Motherhood and Fats?
The words for “milk” in the Torah and for “fat” are the same root word: chlv. We can only tell whether the text means “milk” or “fat” based on the context in which the word is found.
So: Do not cook a kid in his mother’s chlv uses the same word as:
You shall eat no chlv of ox or sheep or goat. Chlv from animals that died or were torn by beasts may be put to any use, but you must not eat it. If anyone eats the chlv of animals from which offerings by fire may be made to G-d, the person who eats it shall be cut off from kin. (Lev. 7:23-25)
Why does the Torah use the same word for both animal fat and a mother’s milk? Surely they should be different? Or is there a linkage between them?
Might it be connected to the first time fats, chlv, are mentioned in the Torah?
Abel, for his part, brought the firstlings of his flock and from their fats (chlv). G-d paid heed to Abel and his offering.
Abel designates animal fats as a gift to G-d!
And Abel’s offering is then echoed, in its way, by Avraham, who also gives chlv to others, the angels whom he perceived as being connected to G-d.
He took curds and chlv and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them.
So chlv has a special meaning in the text, does it not? What if we are not permitted to eat fat because fat is meant to be a gift, appreciation for the blessings we are given, just as used by Abel and Avraham?
Does that mean that we cannot repurpose fats to eat them, because when we repurpose, it must be for a higher purpose, and a gift is already the highest possible purpose that the fat can achieve? Abel’s offering seemingly established that the fats of the animals are the highest and best thing from the animal, and so we do not disrespect the ultimate maker of all things by trying to use those fats for something other than as a gift.
If chlv is the highest and best thing from an animal, perhaps it explains why mother’s milk (also chlv) cannot be used for cooking an animal: the mother invested in herself to create the milk, to create a gift for the next generation. And if we use her chlv to instead terminate the next generation, we would be misusing chlv just as the Cohen is forbidden from using chlv in any way.
And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the Tent of Meeting, and burn the fat (chlv) for a sweet savour to the Lord.
Does this not explain why we are commanded to always burn the fats on the altar, because they are meant to be gifts to G-d, and using them as food for people would disrespect that higher purpose, in the same way that using a mother’s milk for cooking her offspring would disrespect the entire meaning of motherhood?
Might the connection between a mother’s chlv and Abel’s chlv offering be reinforced if we consider that three times the text tells us: “You shall not cook (bshl) a kid in its mother’s milk.” But the text immediately preceding these words is – in two of those cases – The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of your G-d. Doesn’t this verse directly confirm the connection between Abel’s offering of the firstlings, and the fact that he also brought chlv, from the fats of the animals. We show gratitude to G-d, the creator of all life, just as we honor motherhood? Acknowledging that the first fruits are gifts from G-d is human gratitude, just as we respect motherhood and its gifts to the next generation. Are both using everything for the highest possible purpose: furthering holy relationships?
What if the “holy” addition to the natural cycle of life is ongoing gratitude mixed with the understanding that our investments are meant to be both “in the moment” and connecting generations? Does this lead us to understand a core identity of the Jewish people and the relationships that we are commanded in the Torah to have with G-d and with Man?
Why is Neveilah Forbidden?
Most commonly in the Torah the word “nvl” is simple: it means a carcass, like an animal that is found dead on the side of the road. Jews are forbidden to eat an animal that died by itself or was torn apart by another animal. We cannot eat or touch such a carcass; contact renders us incapable of becoming more holy. (Lev.11:8)
If we look at Deut. 21:23, we see that the word “nvl” refers not to an animal, but to the body of a man who has been hanged for his sins. And that same verse says that we are supposed to bury the man because otherwise it makes it impossible for the earth to be spiritually elevated. Is that not interesting? We know that in order for an animal to be killed for food, we must return the blood to the earth before the animal can be kosher. (Lev. 17:14) Which suggests that putting a body/blood into the earth enables holiness for both the earth, an animal and even the person who eats that animal.
We see a shared connection: the dead must be united with the earth to allow for a productive outcome. Burying a man gives his death some glimmer of redemption. I think people have an almost instinctive understanding of this; it is part of the urge to “give a proper burial,” or perhaps as per Gen. 3:19: For dust thou art, And unto dust shalt thou return.
Yitro tells Moshe: you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. The word for “wearing yourself out,” is the same “nvl”! Nvl in this case means “a waste,” or even, “an opportunity cost.”
Does that mean that the carcass at the side of the road is really a lost opportunity? An animal that was killed for food, by way of contrast, had a higher purpose – both a physical component (sustaining life) and a spiritual component (giving life a meta-meaning), and gets a different word to describe it! (This, by the by, might be a Torah argument for eating meat.)
In the case of the criminal, this means even more: a man who earned the death penalty is the ultimate “nvl”, the ultimate lost opportunity. A man whose accomplishment in life was to incur the ultimate penalty rightfully inflicted by society, being hung, is compared by the Torah to an animal that died by itself. Wasted life is wasted opportunity.
The very first time the word “nvl” is mentioned in the Torah is the rape of Dina, the daughter of Jacob. Gen 34:7 The sons of Jacob … were indignant and very angry, because he had committed an outrage in Israel. The word that is translated as “outrage” is the same “nvl”. And this connection suggests that the crime of raping a girl was not just anger-inducing: raping Dinah was a terrible loss of opportunity, a waste of potential that she otherwise possessed. Indeed, the connection to the way the word is used elsewhere in the Torah suggests that rape is like being torn apart by a wild animal; rape causes irreversible damage to a life.