In Its Mother’s Milk

The moment I truly grasped the meaning of the phrase “Do not cook a baby goat in its mother’s milk” was during my son, Ezzy’s infancy. Being in the continuous presence of breast feeding, with all the love and sustenance it exudes, clarified to me what the Torah is talking about here. A baby is given life by his mother’s milk; Physical life through the milk itself, and spiritual life through the comfort and love she receives from her mother, as expressed in the act of breast feeding. The milk is not only a symbol of the physical life, but of love; of the miraculous nature of our bodies, gifts of the divine, and the miraculous nature of our souls, who can but give gifts of love. It is the unification of divine and human love, which is the only food any baby mammal can live on. The Hebrew word דוד means both lover, and the breast of a woman. The word שדי refers either to God’s most intense name, her innermost essence — or it can mean “my breasts.”

The Torah knows us well. It understands that just like we may use something for the obvious purpose it was intended to perform, we may also use it otherwise. We may, in fact, use this life-giving force on which babies depend to kill them. And then eat that baby soaked in the substance we turned from sustainer to killer. We may, through our תאווה, or unchecked desire, turn the life and love into death and hate. Not only could we mindlessly destroy the love that…