Combining Meat and Dairy the question of Kosher
Let the Rant Begin.
What is meant by the term kashrut?
Kashruth, a fundamental aspect of Jewish dietary laws, comprises a set of intricate regulations that meticulously outline which foods are permissible and which are not, as well as the specific methods by which certain foods must be prepared. The term "kosher" means proper or fit, and can refer to food that is prepared in accordance with Jewish law or one's interpretation of the Written Torah rather than the Oral Torah. It's important to recognize that the various sects of Judaism, including Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Ultra-Orthodox, each have their own unique interpretations and nuances when it comes to Kashruth. Moreover, Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews adhere to their own distinct rules. However, the common thread that runs through all of these interpretations is the concept of "CAN," which serves as a reminder of what is permissible within the framework of Kashruth.
Deuteronomy 14 tells us what animals, fish, and birds we can and cannot eat. It instructs us not to boil a kid (a young goat which was a pagan practice) in its mother's milk, an injunction that became the basis for the Rabbinic separation between milk and Meat, which came became a prohibition much later on. (14:21; see also Exodus 23:19 and 34:26).
The Jewish dietary laws appear in several places in the Torah, most specifically in Leviticus, chapter 11. Many of these biblical laws are straightforward, such as the prohibition against the eating of animals that do not have cloven hooves and do not chew their cud, which allows for the eating of most domestic animals-e.g., cattle, sheep, goats, and deer-with the notable exceptions of pigs, horses, camels, and donkeys. There are also prohibitions against eating fish without scales and fins, as well as certain birds and species of insects.
In addition, Leviticus includes dietary prohibitions that may be unfamiliar to many Jews, among them the prohibitions against eating any animal that has died of natural causes or that was "torn by beasts" [22:8 and Exodus 22:30]. Interestingly, the Torah's word for "torn by beasts," t'reifah, is the origin of the Yiddish t'reif. However, some of the other biblical dietary injunctions are much less explicit.
The fundamental pillar of kashrut, the prohibition against eating or preparing dairy products and Meat together, comes from the cryptic injunction, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" [Exodus 23:19, 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21]. Later generations of Jewish authorities interpreted this statement to mean that milk and Meat must be separated. Long-standing tradition has reinforced this interpretation, but I contend that the biblical injunction was never intended to apply to mixing milk and Meat. See the Link below...
The most telling proof that this law has nothing to do with the dietary prohibitions is that the statement appears three times in the Torah but not within the exhaustive list of dietary laws in Leviticus 11. In two instances, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" occurs at the conclusion of passages discussing festival sacrifices [Exodus 23 and 34]. In the third instance, which does indeed address dietary laws [Deuteronomy 14], it is appended to the concluding warning, "You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God," and is clearly disconnected from the dietary laws that precede it. This context suggests that boiling a kid in its mother's milk was part of pagan sacrificial rituals and, as such, forbidden to Israel.
I have a deep appreciation for the tradition of keeping milk and meat separate in Jewish communities, which has been practiced for thousands of years. While I may not personally believe that the Torah mandates this practice, I understand and respect the decision of those who choose to follow it.
Biblical kashrut- I believe that every Jew who is Torah Observant should use a dietary regimen that is in harmony with the basic meaning of the word kasher (or kosher), which is "fitting and proper."
Although my dietary preferences may not strictly align with the guidelines set forth in Halachah, I firmly believe that they still embody the fundamental values and principles of the Torah. My decisions are grounded in a comprehensive comprehension of the commandment, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk." While I hold the food taboos of previous generations in high regard, it's essential to recognize that the terms "Kosher" or "Kastrut" are not exclusively owned by the Guardians of Rabbinic Halachic and Rabbinic Law.
As a dedicated follower of Judaism, kashrut is of utmost importance to me as it allows for the consumption of only what is just and fitting. By practicing ethical kashrut, we have the opportunity to embody the sacred values, blessings, and profound teachings of Jewish tradition every day in accordance with the Torah.
