You Shall Not Boil

The instruction begins by saying, "You shall not boil." If we were to accept this translation at face value and take a hyper-literalist approach to the commandment, we might find it perfectly acceptable to place a young goat in a pot of its mother's milk and heat it to 211 degrees Fahrenheit, just below the boiling point. Since it did not reach a full 212 degrees, it did not technically boil.1 Or perhaps we would feel comfortable at an even higher temperature if we employed a different cooking method, for example, if it were fried or baked instead of boiled.

Of course, to be that literal is to place a lot of faith in our translation of the Hebrew as "boil." We would have to bank on the idea that the Hebrew term translated "boil" here has the exact same range of meaning.

The Hebrew verb we translate as "boil" is bishel (בשל).2 There are times when "boil" seems like a fair and reasonable translation. There are other times when it cannot possibly mean "boil." (In the Scriptural quotations below, bold text indicates the translation of the Hebrew word bishel.)

One example where it does mean “boil” is in the commandment of the Passover lamb:

They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled [uvashel mevushal, ובשל מבשל], in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. (Exodus 12:8–9)

We can see from this verse that the Passover lamb cannot be boiled; it must only be roasted. However, we find elsewhere,

You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. And you shall cook it [uvishalta, ובשלת] and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. (Deuteronomy 16:5–7)

In this case, the translators were aware of the discrepancy, so they (appropriately) chose the more generic term "cook" rather than "boil." And yet the term is the same.

In the account of the celebration of Passover during the reign of Josiah, we find a similar usage:

And they roasted [vayevashelu, ויבשלו] the Passover lamb with fire according to the rule; and they boiled [bishelu, בשלו] the holy offerings in pots, in cauldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the lay people. (2 Chronicles 35:13)

Here we find the same term3 translated both as "roasted" and "boiled" in the same sentence. (In Exodus 12:8–9 cited above, however, the word translated "roasted" [tzali, צלי] is entirely different.)

Yet another use of the term can be found:

So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was lying down. And she took dough and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight and baked [vatevashel, ותבשל] the cakes. (2 Samuel 13:8)

Shankbone: a Passover Seder plate featuring a roasted shankbone (source)Between all of these uses ("boil," "cook," "roast," and "bake"), it seems fair to say that the verb bishel does not necessarily mean "boil" in a technical, scientific sense. Rather, its versatility is comparable to the English word "cook." As with the word "cook," it certainly suggests that heat is applied. But even so, that might not even be the point. Consider if someone were to say, "My husband will be able to eat with us, as long as you don't cook anything with tomatoes." In this case, "cook" is not the operative word, and the listener would most likely assume that raw tomatoes are as bad as cooked. Likewise, we might say that a person is "cooking" even if they are tossing a green salad, since the point is not the heat involved but the food preparation.4

If we stick to the interpretation of bishel as cooking with heat, then we must ask the question of how much heat constitutes "cooking." And would it really be acceptable to serve a young goat in its mother's milk if the goat had been pre-cooked elsewhere first?

After all, if we were to take this word hyper-literally, it would be entirely permissible to eat a young goat boiled in its mother's milk, if someone else did the preparing, since technically the text does not say, "you shall not eat." But the sages naturally concluded that cooking and eating are both prohibited.

So far, we have shown that the verse prohibits cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. We also must consider that the amount of heat may not be relevant.

Before we continue, I should explain my use of hypothetical situations. I am not suggesting that anyone should or would actually pre-cook a young goat and then serve it in its mother's milk. The purpose of these hypothetical situations is simply to explore the complete parameters of the law at hand. If we are to accuse the traditional interpretation of the commandment of being too broad in scope, then it becomes our duty to flesh out the exact boundary between right and wrong.

1. 1. Since milk contains a large percentage of water, the boiling point is nearly the same, although the precise temperature would depend on atmospheric pressure.
2. 2. This is the root form. In context of the verse ("You shall not boil") it is written lo tevashel (לא תבשל). In each verse, the exact permutation might vary, although the verb itself and its basic meaning is the same. In each verse, notice the root letters (ב-ש-ל).
3. 3. In different permutations, only because of their relative positions in the sentence. Nonetheless, the same verb is used in both.
4. 4. Here is another example of a verb with both a general and a specific meaning. Suppose you heard that your favorite author "wrote" a new novel. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word originates from "Middle English, from Old English wrītan to scratch, draw, inscribe." The first definition of the word is "to form (as characters or symbols) on a surface with an instrument (as a pen)." Does this mean that the author scrawled it with a pen or pencil, rather than typing it on a computer or even dictating it? Again, the point of the statement is not the method of transcription, but that the person authored the book, one of the broader definitions of the term.