Q&A: Chicken with Milk
Chicken with Milk
Question
According to the view of Maimonides (Laws of Forbidden Foods 9:4) and the Shulchan Arukh (Yoreh De'ah 87:3), that poultry with milk is forbidden to eat by rabbinic decree lest one come to eat the meat of an animal with milk, yet it is permitted in cooking and deriving benefit, why were they not also concerned to forbid cooking and benefit lest one come to cook and derive benefit from the meat of an animal with milk?
Answer
The question depends on how you define the concern that one may come to cook meat with milk. As in any case of concern, two formulations can be suggested here: 1. Through the very act of cooking that you do here, you will come to add and cook meat with milk. 2. If poultry with milk is permitted to you, then on another occasion you will come to cook or eat meat with milk (and in fact not necessarily you—others may come to do so). Under the first formulation, your question would make sense, but that is not a reasonable formulation. There is no reason that through this very act I would come to cook or eat meat with milk. The concern is about other cases. Therefore, if they forbid me to eat poultry with milk, that serves as a marker that stops the slide toward meat with milk. At the same time, people will understand that poultry is not meat, and even if with poultry cooking is permitted, with meat it is forbidden.
Discussion on Answer
So it's a good thing that a person does not make decrees for himself. For that there is a Sanhedrin to decide. I don't think there are general criteria. In every place where they see a problem, they try to solve it.
By the way, as Rabbi Kook wrote, sometimes this is an extension of the Torah-level problem and not merely a concern lest one come to another transgression. Like the two kinds of rabbinic Sabbath restrictions: an extension of the Torah-level prohibited labor, or a concern lest one come to Torah-level prohibited labor. In certain cases, the concern lest one come to a Torah prohibition is only an indication that there is also something problematic in this action itself, since it resembles the action prohibited by Torah law.
I understand, thanks.
Meta-halakhic note: I really don't understand the mechanism of “lest one come to…,” or of appearance, “lest someone else see and think that….” All the laws that arise from these considerations seem completely arbitrary to me. One person says we should be concerned lest one come to A, another says lest one come to B, and a third is not concerned at all, and so on. It all seems subjective. In short, how do we know when there is a real concern of “lest one come to” and when there isn't? Sometimes there is a dispute among halakhic decisors, and one says we are concerned and another says we are not—what is the basis of the dispute? Is it just that one is pessimistic and the other optimistic?