Getting back to our source

The Torah states that you “shall not cook a kid (baby goat) in its mother’s milk,” and yes, we have those from generations prior that have interpreted this verse for us, and we have those from the present that interpret it for us. But have we gone too far in its interpretation that we have forgotten the source?

The Torah source says “You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” and people have taken this opportunity to profit off the backs of those who cannot afford it, belittle those who don’t keep their own personal standard of Kashrut and create untold divisions within and outside the religious community.

I am reminded of speech last month of a senior decision maker of a popular Kashrut organization here in Israel, on how a different Kashrut organization (he didn’t give the name) decided to implement a new chumrah (i.e. stringency( on all their meat, a chumrah that had absolutely zero significance as to whether the meat is more halachically kosher or not, but found “the chumrah of the day” to market itself as the premium Kashrut agency to the religious community. This not to say that we should not keep Kosher to the extreme. Yes, we absolutely should. But, as we have fallen so far from the source, how do we even know what Kosher is anymore?

In life, how often do we start a project with positive intentions “לשם שמים” (i.e., for the sake of God) and by the time we are halfway through we have crossed so many religious, social and moral lines. This reminds me of the story, where a husband publicly berates and embarrasses his wife for forgetting to put the salt on the Shabbat table, whereas the whole point of putting salt on the table is to not embarrass an inanimate object. So yes, to embarrass a person, but no to embarrass an inanimate object (i.e., salt).

When people distance so far from the roots, similar to an argument spiraling to such distances that they can’t even draw how they got there, the results don’t even matter, because they forgot why they even began.

What I am learning from לֹֽא־תְבַשֵּׁ֥ל גְּדִ֖י בַּֽחֲלֵ֥ב אִמּֽוֹ. is that one should most importantly create connection by first and foremost following the source written in the Torah, and that everything on top of it is secondary.

Shabbat Shalom!