Let's Talk About Cheeseburgers

Let’s talk about cheeseburgers and salami and cheese sandwiches.  Anyone who knows anything about kosher laws knows that they are both not kosher.  But is there a difference between them? Of course they are both forbidden to us to eat, but there are indeed some differences.  This is a classic case of the interaction between the Written and Oral Torahs.  (This is a huge subject which would take several pages, or actually a book, to explain fully, but I’m going to take a crack at a brief, simplified and easy to understand discussion of the issues involved.)

 

As an introduction, the written Torah cannot be understood without the oral Torah.  They were both given to Moshe by Hashem at Sinai, and are intended to be studied together. In the oral Torah there are three major avenues of study.  There is the “received” oral Torah – teachings and explanations of the written word that were passed down directly by Moshe. There is the “derived” oral Torah.  In this case, the specific law was not directly taught by Moshe.  Rather it is derived by using various principles that Moshe himself taught by which to derive a law from the written word.  Laws that were taught by each of these methods are considered sourced in the written Torah and are Biblical laws.  Then there are “legislated” laws.  These are laws that were established by the Sages to protect the Biblical laws, often referred to as “fences” around the original laws.  While they are not considered Biblical laws, in practice it is all the same, because the written Torah states that we must follow the teachings of our Sages.

 

Now back to cheeseburgers etc.  The source for the prohibition of milk and meat is a verse that is written identically three times in the Torah, one of which is in this week’s Parsha, Ki Tisa.  “Do not cook a young animal in its mother’s milk.”  Our Sages received the tradition from Moshe that this is referring to any meat of a kosher milk-producing animal with the milk of any kosher animal, whether it is its mother or not.  The Sages derived from the prohibition to cook it together that eating it is prohibited.  It is called a “kal vachomer.”  If cooking the mixture is prohibited, how much more so eating it.  The fact that it is written three times teaches us that there are three distinct prohibitions: cooking, eating and benefiting from the mixture.  Benefiting means selling it, feeding it to an animal, or giving it away as a gift.  It must be destroyed or allowed to rot. 

 

Now, you might ask in a Talmudic singsong, in that case why did the Torah not just write clearly, do not cook it, do not eat it and do not benefit from it?  Good question, I would answer in the same singsong, and it has a good answer too.  The Torah in the original prohibition only intended to forbid the eating or benefiting from milk and meat when it is cooked together.  So this is why the Torah says it in this language three times: do not cook a young animal in its mother’s milk, to teach us both things – that there are three prohibitions and that they apply when it is cooked together.  So this means a cheeseburger is forbidden in the Bible to cook, eat or sell, give away or feed your animal, because (as I understand it) the cheese is cooked on the meat.  However a salami and cheese sandwich which is not cooked together would not be prohibited by the Biblical law.

 

But wait!  Before you go off all excited to share this great news, remember that there is a third type of rule.  Our Sages were concerned that over the generations people would become confused about what is prohibited and what is permitted, since the original text is written so narrow to seemingly refer only to a kid in its own mother’s milk.  They therefore legislated a law forbidding the consumption of any type of milk and mixture, so that sandwich is off limits after all.  And since as I said before one of the 613 Biblical mitzvot is to follow the teachings of our Sages, we are still forbidden Biblically to consume it.

 

However there is still a difference.  The Sages did not legislate a new prohibition to prepare or have benefit from it if it is not cooked together.  So practically speaking, if someone not Jewish asked you to make them a non-kosher meat and dairy sandwich, you can’t make the cheeseburger but you can make the salami and cheese sandwich.  And if someone gave you one, you can give away or sell the salami sandwich but not the cheeseburger.  Another very practical application is pet food.  Some pet foods contain meat and milk.  If they are cooked together, we cannot give it to our pets.  I bet you never thought of getting a kosher supervision for your pet food!

 

What about chicken, you ask?  Why is it forbidden with milk if it is not a milk-producing animal?  That’s another book.