Mother's Milk

We were talking about the laws of Kashrut in an intro to Judaism class today. Actually, most of the people present were already Jews, either by choice or otherwise. I was the youngest person in the room, second only to the instructor. But anyway. I guess the parts about who and what to eat or not to eat are pretty straightforward. What interests me is the separation of milk and meat. There has traditionally of course been a lot of discussion about this, and a whole spectrum of ways that people choose to practice it. But for me, I go back to the original text, and ask to myself, what does this really say?

Now, I don't know Hebrew well enough to read the original in that way, but I can at least look at the translation. What is it? Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk. Okay. Easy enough. I guess if you are going to cook a young goat, find something else to boil it in besides its mother's milk. Shouldn't be too hard. I don't even eat goat. But, from out of that, we get a whole, complete separation of all that is meat from all that is milk. And I can see the point of it. We want to be really sure that we're following the law. We don't even want to allow for the smallest transgression, if we can avoid it, even if it were done without our knowledge, because we don't want to risk divine severance of existence.

The thing that is always true about ancient text is that we can only infer the intention of the text from the clues that are given. It seems to me a lot of people have read this and gotten really worried about putting cheese on a plate with or even in the same room as beef. But what is milk and what is meat? Milk is something that nourishes. Meat is something that you eat. But the passage does not say "don't mix milk and meat." It doesn't say anything about meat. It says, "don't boil a kid in it's mother's milk." What's the operative word? Boil. There is an action. Who is doing the boiling? You are. And what is the end result of the boiling? It's killing or cooking that poor baby goat who is about to become your dinner.

Okay, but don't get too sad. We still have to eat. It's just that talking about a "kid," and "it's mother's milk" has led people to deal almost exclusively in two categories: milk and meat. But the text does not say "meat." It says "kid." It's talking about a baby goat. It's not a chunk of flesh. It's an animal. And it has a mother. What does a mother do? It wants to feed its child. And so when I hear that phrase, I see it as a larger metaphor. I divide what it's giving me into two different categories. I see "that which is nourishing" and "that which is killed." The killing of a goat is sad, but necessary for our survival. We have to do it, so let's do it in the right way. Let's be nice to the goat, and let's be nice to it's mother. What's the purpose of milk? It feeds. It brings us into life. Boiling or cooking is the act of taking life away, and never the twain shall meet, saith the Lord.

Milk gives us nourishment when we are young and struggling and vulnerable. It is the essence of a mother's care which cannot be expressed in words. And in fact, "express" is the same term used medically to refer to lactation. It is, literally and figuratively, a mother's expression of her love for her child. Even if she never said a word to that child. And if we, as conscientious people, are to take that milk from the mother, which was intended to give her child life, turn around and use it to kill her baby, well, that would be just mean. No wonder we would be given divine severance of existence.

So what that commandment is saying, to me, is, "don't use that which is intended to give life (or nourishment) as an agent of death." And to me that goes way beyond how many dishes I have or whether I put cheese on my hamburger. It means, use everything for its intended purpose. Don't mix things up. You'll get confused. You'll forget what is life and what is death. You won't know what makes you happy and what makes you sad. You will forget the value of life, and that's when you'll be cut off.

And, to take it even one step further, there is a human element. Because we are like the goats. Our mothers also give us milk. When we take a kid and boil it in its mother's milk, it is as if we might as well be boiling our own children in the milk of our breasts. Who could do that? What kind of mother would you be? Not me, you say. I would never do that to my child. But would you? In what other ways do you nourish your child? What other ways do you help them grow and thrive? In what other ways do you express love for your child? Or it could be anyone you love. A husband, a friend, a neighbor. I think what this phrase is saying, on a deeper level, is also, don't use your means of love as a tool for hurt. Don't abuse your love's expression and make it cause pain. Don't kill other people - especially your children who depend on you, but we all depend on each other in one way or another - with your potential for goodness and nourishment. Because it's the same milk one way or the other. It can feed the kid or it can kill it. It all depends on the delivery, and that choice is up to us. That is where the burden of commandment falls upon our shoulders. Know what you are doing and how it is going to affect people. Know when you are feeding and when you are killing, and keep the two far away from each other.

And that's why we need to separate our milk and meat. Not because it is meaningful in and of itself, but because by doing so it reminds us that the part of our lives that nourishes relationships should not be mixed with the part that kills and destroys and takes life away, even as that act is also what feeds us.