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Thought for the Day: When Is Chicken Not Like Beef With Regard to Milk?

When I was first married, I was in graduate school. Each morning I would put on my backpack, head over to my office, and then learn all day; physics, that is. Here I am several decades later and back to that routine, though now I head over to the beis medrash of Kollel Zichron Eliyahu, and learn Torah for a good portion of the day. Life is good. One other common activity is getting that first coffee at the office/beis medrash.. The conversations around the coffee station (hot water urn and a variety of instant coffees :) ) are a bit different though...

As I was getting my coffee, I addressed R' Schwimmer (whom I know from his excellent chumash shiur on Friday nights during the winter) and said, "I bet you would not be happy with me if I sat down in beis medrash to eat a turkey and Swiss sandwich, would you?" R' Schwimmer deftly replied, "HaShem wouldn't be happy with you." Fair enough. But why not?

Here's where that question came from. I have just started learning the halachos of meat and milk, siman 87 of Yoreh Deiah. Syef 4 says that one is not allowed to cook meat in (human) mother's milk because of מראית עין/it looks bad. Mother's milk is pareve, but it looks enough like cow's milk that one could mistake the concoction for a forbidden mixture of milk and meat. The Rema adds, "but regarding fowl, which is only forbidden by Rabbinic decree, you don't have to worry." The Shach (and others) note that the Rema means there is no problem with cooking chicken in mother's milk, but you certainly cannot eat it.

However, the Kaf HaChaim (s.k. 78) says that the Rema means that it is even permissible to eat it. Well, according to the letter of the law, but nowadays people would find it revolting to each mother's milk, so it is forbidden because of בל תשקצו -- separate prohibition in the Torah to not eat icky things.

So, back to my question. The Rema says that you can cook chicken in mother's milk because it is two Rabbinic decrees away from the Torah prohibition of meat (beef/lamb/kid) with milk (cow/sheep/goat). The Kaf HaChaim says you can even eat that mixture. So... turkey (already one step away) with cheese (another step away, as it is cold with cold; that is, not eating a clump of meat and milk cooked together) ought to be ok according to the Kaf HaChaim. In fact, we have a general principle that we do not apply Rabbinic prohibitions on top of each other, aka גזירה לגזירה לא גזרינן. Why do we cry foul to fowl with cheese at all? (I couldn't resist.)

After some lively discussion we finally decided that when dealing with the actual prohibition of eating and cooking meat with milk, then chicken is considered to be effectively meat by Rabbinic decree. That means that anything the Rabbis decreed about milk (cow/sheep/goat) with meat (beef/lamb/kid) will also apply to (kosher) fowl (chicken, turkey, etc). That means it is all one decree. On the other hand, when one decree is for a different issue -- מראית עין/it looks bad, in this case -- then we certainly will apply the general principle of גזירה לגזירה לא גזרינן. (At least according to the Kaf HaChaim).

While the actual content of the conversations around the coffee station have changed, the intent hasn't really changed for me. We are still interested in getting a deeper understanding of reality. Some people never grow up; Baruch HaShem.

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