Q&A: Meat and Milk Is an Unusual Novelty
Meat and Milk Is an Unusual Novelty
Question
The Talmud in Pesachim 44b says: “Meat and milk is an unusual novelty.” And what is the novelty? If you say that this one was permitted and that one was permitted, etc.—rather, if one soaks them all day long, etc.—and therefore we do not derive from it the rule that taste is like the substance itself.
And Rashi explains: “It is an unusual novelty” — it is a surprising matter, something not found elsewhere among us; therefore we do not derive its stringency for other prohibitions.
I didn’t understand what the great novelty is in something that was permitted beforehand and then ‘suddenly’ became prohibited. What’s the big idea? Obviously there is some reason and logic to it, just as, for example, something offered to idol worship had been permitted and then became prohibited because it was offered to idol worship.
So Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed explains the reason as being connected to the practices of idolatrous priests, and Sefer HaChinukh explains it as an offshoot of kilayim. Not that this really satisfies me… but why is that any better than the explanations for why one may not eat a donkey?
(The previous question was sent by mistake in incomplete form.)
Answer
The Talmud itself rejected the reasoning that it is called a novelty because it had been permitted and then became prohibited. So what is the question?
In the conclusion, the novelty is that it is prohibited only through cooking and not through soaking, even though if it depended on taste, soaking should also make it prohibited.
Incidentally, Tosafot notes that in Chullin 108, Abaye and Rava disagreed about whether there is a novelty in meat and milk.