Milk vs. Meat

A dog walks into a butcher shop and the butcher asks, “What do you want?” The dog points to the steak in a glass case. “How many pounds?” The dog barks twice. “Anything else?” The dog points to some pork chops and barks four times. So the butcher wraps up a two-pound steak and four pork chops and places the bag in the dog’s mouth. He then takes money from a purse tied around the dog’s neck and sees him out. A customer, who has been watching in amazement, follows the dog to a house several blocks away, where it rings the doorbell to be let in.

As the owner appears at the door, the customer says, “What a remarkable dog!” “Remarkable?” snorts the owner. “This is the second time this week he’s forgotten his keys.”
You are a holy people to the Lord, your G-d. You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk. That is all that the Written Torah states. Three identical phrases emphasize the prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother’s milk. The sages of the Oral Torah explain the meaning of these three verses: one may not cook the meat of a cow in any milk of a cow, not even its own mother, nor in any milk of a goat or sheep.

Why does the Torah repeat this thrice? The sages explain that the first instance prohibits the cooking of meat and milk together; the second instance teaches that one may not eat the cooked mixture; the third instance teaches us that one may not benefit from the cooked mixture, for example, by selling it.

This is just one famous example of the dynamic between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Written Torah's commands are written succinctly and often obliquely. For instance, "Write these words on your doorposts," "Bind them as a sign upon your hand," and "Sit in booths for seven days." What do these mitzvot mean? Do we take a marker and write verses on our doorposts? Do we write some words on paper and tape them to our arms? Do we live in a gazebo for seven days? The oral commentary of Moses explains the meanings of these words of the Torah.

Of course, the sages had legitimate methods of interpretation. The verse was repeated three times, making expansion feasible. Their analysis of the Talmud treats each word carefully and cautiously.

What is the reason behind this law? Why can't you cook or consume cooked meat and milk? Why the need for so many additions to the basic Torah law?

The Torah is conveying a deep lesson in awareness and sensitivity through this enigmatic phrasing of this prohibition. The key here is the introduction to this command: "You are a holy people to G-d." The significance of this command, the Torah implies, is that it will make you holy. The word "holy" means distinct, special, or designated. While all the mitzvot of the Torah sanctify us, those mitzvot specifically introduced with the words "you are a holy people" clearly elevate us. This mitzvah encourages us to think deeply about the world around us in a way that "makes us holy"—nothing is random, nothing is disregarded; everything is seen in its true and ultimate meaning.

Every week, the primate keeper at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, visits an orangutan named Batang. She coaxes a few drops of milk into a syringe and then rewards the monkey with peanuts. She takes the sample to the zoo's research wing. The milk repository is a simple room with several refrigerators and freezers, containing some 15,000 samples of milk from more than 200 species. Biologists from around the world send milk samples, from lion’s milk extracted when the lion is sedated in the wild for a health checkup to rhinoceros milk, for inclusion in the zoo’s collection.

What is the National Zoo doing with all this milk? Milk distinguishes mammals from the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s been called the world’s most perfect food. It is one of the biological miracles of G-d’s creation. There’s unequivocal evidence that it can fight off disease and build better baby brains. In this naturally produced substance, there is water, fat, and protein, as well as vitamins, minerals, digestive enzymes, and hormones. It is rich in maternal antibodies and has anti-infective properties.

But very little is known about how breast milk does its work. When your baby suckles, it sends a message to your brain. The brain then signals the hormones prolactin and oxytocin to be released. Mom's milk is incredibly complex, and scientists are still working to identify the many chemical components of milk and the roles they play in nutrition, immunity, brain development, and other areas. Moreover, each mammalian species produces its own special blend best suited for its babies. Special sugars are present in milk that play a role in immunity, while others promote brain development. Scientists at the zoo have documented 74 different sugars in human milk, including 12 that were not previously known to be present.

Mother's milk is also different from all other physical entities. If I share my food with you, I lose some of it. It's a zero-sum game. Yet, your baby helps you make and produce milk by suckling and removing milk from your breast. The more milk your baby drinks, the more milk your body will make.

But milk doesn't just provide physical sustenance; the process of feeding builds powerful psychological bonds between the mother and her baby. Being close to the mother and feeling nourished and protected by her are the building blocks of healthy attachments and relationships the child will create as he or she grows.

Milk, then, symbolizes abundance, nourishment, and motherhood. Milk is life itself.

The Land of Israel is, of course, described as flowing with milk and honey—milk being the nourishing elixir of life, and honey being the sweetness that follows the necessities.

But meat? Meat can only be consumed after the animal’s death. Meat is lifeless, its vitality drained, its blood no longer coursing through its arteries. Try taking meat from a live animal and it will fight you tooth and nail. Meat is yours when the animal is defeated when it is lifeless.

What can be more callous than using the very miraculous source of a newborn animal’s life—its own mother’s milk—to partake of its death? Using the substance that nourishes the animal to cook it is cruel.

To be sure, the Torah allows us to cook and eat meat. But this ought never to be done in a mindless and heartless way.

In creation, originally, G-d did not give man the right to consume meat. The original man was vegetarian. He and the animals shared a common food source: the grasses of the field, the vegetation of the ground, and the fruits of the trees. But then after the flood, G-d gave man the ability to consume animals, and yet, there are limits. You must understand what you're doing when you're taking another life, killing another mammal for food.

And then there is milk. Milk isn't something you buy in a store; it's a sacred liquid for a mammal, and it's how a mother nurtures a child. Meat is the opposite of that milk; it's the death of the animal. Life is nurtured through milk, but meat is about the death of that which was nurtured.

There was a certain calf that was being led to slaughter. The calf went and hung its head on the corner of Rabbi Yehuda the Prince's garment and was weeping. Rabbi Yehuda the Prince said to it, “Go, as you were created for this purpose.” It was said in Heaven: Since he was not compassionate toward the calf, let afflictions come upon him. He suffered for thirteen years.

One day, the maidservant of Rabbi Yehuda was sweeping his house. There were young weasels lying about, and she was in the process of sweeping them out. Rabbi Yehuda said to her, "Let them be, as it is written: 'The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works.'" They said in Heaven: Since he was compassionate, we shall be compassionate on him, and he was relieved of his suffering.

Eating is a fundamental human activity that represents our interaction with the world around us. We literally take in the world within our own bodies. The laws of Kosher, then, are instructions on how to interact with the world. Judaism asks us to learn and teach the world how to partake in this world with dignity, to respect the beauty and harmony of G-d’s world, and to see the trace of the Divine in every craggy rock, waterfall, and nursing goat.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky