All this to-do about not mixing dairy products and meats stems from Deut. 14:21 (…Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.) KJV; (…Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.) NIV

Because of this little passage, you can’t buy a pepperoni pizza or better yet a meat eater’s pizza in Israel. But you can get a pizza with tuna on it because tuna can’t be boiled or cooked in its mother’s milk. Yet, on the other hand, a chicken’s mother doesn’t give milk and chicken can’t be mixed with dairy products.

Once, Lura and I stopped at a little food court, sort of a row of little eateries. Lura wanted a slice of pizza and I wanted a hamburger w/ fries. Well all the shops were kosher. Therefore the pizza shop handling cheese didn’t handle meat, so Lura purchased her pizza at one shop and I my hamburger w/ fries at another. The kicker was, being that the shops were kosher we couldn’t sit together. The shops all had identical plastic table and chair sets out front therefore we were able to look at each other while we ate our meal.

There are several sectors of Orthodox Jews each having their own interpretation of Deut. 14:21. Some say you must wait at least six hours after eating a dairy product before you can eat meat and visa versa, some say 4 hours, and some say 1 hour if you rinse you mouth out.

Then there’s the kitchen! Keeping a kosher kitchen is something else! Keeping a kosher kitchen requires 2 of everything, one for dairy and one for meats: 2 sinks, 2 refrigerators, 2 sets of dishes, 2 sets of silverware, 2 sets of cups and glasses, 2 sets of cupboards, 2 sets of pots and pans, and 2 sets of dish rags and towels.

Conclusion:
Seems like Abraham, the father of the Jews, didn’t have a problem serving dairy products with meat!

And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. Gen. 18:7-8 (KJV)

We report – you decide!

Edwin Beckford
December 2003