Milk and meat

Eating milk and meat

What some say is a dietary rule concerns the separation of meat and milk (or all dairy products), has nothing to do with milk, cheese or meat. We see this verse cited three times in the Torah that “You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.” (Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21), but none of them seem to have any direct explanations nor does it seem to fit the context of the text if we interpret it as a food law about milk and meat.

While this prohibition is interpreted in many different ways, it seems to be the one which the many of modern Jews want to obey. But have they unmoored the metaphor from its meaning?

The idea of boil a kid in its mother’s milk does not necessarily imply its modern interpretation, and it apparently, according to some, was not even known at the end of the Second Temple period(approximately 600 years (516 BCE–70 CE)). It seems to be firmly established in the first centuries of the Common Era (CE) and some Jews practice this separating of milk and meat with an almost superstitious fervor to distinguishes religiously observant Jews from the non-observant.

Fortune telling

The meaning concerning prohibiting this combination of milk and meat has been suggested to be because there were other religions at that time that made a similar ritual of sacrificing of a kid or lamb and then cooking them in the milk of their mothers, to either invoke signs or the ability to foretell the future or even to generate fertility. But that again seems out of context where we find the quote.

A dietary mandate

There is the possibility that this is actually a dietary rule that protects the Israelites from indigestion or some ill effect that may result from such ingestion of a milk and meat cuisine. But according to SunFed Ranch, "marinating beef in milk creates a lightly acidic bath for the meat, tenderizing it without breaking down its proteins too much. The calcium in the milk reacts with the enzymes in the meat to gently soften the proteins, facilitating another tenderizing process." And then their is the cheese burgers and hamburger pizza argument.

But many Jews do indeed eat milk and then meat no matter how much time has passed since they ate the dairy (although you are expected to clean your mouth with water first). So if that is allowed the ritual seems to be nothing more than virtue signaling and does not explain why Moses put this "rule" in the location of the text.

Religious Rabbis

Over the centuries many rabbis have gradually built more restrictions around what they interpret as a commandment to ensure that no one might accidentally transgress what they interpret to be the Law.

Many of what they thought were laws, commandments, and statutes or ordinances in the Torah may have been simply been "judgements" or metaphors listed off as guidelines and have often been misinterpretations through the unmooring of meanings. Once their thinking has gone off course or strayed from the truth there is often a growing need to create complicated rituals and ceremonies to distract or redirect the people from the real meaning intended by Moses and other Prophets.

Sheep recognize each other with their individual scent, both lamb and mother do this a hundred times a day and in pitch darkness. Even if you slip another lamb behind her at birth without her seeing she may detect that it is not her lamb eventually. There are ways to trick her but as soon as a lamb is born they talk to each other and learn their sound and tones.

It has been suggested by shepherds in Israel that to boil a lamb in the milk of its own mother would be a lack of "sensitivity to the incredibly deep and close relations animals have with each other."

If the meaning of these three verses is about our lack of sensitivity for the mother to a lamb it would certainly have to be a metaphor about our own lack of sensitivity toward our neighbor as well.

Is this verse about our cruel hearts and our treatment of each other rather than merely a concern for the ewe's feelings?

Judging by its location in the text the real point of God's statement through Moses may also be about the kinds of love or charity for the generation to come, and even that given to the stranger in our midst.

Promise of a long life

There’s a biblical teaching known as Shiluach haken (“sending of the nest”(שילוח הקן)). It is saying that we should chase away the mother bird before taking her eggs or her young. It is also taught that a blessing of a long life will be your reward if you protect her from mourning the loss.

This promise of a long life for the compassionate seems to be an echoing the idea of a long life if we honor our father and mother.

Is there a connection in spirit if not in practice?

A kabbalistic interpretation of the passages is that "life comes first in order regarding death". Milk is also first in your diet. They also see life as light or represented by the color white, which would include dairy so it would need to be eaten first, and meat second since it is representing death.

But is this symbolic, almost cultic, or at least mystical, explanation missing a meaning a lot more obvious?

