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What is the reason for not eating mixtures of meat and milk?
The Torah repeats the prohibition of boiling a kid (a baby goat) in its mother’s milk three times. From the repetition we conclude that the prohibition applies to other animals’ meat and milk, and to eating the result, not just to the cooking itself. “Boiling” includes all types of cooking, “meat” includes all edible body parts of the animal, and “milk” includes milk products. If meat and dairy ingredients were cooked together, the result is Biblically forbidden. In any case, the Rabbis forbid eating meat products and milk products together even if they weren’t cooked together.
The Torah doesn’t give a reason for the meat/milk prohibition. Maimonides suggests that eating such mixtures was associated with idol worship.
If the torah commandment means not to mix meat and dairy, why is it not spelled out more specifically instead of asking not to cook the goat’s meat in its mother’s milk? why not just mentioning directly not to mix meat and milk?
Hi! You are asking a very important question. I want to start with some background; pardon me if it’s familiar to you. We know that G-d gave the Torah to Israel in two parts, the Written Torah (the five books of Moses) and the Oral Torah. It had to be that way. No one would be able to keep the Written Torah alone; while it gives a lot of detail on some subjects, on others it is incredibly terse. When the Karaites tried to keep just what was written, the first thing that happened to them was prolonged infighting and disagreement on what that meant, followed by a creation of an oral tradition to preserve the guesses of the founders!
I’m giving just a single example of some of the issues that one must deal with: Deuteronomy 25(4) “Don’t muzzle an ox in its threshing.” I now know not to: muzzle, ox, threshing. What is the range of this rule? What if I don’t use a muzzle? What about a donkey, or a goose! Does it have to be threshing specifically? What happens to a person who does this? Etc., etc. How is anyone supposed to deal with these questions? This has to be done for every single verse in the Torah, to say nothing of how different verses might interact with one other. While a Karaite might feel comfortable saying that he’ll make up his own answers, I think a sincere person would have to respond that he needs more information.
Rather, the tradition of our people is that G-d did not just tell Moshe the words of the Torah, he explained to him what it meant. The Author gave him rules for how to read the verses, and an understanding of the results. So while the whole Torah is based on the Written Torah, and derived from it, every single law in the Written Torah is nestled in a framework of the implications to which it gives rise.
Can a verse be misleading the way it is written? Certainly, if we just follow our first impressions. But honestly, can we really expect it all to be simple? Everyone knows that nuclear physics is hard. Why would understanding the precise will of the creator and his plan for humanity be easy?
Back to your question: Why didn’t G-d write it all out explicitly, like one of our modern legal documents – very long, extremely specific and redundant, incredibly dull. I guess I don’t know, but I like it better this way. Certain parts are presented up front, for maximum impact (A kid in its mother’s milk!? How horrible.) We learn something from the way they’re presented. Then we delve deeper, and learn more. The Torah is layers upon layers. One can go deeper yet, into the secrets hidden in every letter of the Torah, and never stop.
Best wishes, Michoel Reach
Comment by ATR — November 2, 2006 @ 12:02 pm