Glen Rock Jewish Center

"She'elah u'teshuvah", Q &A
with Rabbi Tow

Question: Why is poultry considered to be meat/fleyshik?

Answer: Following the question raised last week about the status of milk and eggs as far as the kosher rules are concerned, the question came up as to the status of poultry as meat in the first place.

The Torah teaches us three times, "Do not cook a kid in its mothers milk."(Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, Deuteronomy 14:21) The wording of this phrase suggests that the Torah prohibits consumption of the meat of the offspring in the milk of the mother, though the prohibition was extended to include consuming any meat and milk products at the same meal. As Rabbi Monique Sussman-Goldberg of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem (March, 2007), "There's no possibility of cooking a chick in it's mothers milk." Chickens do not have mammary glands and thus do not lactate. The Torah, then, appears to not forbid consuming poultry and dairy products together.

The Talmud takes up this question in the Tractate Chullin, in which a discussion arises in the Mishnah about whether chicken can be placed on the table alongside cheese (or other dairy products). According to Shammai, chicken can be placed on the table, but not eaten along with it. Chicken then, is considered meat according to Shammai, and we cannot therefore eat a chicken and cheese sandwich. However, one person at the table could have chicken and the person sitting across the table can eat a cheese sandwich. Hillel argues that chicken should neither be placed on the table nor consumed together with dairy. He is the more stringent of the two in this situation. The Mishnah clarifies for us though that no one objects to putting chicken and cheese separately on a table where there a meal is not taking place.

The Talmudic discussion that follows takes up a related issue. According to the father in law of Rabbi Abba, one can eat chicken then dairy without washing hands or wiping out the mouth in between. In the end, the later Jewish legal thinkers, specifically Moshe Isserles in his commentary to the Shulchan Aruch, maintained that the same rules of waiting between eating beef and dairy apply to chicken followed by dairy.

Maimonides, the medieval Jewish philosopher and legal thinker, recognizes that according to the language of the Torah, one could eat chicken and dairy together. If a Beit Din (Rabbinical Court) were to forbid eating chicken and dairy together, that would be adding our own ideas to the Torah since the Torah specifically mentions a kid in its mother's milk. Maimonides though is concerned that if permission is granted with chicken, then others may say that we should be able to eat other meats with milk since they are not specified in the "Don't cook a kid" rule. They could even go so far as to say, "I can cook a kid in goat's milk if the goat is not this particular kid's mother." Maimonides concludes that the general prohibition against consumption of any meat and milk is not an addition to the Torah, but rather a "fence around the Torah" to prevent violation of the generally understood explanation of "Don't cook a kid" to cover any type of meat.