Q&A: Cultured Meat
Cultured Meat
Question
Recently I saw a halakhic ruling by Rabbi David Lau that this meat is considered parve, as well as a letter from rabbis of Tzohar on the subject making a similar claim. https://www.tzohar.org.il/?p=41799
I wanted to ask what the Rabbi’s position is on this issue: is this meat considered meat or parve, and what is the reasoning for that?
Seemingly, according to Maimonides’ interpretation of the reason poultry with milk is forbidden (lest people come to violate the prohibition of meat and milk), this should have had the same status as poultry, and even more so, since there is certainly even more room for confusion here.
If one does not accept that interpretation, one has to explain why poultry was forbidden rabbinically (or claim that it is forbidden on a Torah level—which seems unlikely to me / or that it was never forbidden at all—which seems more plausible to me).
I want to argue that anyone who holds that the product is parve must agree with one of these three:
1. It is permitted to eat poultry with milk — which was not accepted as Jewish law throughout the generations starting from the Talmud
2. It is forbidden to eat poultry with milk on a Torah level — which sounds less plausible to me
3. It is forbidden to eat poultry with milk rabbinically — and then one must give a different reason than Maimonides’ interpretation.
Answer
You are mixing different planes of discussion. They are talking about the basic Torah-level law, according to which this does not have the status of meat. You are asking whether there is room to decree a rabbinic prohibition, as with poultry and milk. The answer is that today there is no institution that can issue such decrees. Beyond that, once ordinary meat is no longer available and only this kind exists, there will also no longer be any reason for such a decree.
Discussion on Answer
I’m not familiar with the production process. If everything were produced from raw materials (molecules), then it is obvious that this is not meat. But it seems to me that it begins from a single cell taken from an animal, and then there is room for discussion.
It was no coincidence that Rabbi Lau’s ruling was published on the very day the High Court disqualified Deri from serving as a minister. After all, if they produce a new minister from cells taken from Deri, the new minister won’t be considered dairy, and therefore will be kosher under High Court supervision 🙂
Best regards,
Noah Gamliel Aryeh Shibotinsky
Rabbi, if they were to take a molecule from different animals and assemble a cell from them, would that have a different status than a whole cell from one animal?
Why do you define the “association” with the animal at the level of the cell (and not, say, the molecule or the atom)?
Because a cell is the minimal unit of life. An atom or molecule from an animal can end up becoming anything on earth. If that were considered meat, you would not be allowed to put anything in your mouth.
Does the Rabbi agree with their conclusion regarding the Torah-level law?