Rabbi Michael Harvey from THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Today we're going to play a game of Jewish Jenga. Looking at the tower of bricks, all perfectly in order, we can see it as a metaphor for the evolution of halacha, of Jewish law, up to the top bricks where we are today. The tower is tall because, for thousands of years, interpretations have been stacked upon one another, based upon previous assumptions and understandings, represented by the bricks underneath. But what happens if we follow the trail down to the bottom bricks and ask a question that might make the tower a little less stable? And today, let's play that game with a particular understanding of Kashrut law, specifically the prohibition of mixing milk and Meat. It would be nearly impossible to list or repeat all the incredible details of Kashrut law set forth by the rabbis of the Talmud and beyond on this subject, but if you follow the Jenga bricks from top to bottom, you'd see a trail from the modern responsa, to the medieval writings, Mishneh Torah, the Shulchan Aruch down to the Talmud, and the Mishnah. Of course, the bottom bricks, those foundational bricks holding up the Jenga tower, come from the Torah, specifically: two verses in Exodus (23:19 & 34:26), and the one in Deuteronomy (14:21).
This commandment states, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."
Commentators have attempted at length to try to find a reason for not boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk. Ibn Ezra, an 11th century commentator, surmised that this was simply a common practice in the near east. Maimonides' theory, in the 13th century, was that this was a pagan ritual and that we should stay away from it lest we engage in idolatry. Others thought it had something to do with health reasons. However, in the end, the rabbis ruled that "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" because it is a commandment described as chok, meaning it is a commandment in which the reason has been lost, or is unclear, yet we are charged to follow it due to the divine origin of the commandment.
This is pretty amazing considering that this one sentence, in which no rational reason has been given, is the basis for rabbinic laws that forbid Jews from mixing Meat and milk in the same meal or on the same plate and require Jews to go through hours of waiting before eating one after the other. Indeed, this commandment has become the standard kashrut law for Jews: you do not mix milk and Meat.
Given the ambiguity of the law, it's natural for you to be wondering how this came to be. The answer is in Pirke Avot 1:1, the Ethics of our Fathers in our Mishnah. The verse states:
The men of the Great Assembly used to say these three things: Be cautious in judgment, establish many pupils, and make a safety fence around the Torah.
The last aspect, the safety fence, is what has transformed a seemingly confusing commandment not to boil a kid in its mother's milk, into a point of tension around Jews in restaurants, synagogues, and public gatherings. Not fully understanding the commandment, the sages drew a safety fence around it so that they would not risk breaking it. In other words, the rabbis made it so that even if they didn't understand the commandment, they wouldn't accidentally break it due to their lack of understanding. Thus, we have the Kashrut law in Judaism of not mixing Meat and milk together in a meal.
But what if the very writing of that commandment was mistaken from the start? The commandment forbidding the boiling of a kid in its mother's milk in Hebrew is:
Lo T'vashel G'dee Ba'Chalev Emo (transliterated).
The word we should recognize is chalev, the word for milk in Hebrew, spelled Chet, Lamed, Vet. The word for milk features certain vowels underneath to make the sound of chalev, distinguishing the word from others. Why is this important? Well, there happens to be another Hebrew word with the exact same letters, Chet, Lamed, Vet, but is pronounced, instead of chalev, chaylev. And that is the word for fat, as seen in such passages as Leviticus 7:23: "You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat." Could this commandment have actually been referencing fat instead of milk? Maybe. The Jenga tower starting to shake a bit.
But, you might ask, sure the letters are the same, but the vowels are different! An excellent point, except that the vowels in our Torah did not come out of nowhere. Rather, the Masoretes, Jewish scribe scholars of the 6th-10th centuries, were the ones who devised the vowel notation system for Hebrew, as well as our trope systems, as they worked with multiple Torah manuscripts in an attempt to standardize them into one. In other words, before the Masoretes worked on our Torah manuscript, there weren't any official vowels set it yet. You'll notice, opening any Torah today, that there still are no vowels written. It was the Masoretes who made decisions, based on their intuition and understanding, as to where to put the vowels to make certain words to fit their perception of context. And yes, every so often, they made mistakes. Before this system was made official, readers of the Torah and rabbis made their own decisions as to how to pronounce a particular word, and did so usually to fit a certain theological viewpoint. In other words, the guidebook to the vowels in the Torah didn't come down from Sinai, which means it's always been subjective. Uh oh…the Jenga tower is starting to wobble.