What is it

Is it about diet at all?

Is it about cookware and washing your mouth out?

Are these verses merely metaphors and symbols of a deeper meaning and message and if we get the metaphor right the understanding leaps at us if we have ears to hear?

Is it about avoiding cruelty like the cruelty found in the Leaven of the Pharisees?

Is it just about the two kinds of love and the way they manifest in day to day life, first in the family and then in the nation?

Both the boiling a kid in its own mothers milk and the Shiluach haken are believed prohibitions of undue cruelty but so is the unleaven bread if we want to understand leaven without unmooring the meaning intended by Moses.

Eventually, they are both associated with feasts and which are associated with national charity and the social safety net that Moses was teaching the people he had delivered from the bondage of Egypt and Jesus would eventually call the people back to as a part of their redemption.

"I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able." 1 Corinthians 3:2.

Milk feasts and tithing

Comments

Exodus 23:14 Three times keep a feast.

15V The feast of unleavened bread... and none shall appear before me empty:" It is a time to donate to the ministers of the tabernacle of the congregation.

16V "firstfruits of thy labours" go to the social welfare systems of Altars.

17 "all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD."

18V "Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning." Sacrifices are not forced and certainly not with cruelty and rigor/leaven.

"neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning". This about holding back the offering until later. You have to actually give it and not just pledge to give it later. We see this at Passover when the whole lamb must be shared with enough people that is all consumed.

19V A portion of the "firstfruits... bring into the house of the LORD thy God". This will support the entire welfare system of Israel binding the people with the social bonds of love and charity instead of the bands of the legal charity of Pharaoh's Egypt which like the Corban of the Pharisees makes the word of God to none effect.

19V "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk." Out of no where Moses puts this prohibition which becomes over time the milk and meat prohibition of modern Jews which chains their minds in the superstition of false religion.

21 "for my name [is] in him" is saying that the pattern of God's character is in his heart and mind.

22 But "if thou shalt indeed obey" then the law of cause and effect of the Law of Nature, the will of God will be to your protection and benefit.

Exodus 34 we see a repetition of this quote again with the reference of the firstfruits which was about the welfare system of Israel through charity and has nothing to do with any real dietary restrictions by God. Exodus 34:26 "The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk."

When we see this quote in Deuteronomy 14 we might associated with the dietary restrictions before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always. 24 And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; [or] if the place be too far from thee, which the LORD thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the LORD thy God hath blessed thee: 25 Then shalt thou turn [it] into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: 26 And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, 27 And the Levite that [is] within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee."

The tithe was a freewill offering. It was expected to be given but you could choose the Levite minister of your choice and tithe to him according to his service.

That freewill offering was the Corban of the Levites that not only made the word of God to effect but also would draw you near to God. When it became a forced offering under Herod and the Pharisees John the Baptist and eventually Jesus would condemn their Corban.

An important thing about charity is that it must strengthen the poor. The system of Sodom weakened the poor because it was legal charity through the exercising authority of the State which Jesus forbids. It is forbidden by all the prophets because it is the wages of unrighteousness and the dainties of rulers served on civil tables which are a snare and a trap.

Like milk and meat there are many examples of false interpretations: Stones of the Altars, Clay and Stone, Sophistry, Leaven, Sabbath, Breeches, fringe, Stoning, Naked...

If milk and meat represent types of love then milk represents the milk of human kindness but the meat represents tough love.

1 Corinthians 3:1 "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, [even] as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?"

Hebrews 5:11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. 12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which [be] the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk [is] unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, [even] those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Why is the statement about boiling meat in milk found when Moses is talking about feasts and tithing?

Maybe if we understand the purpose and function of the Altars, Feasts, and tithing we might be able to accept the meaning of the metaphor or at least it may become clearer.

The Feasts were a way of cementing the social bonds of a free society. The people got together three times a year, renewed friendships and relationships, but also funded through freewill offerings the Levites so that they could serve the tents of the congregation and take care of the needy through the practice of pure religion.

