Illustration Credit: Noa Kelner
Halakhah הֲלָכָה
לֹא תְבַשֵּׁל גְּדִי בַּחֲלֵב אִמּוֹ׃
You shall not boil a kid (baby goat) in its mother’s milk.
These exact same words appear three different times in the Torah. (The other two are in Shemot 23:19 and Shemot 34:26.)
A midrash explains that this teaches us three different rules.
רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחַי אוֹמֵר: מִפְּנֵי מָה נֶאֱמַר בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה מְקוֹמוֹת? אֶחָד לְבִשּׁוּל, אֶחָד לְאִסּוּר אֲכִילָה, אֶחָד לְאִסּוּר הֲנָיָה,
R. Shimon b. Yohai says: Why is it stated in three places? One for cooking, one for the prohibition of eating, and one for the prohibition of getting benefit.
- Cooking - you aren’t allowed to cook milk and meat together, even if you don’t eat it (Shulhan Arukh Yoreh Deah 87:1).
- Eating - you aren’t allowed to eat milk and meat together, even if someone else cooked it.
- Getting benefit - you can’t benefit from milk and meat, even if you didn’t cook it, and even if you don’t eat it. So you can’t sell it, even to a non-Jewish person (who is allowed to eat it), because earning money from this food would be benefiting from it.
Hazal were really serious about milk and meat, and they made even more rules for keeping them apart.
- We aren’t supposed to eat milk and meat on the same table (Yoreh Deah 84).
- We don’t eat dairy right after eating meat (Yoreh Deah 85). There are different customs for how long to wait. (See Devash for Vayera.)
- We only bake bread that is pareve (neither dairy nor meat). This helps prevent mistakes (Yoreh Deah 97).
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