EXOD891 A great rabbi of a generation or two ago interpreted Scripture's injunction, "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk," [this verse, Exodus 34:26, Deuteronomy 14:21] to refer to a child.… And he explained: If you allow a child to nestle indefinitely in his mother's arms, over-protected and over-indulged, fearing to subject him to the demands and disciplines of Torah, you "boil him in his mother's milk"; he is "cooked," finished, done for! Hence Scripture states three times, Do not boil a kid in its mother's milk, to imply, apart from the literal meaning, this warning in metaphor.

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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).

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EXOD895 And it is written (Isaiah 58:7): "and the cast-out poor you bring to your house." This teaches us that if one brings the poor into his house, it is accounted by Scripture as if he has brought bikkurim to the Temple (Yerushalmi Peah 5:5).

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EXOD896 Do not cook meat in milk. The prohibition on eating milk and meat together does not appear to be based on health considerations. Rather, the Torah does not want meat and milk to be cooked together, for as we wrote above (mitzvah 62 [i.e., Exodus 22:17--AJL) regarding sorcery, certain mixtures and combinations are prohibited simply because they run counter to Hashem's Will. The Almighty wants everything in [the] world to operate according to the laws of nature that He instituted when He brought Creation into being. The Torah does not allow the combination of milk and meat, so cooking the two together is forbidden, even if no one consumes the mixture.

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EXOD897 Bring your first fruits to the Beis HaMikdash. Key concept: To know and remember that all of the good that we have comes from Hashem. Therefore, He commands us to bring our first fruits to His sanctuary and give them to a Kohen who serves Him there. Through recalling that He is the Source of all blessing, through accepting His rule and authority and declaring before Him and His Sanctuary that all good in the world comes from Him, we become worthy of His blessings and He will bless our fruits.

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EXOD898 See [[GEN275]] Genesis 2:15 tend SACTAB 190-2

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EXOD899 See [[GEN666]] Genesis 9:3 eat SACTAB 273-4

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EXOD900 See [[DEUT1382]] Deuteronomy 24:15 poor SPERO 52-3

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EXOD901 It has already been stated that the relation of nature to the Torah is like that of a servant to his master; for the forces of nature, in governing the world, operate in accordance with the Torah, as it says: “You will serve Hashem your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst” (Shemos 23:25 ); “He said, ‘If you listen carefully to Hashem your God and do that which is right in His eyes, obeying His commandments and keeping all His statutes, then I will not bring upon you all the sickness which I brought upon Egypt, for I am God your cap Healer’” (ibid. 15:26). There are many similar passages.

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EXOD902 See [[DEUT3]] Deuteronomy 1:11 bless ROSNER-BLEICH 61

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