In the Milk

Pizza: a Middle Eastern pizza with lamb and yogurtOur English translation reads, "in its mother's milk," but the word order in Hebrew is more like "in the milk of its mother," so let's deal with "in the milk" first and then "of its mother" afterward.

First off, the word translated "in" is a simple one-letter prefix (be, ב). One might think that boiling the goat meat immersed in its mother's milk would be prohibited, but adding a small amount of milk to a meat dish would be acceptable. However, the preposition be has a broad range of meanings, including "in," "on," and "with." It would be equally accurate to translate "with its mother's milk" instead of "in its mother's milk."

Next, we should discuss the idea of "milk." Sure, cooking a young goat in its mother's milk is prohibited, but what about if the milk has been processed into yogurt or cheese? Does the prohibition apply only to the type of milk we get in cartons at the grocery store, or does it apply to all kinds of dairy?

The word translated "milk" here is chalav (חלב). Vamosh seems to have a different idea about what this term means:

Not all biblical translations agree on the meaning of the Hebrew words for the various milk products in Scripture. In its simplest form, the Hebrew word halav could simply mean milk as we know it. But in the hot climate of the Holy Land, this liquid would not have remained fresh for long.1

In the Ancient Near East, it seems likely that nearly all milk was processed and fermented into a form that could be used over longer periods of time.

In modern Hebrew, chalav can mean "milk" specifically, but it can also refer to "dairy" in general. For example, cheese that is produced with only Jews involved in the production is labeled chalav Yisra'el (חלב ישראל).

But this is not simply a modern Hebrew phenomenon. The broad semantic range of the word chalav can be seen in the Tanach:

Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand. See if your brothers are well, and bring some token from them. (1 Samuel 17:18)

The term translated "cheeses" here is the Hebrew charitzei he-chalav (חריצי החלב), very literally translated, "cuts of milk." Thus, any dairy food can be considered chalav. This means that it would not be permissible to boil a young goat in its mother's yogurt or melt a slice of cheese made from the mother's milk on a cut of meat. We can now interpret the verse, "You shall not cook meat with its mother's dairy."

1. 1. Vamosh, op. cit., 69.