PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEEK, SHABBAT PARSHAT VAYETSE (DECEMBER 8-9), MORI VE-RABI RABBI AHARON LICHTENSTEIN WILL BE AT THE RIVERDALE JEWISH CENTER FOR SHABBAT. HE WILL BE SPEAKING FRIDAY NIGHT ABOUT THE SITUATION IN ISRAEL, SHABBAT MORNING IN THE MAIN SHUL (DELIVERING THE DVAR TORAH DURING DAVENING), GIVING A SHIUR BEFORE MINHAH, AND A SIHAH AT SEUDAH SHELISHIT. PLEASE JOIN US FOR AS MANY OF THESE TALKS AS YOU CAN.

 

BASAR BE-HALAV

In our discussion of chapter 48, we skipped Rambam's suggestion for the reason for the prohibition of mixing meat and milk., because I wanted to share with you an idea of my own on that issue. Rambam basically says he does not know the reason, but suspects that it has to do with a form of idolatry that existed at that time. Supporting this suggestion (in his claim) is the Torah's having twice juxtaposed the prohibition of meat and milk to the commandment to go on a pilgrimage to Yerushalayim, as if to contrast what we are allowed to do for our God to what they do to their idols.

The weakness in Rambam's claim, aside from our usual caution about ascribing mitsvot to a desire to differentiate Jews from idol-worshippers, is that he does not even assert that there was such an idolatry, he suspects it. Since I have my own thought about the issue, I thought I would take the editorial privilege of sharing it with you.

Aside from the oddity of the prohibition itself, the Torah's expression of it is also strange. Instead of saying that we may not cook meat in milk generally, the Torah says we may not cook a kid in its mother's milk-- even though, we should stress, the prohibition is to cook any kosher animal meat in any kosher animal milk. A couple of halakhot in this regard will also focus our discussion; first, that these laws only apply to kosher meat and milk (McD's cheeseburgers are not a problem of basar be-halav, since neither the meat nor the cheese is kosher), and second, the meat of fowl (chicken, etc.) is not included in this prohibition on a de-oraita level.

CRUELTY

Ramban (Devarim 14;21) suggests, in explaining the issur, that it is a question of cruelty (akxariyut) to cook a baby in the very milk that was meant to sustain it. To explain why the prohibition applies to all meat and milk, he says that all milk comes from an em, a mother. (He also explains the positioning of the mentions of the issur, but we don't have room to discuss that here). But cruelty to whom?

It strikes me that, with a little explanation, Ramban's words are very meaningful. First, I would note that at least in modern Hebrew, but I believe in medieval Hebrew as well, akhzari can mean insensitive as well as cruel. Second, we should notice that there are two ways that we can gain sustenance from an animal-- we can drink it's milk, or we can kill it and eat it. In the former role, the animal is acting as a mother, who nourishes young without loss of her life. When we kill an animal, we are treating it as an animal, in that we have the right (given by God after the Flood) to kill animals for food, although as Jews we have to do so in a specific manner.

Each of these forms of gaining food-benefit from animals is permissible, but they are very different from each other in the cost to the animal. While we do not have to prefer one to the other, we do have to have the sensitivity to notice when our rule over animals, our using them for our benefit, comes at no cost to them, or at the highest cost to them. The prohibition, then, means to make us aware of the ways in which we have used the animals in question, and not to ignore those differences by mixing them together (and it is only in cooking that we really mix things, as is clear in the laws of mixtures in halakhah). Now we know why there's no problem with mixing non-kosher foods-- since we, as Jews, are not allowed to benefit from them anyway, there is no reason to maintain an awareness of their difference. Similarly, since birds do not nurse their young, there is no form of peaceful nourishment to contrast with their meat (one could theoretically have suggested that there should be a similar prohibition with eggs, but those don't actually provide sustenance to any animal in their original form, and to the extent that they are fertilized eggs, we are not allowed to eat them at all, so that it is only a non-bird-nourishing egg we are allowed to eat anyway).

VOWS

Rambam sees the entire virtue of vows as being in encouraging temperance in a person. That is, the point of a vow was to remind someone not to eat or drink something. Rambam quotes the Mishnah in Avot that says nedarim seyag la-perishut, vows are a fence for abstinence, as support for his claim. What is a little odd here is that there is little evidence in the Talmud that vows were only in terms of food and drink-- one could abstain from any variety of activity through a vow. While Rambam might be right, therefore, that vows were a way to train oneself to be temperate, it is hard to claim that it was only in terms of food and drink.

The same problem affects Rambam's view of the husband's right to void his wife and/or daughter's vows. Rambam sees women as prone to anger, so that they will be likely to take rash vows, which would then create rifts in a household (since some food would be prohibited to the wife, some to the daughter, etc.). Without commenting on Rambam's characterization of women, or his simple assumption that the man is the one who gets to determine the nature of the household and the kinds of things that are prohibited in it, I would note that again this cannot be limited to food and drink, since the husband has the right to void any of his wife's vows that apply to matters between them, or to matters where she denies hereself pleasure (if a wife prohibits makeup to herself, the husband can void the vow). The issue therefore seems more complicated than Rambam's reasoning covers.

NAZIR

Rambam sees the point of being a nazir as training oneself to avoid wine, an abstinence that creates a state of holiness. Since a nazir completely abstains from wine, he reaches the level of holiness of the High Priest, who also is not allowed to become ritually impure even for close relatives. Here, there are several problems in the suggestion-- first, Rambam assumes that the wine prohibitions arecentral to the status of nezirut, when the Torah simply refers to a person who decides to become a nazir, and then lists three types of prohibitions: wine, haircuts, and ritual (corpse) impurity. There is no indication in the verses that the wine abstinence was generally the motivating cause for the institution.

Further, a famous story in the Talmud would indicate that there were other valid reasons for deciding to become a nazir. The Talmud says that Shimon b. Shetah generally refused to participate in the sacrifices that a nazir offers at the end of hi s nezirut, since he believed people should not become nezirim (since, as we will see, he assumed they did not do so for the right reasons). One time a nazir came to him who had particularly beautiful hair, all of which had to be cut off as part of the closing ceremonies of the nezirut. Shimon b. Shetah asked the young man what had caused him to want to cut off all his beautiful hair, and the man related the following incident. A shepherd, he had not seen his reflection for a long time until one day he happened to notice himself in a body of water. Impressed with his own beauty, he had felt pride welling up inside him. Disgusted with himself, he determined to become a nazir, to remove this pride in his looks. Shimon's response? Kamokha yirbu nexirim be-yisrael, we should have more nezirim like you among the Jewish people.

Aside from the inherent beauty of the story, it contradicts Rambam's assumption about the reasons for becoming a nazir, suggesting that it was there to teach us a more general temperance, a more general abstinence from overinvolvement in the world's pleasures. That articulation of it explains why the prohibitions are wine, haircutting, and ritual impurity. Wine is a food-pleasure (perhaps the most addictive one); hair is a physical pleasure (human beauty and the various activities that come with that); and ritual impurity is a sign of involvement in human society (part of life is death; participating in burying the dead is the highest form of involvement in the running of the world and society). The nazir abstains from all three, suggesting that what (s)he is doing is withdrawing from the world temporarily, for any of a variety of reasons. Since this is a drastic step to take, Shimon b. Shetah was leery of people who withdraw for invalid motives, and sought to discourage all but the most sincere from doing so.

I had thought we would start with Chapter 49 this week, but there was more substance left in Chapter 48 than I realized. We'll turn to 49 next week, be-ezrat Hashem. See you then.