Mishpatim - The Prohibition of Milk and Meat: Creating Healthy Boundaries

2:15 So there's a Ramban. A very fascinating, very beautiful Ramban. It's a Yisodeh sticker Ramban. What was that? I thought we don't know the reason. So the Ramban offers reasons, even if the deepest reason behind some of the chukim we can't understand. But some of it is still within the realm of the rational. Like, for example, you see Rashi gives a reason for Parah Aduma, even though ultimately Parah Aduma is a chok. There are reasons that we can offer. So the Ramban says that Hashem created the species of the world. And he wanted Hashem wants each species to remain its own kind. And if you crossbreed different species, if you take two different species and mash them together, that's a violation of creation. And so the Ramban says we're meant to respect the boundaries of creation. We're not. That's a beautiful topic, but we're not discussing that topic now. It's a good question in general. You could ask that about anything in the Torah. Right now we're just staying on the topic of kliyim, okay?

3:16 Where are there exceptions and where are there no exceptions? This is where we're going to start to do some heavy lifting tonight. You got to pay attention just to make sure you get the problem. When it comes to shatness, there are exceptions to the rule. For example, the big day kahuna, the priestly garments, are made of wool and linen. Tzitzis, for example, are made of wool and linen. So the first example that we see is that even though things are meant to be in their own separate boundaries, when it comes to the big day kohuna and when it comes to tzitzis, the boundaries are able to be merged together, and wool and linen could be put together. Keliyim crossbreeding animals has no exceptions. There are no exceptions to that rule. But what's fascinating is what about by baser b'chalav? Are there exceptions to this rule or not? Let's look at the pasuk carefully.

4:15 The pasuk seems to have two totally different themes in it. I'm surprised nobody picked up on this. You picked up on it? Good for you. Good. You should bring the bikurim to the base of the mikdash. You should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. What's the obvious question here? What does one have to do with the other? Those seem to be—if you put those two things in the same pasuk—they seem to be two very different themes. Why do they put it together? The medrash asks this question, and the medrash gives the following very radical answer. You have to be a little bit of a gemara cup for this. You might have thought that you could mix basar b'chalav together for the cooking of kadesh. Comes along the pasuk to tell you, even for kodashim You can't have basar b'cholav. What's kodash? Let's say there's things in the base of mikdash. So now let's say for example If we look now at the three categories. So we have as follows: Category number one is shotness. Shotness has exceptions to the rule.

5:32 What are the exceptions to the rule? Bigdei kahuna and tzitzis. Kilayim, crossbreeding different species, no exceptions to the rule. Basar b'cholav is in the middle. No exceptions. So that's what the medrash is telling us. The medrash tells us basar b'cholav is in the middle. You might have thought that it was like shotness and therefore there should be an exception. The pasuk comes too long to tell you that there are no exceptions to the rule. And basar b'cholav is aser. I'll say it again. Make sure everybody gets the problem. We have in front of us the topic of boundaries. What are appropriate boundaries? Remember, the Ramban says everything in the world that Hashem created needs to be respected as it is. That's the whole point of the Isser of Kliyim. We don't want you crossbreeding different species because you're not respecting the boundaries that Hashem created for the world. You're not respecting the species. When it comes to Kliyim, there are no exceptions. When it comes to Shatness, mixing wool and linen, there are two exceptions: big day kahuna and tzitzis.

6:41 Which one is basar b'cholav? Is it like shotness or like kliyim? So the medrash says we would have thought that it was like shotness and that maybe you would be allowed to cook meat and milk in the base of mikdash for achilas kachim. Kamash malan, no, it's like kliyim and there are no exceptions. So the obvious question is What does any of this mean? Why is it that there could be exceptions by shatnas? Why is it that there are no exceptions by keliyim? And why is it that we might have thought there was an exception by basar bchalav, but in the end, there's not? In order to explain this, before I get to the actual answer, which is a difficult answer to understand I want to start by talking about the concept of boundaries in general. And we're going to talk about it from the realm of marriage.