So, picture for a moment if you will, the commandment with our new vowel usage:
Instead of: Lo T'vashel G'dee Ba'Chalev Emo, it would read Lo T'vashel G'dee Ba'Chaylev Emo: "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's fat." Now that's interesting. Why? Well, let's look at another verse that might help us, Leviticus chapter 22:26-28:
Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall stay seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as an offering by fire to Adonai. However, no animal from the herd or from the flock shall be slaughtered on the same day with its young.
What's the connection to that verse? The connection is that if you boil your animal in its mother's fat, you are violating another commandment restricting you from eating the fat of animals in Leviticus. And if that isn't good enough, here is another reason why you shouldn't boil a kid in its mother's fat: it means you have also slaughtered the mother, and you don't want to slaughter your animal on the same day as its young, because if that is the case, you have destroyed the animal which can create more young. In other words, if you boil a kid in its mother's fat, you run out of food. You have destroyed both sources of food. If you keep the mother alive, you get more calves, and thus more food, so don't cook them together! Now doesn't that make more sense than boiling a kid in its mother's milk?
So look at what we have done here. By changing the vowels on a Hebrew word (a perfectly acceptable thing to do given how vowels were assigned in the first place), we have erased the commandment restricting boiling a kid in its mother's milk, which takes away the rabbi's need to build a fence around it, which takes away the Kashrut law of keeping milk and Meat separate! We have backed up this change with the scholarly research regarding the ambiguity of Hebrew in the Torah when it comes to vowels, and, thanks to our parsha this week, we have found another text to back up our reasoning! And just for fun maybe we should think about why we call the holy land the land flowing with MILK and honey. Maybe it was meant to be the land of animal fat and honey. Which makes more sense, doesn't it? A land doesn't flow with milk. But it does flow with animals. The holy land that God promised was a land that flowed with an abundance of food!
If you've ever played the game Jenga, this is what it looks like to take a brick from the bottom and watch the whole tower fall. All of the writings of the rabbis were based upon a choice made by a human being, deciding what the vowels would be. If you change that one vowel, that one word, the brick is pulled and the tower falls.
It's up to you if you wish to eat cheeseburgers or not, and there is certainly something to be said for tradition and the sacredness of the rabbinic writings, but I would encourage all of you to, at the very least, take a look at how that tower of laws was built and see if those bottom bricks are really as stable as they look!
Why is chicken fleishig?
Question: Why is poultry considered Meat for the purpose of separating Meat and dairy? Birds don't give milk so you wouldn't be seething a kid in its mother's milk if you mixed chicken and dairy.
–Anita, Arkadelphia
But seriously. According to the rules of kashrut given in the Torah, it would seem that fowl and land animals are in different dietary categories. Land animals must have split hooves and chew their cud in order to be kosher (Leviticus 11:3, Deuteronomy 14:6). The Torah doesn't list a set of criteria that birds have to meet in order to be kosher, it simply provides a list of birds that are unacceptable (Leviticus 11:13-19, Deuteronomy 14:11-18).
The idea of separating Meat from dairy comes from the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. A kid is a land animal, and fowl are ostensibly in a different category altogether. So why avoid chicken Caesar salad?
t turns out that fowl was not always considered Meat according to Jewish law. I asked my Jewish food guru, Professor David Kraemer of the Jewish Theological Seminary, about the history of fowl in kashrut, and he pointed me to a mishnah in Tractate Hullin (8:4)which discusses this issue in some depth.
Two opinions are presented. One is from Rabbi Akiva, who posits that separating fowl from dairy is a rabbinic prohibition. Countering Rabbi Akiva is Rabbi Yose Ha-Galili, who has no problem with chicken parmesan.
In the time of the Mishnah Rabbi Yose's position was the norm in some communities. But Kraemer says that as far as he knows there's no post-talmudic opinion that permits eating fowl and milk together. In the 15th century, the prohibition against eating birds with dairy was codified in the Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 87:3), with the stipulation that the prohibition is rabbinic, not from the Torah.
