Expert: Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner - 2/13/2006

Question
Dear Rabbi Lerner:

There was an interesting article in the NY Times, February 6th, 2006( "The Word of G-d, as Shaped by Nature)By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, excerpt quoted below). Can you comment on the feasibility of this and the ramifications? I can't imagine that there would be any change in kosher dietary laws, but it makes one wonder if there is any flexibility relative to ancient rabbinic interpretations.

"Some familiar interpretations, Mr. Hillel suggests, might even be altered when these domains are examined more closely. Consider later rabbinic prohibitions against mixing milk and meat at a meal. They derive from biblical prohibitions against cooking a kid in its ''mother's milk'' (in Hebrew: halev imo). But actually, Mr. Hillel argues, this restriction is implausible for seminomadic pastoralists who rely on milk and meat for sustenance. (Abraham serves both to his guests.)

The biblical prohibitions may postdate the pastoral period, of course, but Mr. Hillel proposes that perhaps the tradition is based on a misreading: the vowel-less biblical text may not be ''halev imo,'' but ''helev imo'': hence, you shall not cook a kid in the fat (or tallow) of its mother. This is more consistent with other biblical prohibitions regarding fat (which can also turn dangerously rancid). It would even be ethically and ecologically more sensitive, Mr. Hillel adds: cooking an animal in its mother's fat means that two generations had been simultaneously slaughtered."  

Answer
Dear Dave,

Thanks for writing.

I don't know of Mr. Hillel or his academic credentials.

I consulted Biblia Hebraica to see if there were any manuscript variations that would support his suggest of correcting the vowels - none exist.

It is interesting but basically speculative.

My own feeling is that stewing or braising meat is preferred for game or gamey meat - lamb, sheep - and one needs liquids for that. The most available might be milk.

The downside of course is that one might be "braising" or roasting a piece of meat in the liquid from its mother, and that posed an ethically sensitive issue, no less sensitive than were we to have "fried" the meat in its parent's fat.

The dietary laws from my point of view have indeed evolved, and we may never know the rationale behind them in their origin. However, we can grow spiritually and morally in a regular review of these bases for observing these dietary laws - which I endorse completely.

Best wishes

Rabbi Dov