Re'eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17)
OVERVIEW
This portion begins with one of the most powerful statements in the Torah affirming free will: "See, I set before you blessing and curse" - blessing if the people follow God's ways, and curse if they don't. These blessings and curses are actually to be articulated from the tops of two mountains when the Israelites enter into the promised land, and more detail is given about that ritual at the end of this discourse (Deuteronomy 27:12). The parashah continues with laws that are to be fulfilled by the Israelites in the land: the eradication of idolatry, and the centralization of sacrificial worship at specific sites which God will identify. Moses strongly warns the people about false prophets, idolaters, "lawless" cities, and the incorporation of any pagan practices into Israelite ritual. The remainder of the parashah outlines those mitzvot that set Israel apart from other nations: kashrut, tithing, laws regarding loans, the Sabbatical year, Israelite slaves, consecration of the first born, and the major festivals.
IN FOCUS
You should not boil a kid in its mother's milk (Deuteronomy 14:21)
PSHAT
This statement occurs two other times in the Torah (Exodus 23:19 and 34:26) in essentially the same way. The meaning does not seem that complex, but has been expanded greatly by the Rabbinic tradition. The context is a lengthy discussion of things that Israelites may or may not eat - kashrut - which is presented in broad, general, terms: you shall not eat anything abhorrent, you may eat anything with cloven hooves and that chews the cud, you may eat any swimming creatures with fins and scales, you may not eat any swarming winged thing, you may not eat anything that has died a natural death, and so on. Then there is presented this very specific law: you may not boil a kid in its mother's milk. To paraphrase, you may not eat a young goat that has been cooked in the milk of its own mother. This specific statement is the foundation of the entire halakhic prohibition against mixing dairy and meat foods.
DRASH
This one has often confused a lot of folks. How do we get from the specific, "Do not boil a kid in its mother's milk" to the much more general, "do not mix milk and meat"? As Rabbi Gunther Plaut wrote in his UAHC Torah Commentary, "Rabbinic Judaism developed the command into the cornerstone of dietary law and saw it as a prohibition of eating milk and meat products together - a meaning entirely extraneous to the text." So let's look first at what the Torah text might really mean, and then try and figure out how the Rabbinic Sages understood it.
Often it is maintained that the laws of Kashrut are maintain for health or hygienic reasons. But, as Maimonides and others clearly point out, Jews do not keep kosher for health reasons (if that was the case, then modern refrigeration and cooking technics would invalidate most of these laws) but rather we keep kosher because God has asked it of us. The dietary laws, as presented in Torah, are considered to be Chukim, mitzvot whose purpose is not clear to humans (as opposed to Mishpatim, whose meaning is clear and self-evident).
But we can speculate, as many have done. Since God makes it clear in the Torah that we are to avoid the practises of the idolatrous peoples and maintain ourselves as a distinct nation, many assume that the Chukim, and particularly the laws of Kashrut, exist to counteract certain idolatrous rituals. Apparently it was a common pagan sacrificial practise to offer a foetal or new born goat boiled in the milk of its mother, and this was considered an abomination for the Israelites. While this sacrificial practice may have ceased, the item is still on the menu today. On a Mediterranean cooking web site, I came across a recipe from Syria/Lebanon called "Lamb Cooked In Its Mother's Milk." Oy. I don't think this is a coincidence. Obviously the practice existed, or the Torah would have no reason to prohibit it.
Other reasons were also suggested for this prohibition. Ibn Ezra connects the law against boiling a kid in its mother's milk with the Torah's injunction against slaughtering a cow and her offspring on the same day (Leviticus 22:28) and the edict not to take a mother bird from the nest along with her eggs (Deuteronomy 22:6-7). For Ibn Ezra, it was clear that all three of these mitzvot draw their inspiration from a single idea: to kill a mother and its offspring at the same time reflects a lack of sensitivity to life that is inexcusable. Ibn Ezra supports this idea with a passage from the Prophet Hosea that describes an extreme act of destruction:
...Therefore shall a tumult arise among your people, and all of your fortresses shall be plundered, just as Shalmon conquered Bet Arbel on the day of battle, when the mothers were dashed to pieces with their young (Hosea 10:4).
So, if you must seek a rationale for the Torah's disdain for Lamb and Milk stew, then either of these reasons is as good as the other: the Torah seeks to distance Israel from a practise that was common among the idolatrous peoples, and/or, the Torah was emphasizing the sanctity of life and denigrating those who devalue life by destroying mothers along with their children.
But how then did the Rabbis get from "not boiling a kid in its mother's milk" to "no mixing dairy with meat"? Well, this is a classic case of "fence around the Torah," the halakhic device by which mitzvot, as recorded in the Torah, are expanded, sometimes to a great extent, to help Jews avoid inadvertently breaking a law. Basically, the rabbis were concerned about the possibility of confusion. Milk all looks the same, no matter what the source, and most red meat looks similar. How can you ever be sure that the milk you are using to boil the kid did not come from its mother? You can't. So we avoid mixing all milk and meat. And if we develop too much of a taste for other kinds of meat, especially lamb, cooked in milk or served with dairy, then how can we be sure we will draw the line when it comes to kid cooked in its mothers milk? By extending the law against boiling a kid in its mother's milk to a law prohibiting all meat with diary, the rabbis sought to avoid accidents that might result in a transgression against God's law, and help us develop disciplines that will prevent sin. The Rabbis started with a specific law, but, in the spirit of that law, they developed it into an entire way of life.
DAVAR AHER
Do not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
You shall not cook meat with milk. This verse appears in the Torah three times. The first teaches that we may not cook meat with milk, even if we do not intend to eat it. In this, people are sometimes not careful. The second teaches that we may not eat meat with milk. The third shows that we may not derive any benefit out of meat cooked together with milk - it may not even be given to one's dog. (Hullin 115a)