Kraemer thinks the rabbis decided to classify fowl as Meat because of the sociology of the times.
"In the ancient world, meat was eaten with relative rarity, primarily for special occasions," Kraemer told me. "For more common special occasions, such as the Sabbath, 'smaller' Meat would have been most common, and that was typically fowl. So people simply thought of and spoke of fowl as Meat. Since this is the way people thought of it, this is the way the rabbis categorized it."
This is a classic case of "If it looks like a goat and it tastes like a goat, it's a goat"–even though, actually, it's a chicken or a duck.
Good news, though those soy chicken strips they're selling these days taste pretty darn close to the real thing. Just don't tell Rabbi Akiva.
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Biblical Kosher versus Talmudic Kosher
Solomon D. Stevens
An Orthodox friend recently reprimanded me for wearing my kippah to a restaurant which he deemed to be non-kosher
I always wear my kippah. I want non-Jews to know that there are Jews in the world who are proud about who they are and not afraid to be recognized as Jews. But beyond that, I believe that I keep kosher. I just don’t keep Talmudic kosher. For the Orthodox, there is only one standard of what is or is not kosher. I disagree, and I think this is worth discussing.
Most of my Orthodox friends think that the main reason that their non-Orthodox friends do not keep their version of kosher is that they are not fully committed to a religious life. A smaller number of my Orthodox friends think that some Jews are just lazy; they don’t want to take the trouble to keep kosher in the way that the Orthodox do.
or me, the issue is how one understands revelation. I am a religious Jew and not lazy, but I simply have not been able to accept the position that the Oral Law is divinely revealed. In order for this to be the case, it had to have been revealed at Mt. Sinai when the Written Law was revealed and then passed down from generation to generation without corruption until it was finally put into writing as the Talmud. I am still open to an argument that can make this credible for me, but I have yet to hear it.
I understand that for Orthodox Jews, there really isn’t a clear distinction between the Written and Oral Law. The Talmud attempts to provide authoritative interpretations of the Written Law; but my contention is that reasonable people can disagree about this. If the Talmud is not divinely revealed, then its interpretations of the written law are interesting and helpful, but not authoritative.
What does this mean in practice? I have never boiled/cooked a kid in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19, 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21). I see how this prohibition could be linked to concern about cruelty to animals and the need to respect the relationship between children and parents, but I find it a stretch for the Orthodox to conclude from the Talmud that milk and meat can never be eaten together.
This prohibition is also extended to include eating milk and non-milk producing chickens. I understand a desire not to invite people to sin, or not to confuse non-Jews who might see someone eating milk and chicken together. Fine. What I have not been able to accept is that this becomes law because the Talmud proclaims it to be so. A need for separate plates, silverware, and sinks is, in my opinion, a reasonable interpretation of Torah, but not binding. I do not condemn anyone for separating milk and meat, but if the Talmud is not divinely revealed, then its reasoning is worthy of study but not the final word.
In addition, the prescribed method of kosher slaughter of meat, shechita, does not appear in the Torah. It is derived from interpretations of a number of passages in the Torah, but it is only interpretation if the Talmud is not divinely revealed. I only eat land animals that chew their cud and that have split hooves, but today there are very legitimate questions about whether the methods described in the Torah are actually the least painful for the animals that are slaughtered. So what do we do? The Orthodox are bound by what they accept as laws articulated by the Talmud. At this point, that is not enough for me.
I am only a Jew who wants to live a Jewish life in the best possible way. I am a scholar, but I am not a Biblical or Talmudic scholar. I can only live my Jewish life to the best of my ability. I accept the possibility that I could be very wrong when I make a distinction between Biblical kosher and Talmudic kosher. I am open to being instructed by those who are wiser than I. But it hurts and offends me when my Orthodox friends assume that my approach to the kosher laws means that I am either secular or lazy. May Hashem guide us all.
Solomon D. Stevens has a Ph.D. from Boston College. His publications include “Religion, Politics, and the Law” (co-authored with Peter Schotten) and “Challenges to Peace in the Middle East.”
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