This week’s Parasha

Feb 17 - Mishpatim

Exo 21:1-24:18;

Jer 34:8-22, 33:25-26;

John 14:15-28;

Jam 1:21-27
Text Box: It is always exciting to me to have something come out as a brand new revelation during Bible study. This week it was as if something suddenly reached out and hit me right between the eyes on a topic that is debated a lot. The milk and meat issue comes to the fore this week. Are we allowed to mix milk and meat? Is the entire traditional Jewish separation of meat and dairy a misunderstanding? You won’t believe how clear the answer really is. In Exodus 22 verses 28-29 speak of the offering to the L-rd of the fullness offering or priestly heave offering. This heave offering corresponds to the offering of First Fruits and is one of the three pilgrimage festivals when all the men are to come to Jerusalem. You would make the offering of the first born of your harvest, just as you make the offering of the first born of your flocks and herds. Even the firstborn of the people belong to the L-rd unless redeemed. These verses directly tie the first of the harvest to the first born and then go on to point out the animals of the ox (your herd) and the flock are not to be offered during the first seven days of its life. The animal is to be left with its mother. Only on the eighth day or later may it be offered to the L-rd. In the very next chapter, Exodus 23:14-19, the three pilgrimage feasts are being established: Passover, First Fruits and Succot. Then it clarifies that during Passover the blood of the feast offering is not to be upon leavened bread. Of course this does not refer to having blood on the bread and we already know that we are commanded to not eat the blood. This is a re-statement that the bread is to be unleavened for Passover. It then states “The choicest fruit of the land you are to bring to the L-rd.” This would apply to First Fruits and Succot. But then it goes back to make the same connection from the previous chapter and states “You shall not cook a kid (in the Septuagint it reads lamb. This allows the reading to apply to either the Passover lamb or the first born offering) in the milk of its mother. “ Our Western mindset has always made this read as if you are boiling the meat of a young animal in the milk of its parent. But….. What if we don't read this with our Western minds and read it in the figurative speech of the Middle East? If you just had the phrase “...a kid in its mothers milk” one thinks of a young animal that is still feeding directly from its mother and not grazing for itself. The phrase when taken as a phrase alone has an obvious meaning. But what about the “Don’t cook” portion of the sentence? The offering to the L-rd of the first born was given to the priests to sacrifice. Part was burned but most was cooked and used for food for the priesthood. This was the standard practice of the offering of the first born. It was cooked. The connection is very clear when read one chapter right after the other. The meaning of “...not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” is a re-statement of the law given one chapter earlier to not take a baby animal as a First Fruits offering, a first born offering while it is still nursing, i.e. “in its mother’s milk.” Whether referring to Passover as it might in Exodus chapter 23 or referring to the offering of the first born of your cattle and flocks as it is re-stated in Exodus 34, or Deuteronomy 14: 21-23, the meaning becomes clear when taken in light of the previous command of G-d stated in Exodus chapter 22. Many years of misunderstanding then become clear once read in the phraseology of the time it was written. Selah. Selah

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