Question About Kosher Commandments

[porphyrian]

I've been asking around, and I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer about this question: if the Commandment about not eating milk and meat together is about not eating a mother's milk with her flesh, why can't a Kosher Jew eat dairy and chicken together? Chickens have never, to my knowledge, given milk. Also, related to this same question, why is it OK to eat eggs with dairy? It seems that this would be a more appropriate ban with chicken.

[rockymountaindem]

1. I've asked a Rabbi the same question.

It seemed strange to me also. He said that in the past consuming chicken with dairy products would have been acceptable, but for reasons he didn't really know it has just evolved into no meat of any kind with dairy.

Another source I read stated the ban was because meat is symbolic of life, and meat is symbolic of death. With this explanation in mind, it makes sense why any meat would be forbidden with dairy.

In the commentary section of the Bibles at my synagogue, they say that the original goal of the ban was to forbid the boiling of goat meat in sour goat milk. This recipe is still prepared among bedouins today. This original ban was probably put in effect to draw a distinction between the early Hebrews and their neighbors, or because it was considered unsanitary.

[Sgent]

2. Whoever said that

Rabbinical Judaism was intellectually consistent? Its better than most religions, but it still has more than a few inconsistancies.

Remember that the Orthodox believe in the biblical literalism of both the Hebrew Testament AND the Talmud. Thus anything in the Talmud can't be overruled today, since we are farther from Adam today than when Hillel was around.

[Ian David]

3. I've had that same question

If I were to re-write the Kosher laws on that to make more sense, then I would either:

1) Interpret the law as strictly as possible. You can not cook an animal in the milk of its own, actual mother.

2) Interpret the law to say that you can not cook an animal in the milk of its own species.

3) Say that you can't cook mammals (or marsupials) in milk or cook any egg-laying species together with any kind of eggs.

Much of the Kosher laws are for reasons of health and safety. The question really is, though: Is this prohibition based on morality or safety?

I'm also wondering if in light of what we now know about biomagnification of toxins in the food chain it might be a good idea to encourage eating of shellfish, as opposed to kosher fish like Tuna, that have huge amounts of Mercury and DDT in their flesh.

[Darranar]

5. It's not necessarily supposed to be a logical progression...

Rabbinic law is not always strictly derived from the Biblical law, at least not from its literal interpretation.

And at no time did practice actually follow Biblical law literally.

[Darranar]

4. Poultry is included because it looks like meat, I believe. n/t