Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
The Hebrew Bible prohibits “boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.” The law primarily refers to a young goat, but, most likely , it covers lambs and calves as well. The prohibition is repeated three times in the Pentateuch: in Ex. 23:19, 34: 26 and Deut. 14:21. However, its meaning is not clear. Ibn Ezra, a medieval commentator of the 12th century, Spain, admitted that “the reason for this prohibition is concealed from the eyes of the wise” (See his comment on Ex.23:19). Nahum Sarna, a modern critic of the Bible, calls it “an enigma” (Exodus, p. 147). There is nothing similar in any of the ancient Near Eastern legal texts.
The Aramaic translation of the Bible by Onkelos (3rd cent. CE), renders it as “you shall not eat meat in/with milk.” Augustine of Hippo (5th cent. CE), understands it as “a goat that is still suckling on its mother’s milk.”
Yet, according to the Biblical text, the patriarch Abraham, “took curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them (the angels) and he waited on them under the tree as they ate” ( Gen. 18:8).
Why would anyone want to boil a kid in its mother’s milk? The Arabs considered it a delicacy. The biblical text does not provide a rationale for this prohibition. Maimonides, the Jewish Aristotelian rationalist of the 12th cent. Spain, guessed that “idolatry had something to do with it. Perhaps such food was eaten at one of the ceremonies of their cult or at one of their festivals” (Guide, 3: 48). The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (1st cent CE) argued that this law dealt with sensitivity towards animals (On the Virtues, 143).
The ancient Rabbis , based on this law, set up an entire system of kashrut ( laws dealing with foods that are prohibited or accepted) about mixing meat and milk: “No flesh may be cooked in milk , excepting the flesh of fish and locust” (M Hullin, 8:1). Jewish law, using this text, prohibits eating or cooking meat and milk together. In a few extreme cases, some traditional Jews, have two different plates, one for milk and another for meat. There are those who even have two different kitchens for each one of them. Jewish law does allow eating meat after cheese: “After eating cheese, we may eat meat immediately thereafter at another meal , but we must carefully examine our hands to make sure that no particle of cheese cling to them” (Ganzfried-Goldin, Code of Jewish Law, 1963, p. 147).
Though Orthodox and Conservative Jews keep this law today , most Reform Jews do not abide by this prohibition. As the Pittsburgh platform of 1885 stated ,these laws of kashrut “originated in ages past and under the influence of ideas altogether foreign to our present mental spiritual state,” and ,therefore, they are “irrelevant.”
So, while most traditional Jews cannot have a cheeseburger, most liberal Jews can and do.
