EXOD893 On three occasions, the Bible forbids the cooking of an animal in its mother's milk (this verse, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21). Jewish law derives from this repetition additional prohibitions, the most well-known of which is a ban on eating milk and meat foods together. But the verse's most fundamental prohibition is its literal one, forbidding behavior that is heartless. Obviously, the mother animal will not be aware that her child is being cooked in the milk she produced, but such behavior results in a person taking perverse pleasure in the suffering of other creatures. [Nachmanides understands this prohibition as rooted in the Torah's desire to keep Jews from becoming a "cruel nation"(Commentary on Deuteronomy 14:21). The same rationale applies to the previously cited regulation: "The essence of the prohibition is not in killing the animal and its offspring [on one day]… but rather… the most important issue is so that we not become cruel" (Commentary on Deuteronomy 22:6).