Religion was about a social safety net of societies. Civil religion was a snare but Pure Religion sets the captive free. The welfare system of many city states had a tendency to weaken the poor. The Corban of Herod and the Pharisees did that at the time of John the Baptist and Jesus.

In reading Exodus 23:19 some will say that any mixture of meat and milk is forbidden, but others say the reason for this statement about not cooking a kid in its own mother's milk is because it is a form of cruelty to the goat or ewe.

Sam Harris while debating Jordan Peterson about the value or even the evil in scripture, he made a feeble attempt to discredit the Bible with the ignorant statement that, "A goat is a goat, is a goat." In the Bible a goat is not always a goat.

If we only look at the context of this verse within the chapter it is difficult to even imagine that suddenly Moses is adding a food law in the middle of this chapter. Part of the problem is that people do not really grasp the function of priests in society and the purpose and functions of the Altars of clay and stone.

But it is not about the milk or the goat.

It is about love and righteousness.

Just as covetousness is idolatry we can also see that what is some times called "the milk of human kindness" can ruin the tough love required for a free society because it cooks the value of "tough love" which is the righteous meat of Christ's Gospel of the kingdom.

In Exodus 23:3 and in Leviticus 19:15 we are told "thou shalt not respect the person of the poor in his cause."

This same Hebrew text seen in Exodus 23:3 and in Leviticus 19:15 shows לֹ֥א תֶהְדַּ֖ר "lo ṯehdar" which means "You shall not show partiality" of the poor. This is why in Exodus 23:19 we see the prohibition of boiling meat in milk of a goat because to much automatic giving which is seen in systems of entitlements weakens the poor.

Examine what the sin of Sodom was all about and why free bread ruined the people of Rome and how it degenerates the masses because it is boiling meat and milk.

While the welfare system of a free nation nation has elements of the Macro it must begin in the Micro of the individual and their family. Charity, what Jesus calls love, begins at home but we are also told that to spare the rod spoils the child. Understanding why you do not boil meat in milk is why you do not spare the rod.

The legal charity of the social welfare of the exercising authority of the state which through covetous practices and the force of systems entitlements boil the righteousness in the virtue signaling of the milk of human kindness.

It is not a food law but a metaphor and an allegory like the prohibition against biting one another, a common purse or the cities of blood which are a cauldron of flesh.

Exodus 23:14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, [which is] in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

19 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

20 ¶ Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name [is] in him.

22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

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Seethe in milk

What does it mean to Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

What are the Cities of blood? Are they also where you put flesh in a pot and cook the flesh of the people so that you may freely eat of that pot?

To "seethe a kid in his mother’s milk" is not about milk and cooking a baby goat and considering the context it must be about the milk of human love that is sacrificed for the love of her children.

The altars of God are altars of charity and love.

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The Bible does not say no work on the Sabbath but t o work first then take and earned rest. The rabbis decide you can't be throwing water on the ground, because it might cause a seed to sprout. Meanwhile they are greedy for benefit at the expense of their neighbor and children.

Isaiah 9:20 And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:

11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. 12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Hebrews 5:11-14 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

1 Corinthians 3:2 Behold, therefore I will deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk.

Ezekiel 25:4 And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

Judges 4:19 And thou shalt have goats’ milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens.

Proverbs 27:27

For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: unto whom the Lord sware that he would not shew them the land, which the Lord sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.

Joshua 5:6 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

Hebrews 5:13 Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.

Proverbs 30:33 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

Hebrews 5:12 That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O Lord.

Jeremiah 11:5 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Matthew 4:4 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.

Genesis 18:8

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Isaiah 55:1 And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.

Exodus 13:5 Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals.

Genesis 32:15 Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

Deuteronomy 14:21 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 1 Peter 2:2

And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: 1 Samuel 6:10

12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Hebrews 5:12-14

Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: 1 Samuel 6:7

12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. Hebrews 5:12-13

Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? 1 Corinthians 9:7