the prohibition “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” is juxtaposed to “The first of the first-fruits of your land you shall bring to the House of the Lord your God.”
I suggested the hypothesis that just as, in general, the “Book of the Covenant” is the elaboration of the Ten Commandments, so “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” is the elaboration of “You shall not covet.” From the great host Abraham our father we learned that the optimal delicacy one can serve guests is “curds and milk and the calf.” Here the Torah comes and obligates a Jew to refrain from the ultimate height of pleasure, in order to accustom him to self-restraint.
According to this explanation, it is understandable that there is no difference between its mother’s milk and another mother’s milk. Any cooking of “a kid in the milk of a kid’s mother” will produce the same “insanely tasty” delicacy, and therefore the Torah forbids it so that we may restrain our desires a bit.
Best regards,
Shatz
At any rate, our ancestors could eat a chicken cheeseburger, since that is not forbidden by the Torah 🙂