7:35 In marriage, the pasuk tells us what's the goal of marriage. The goal of marriage is to become one. Or what we're going to refer to for the rest of the year as intimacy. Intimacy means that you have become one with your husband, that your husband has become one with you. But there is a very big danger. In the concept of intimacy, if you don't understand intimacy properly What's the danger of intimacy? Some people think that in order to become one with someone else, they need to stop being themselves. They can lose themselves to another. And because they lose themselves to another, they think they're in a state of intimacy. But actually, it's exactly the opposite. Because if you stop being you, then who is your husband married to? Does that make sense? So if you are not yourself Then who's your husband married to? So you need to be you.

8:45 Firmly planted in your own soil And your husband needs to be him. Firmly planted in his own soil And from this place of two people who are confident and uniquely themselves, what can they now create? This third thing, which is the merging of both things. To be a husband and a wife doesn't mean I'm me and she's her, and never the twain shall meet. It also doesn't mean that I'm no longer myself and she's no longer herself. It means that we have to be ourselves, and we also have to be more than ourselves. Or the way that one rabbi put it, which I like very much. A man and a woman cannot get married, but if a man is a man and a woman is a woman, then the man can become a husband and the woman can become a wife, and husbands and wives can get married.

9:41 Does that make sense? So if you're not you Or if you think you have to abandon being yourself in order to become one with another, that's not a great relationship. That's not a relationship that's going to work. What would be an example of this? What would it look like to have an example of losing yourself to a relationship? So here's a good example: a husband comes home from work And he's had a very hard day And the wife can see that the husband is agitated. She can see, ever notice about people that they're just like at their wits' end. And she could see that if anything goes wrong in the house, he's really going to lose his temper. And so, all of a sudden, she grabs the kids and she's like, "Let's go. Everyone's upstairs. We're taking baths right now. Everything is going to be perfect. Because if everything is not perfect, what's going to happen? He's going to lose it. And she's not going to be okay if he's not okay."

10:48 You understand? What does she do? Because she's not okay if he's not okay. So now she's going to do her best to control everything in the house to make sure that everything in the house is okay. But can she do that? She could do it for maybe some time, but probably it's not going to work all the time. So really, what's happened is that she's lost herself to him. Now let's play the scenario out a little bit differently. She is her, firmly planted in her own soil And her husband comes home. And she sees that her husband is not okay But she is okay even if her husband is not okay because she's firmly planted in her own soil. Does she need to control everything that happens in the house? And if something happens and it triggers her husband Whose problem is that? It's his problem.

11:40 And if there's impact on the family Then from a deep place of self, you know what she can do. She can communicate with him and say I can totally appreciate and understand that you had a hard day And yet we need to make sure that our home is a safe place for our children. " So If you feel like you need to take some time before you come home to gather yourself That's understandable. You hear the difference? In one case, because she was okay, she was capable of communicating. She was capable even of letting things fall apart a little bit, knowing that just because things fall apart doesn't mean that they're over. Right? So far so good. If you're not okay with another person being not okay, that means in a certain sense you've lost your sense of self to another. And that relationship cannot last. It cannot hold.

12:36 So in the three ring circus of a marriage, you have to be your ring. He has to be his ring. And then there's this ring in the middle of two people where they create a space together where they each can dwell. Does that make sense? Hashem creates a world of boundaries for a reason. When the Ramban tells us that we have to learn to respect the boundaries of this world The Ramban is not just telling us to appreciate that God made a cow and don't try to make a cow into something else. Don't try to make a horse into something else. The Ramban is telling us that as people, we have to be people that respect boundaries, that respect things as they are, and we don't try to convolute boundaries. I'm going to speak in a sneezy way, and I'm asking you girls not to make comments.

13:32 But we live in a world today where all boundaries are being thrown out the window. On every level. This is the attack that's happening in the world today. We don't have to get into specific examples because I'm sure everyone in their own mind can conjure up specific examples. So let's say there are some things that are very beautiful. There's a concept of doctors without borders. That's very beautiful. Doctors can go all over the place, but borders and boundaries are a healthy thing. So let's say, for example, in America today, there's a big debate. About immigrants, how should an immigrant come into the country? Should we have strong borders in America? Some of you clearly have opinions on that. And I'm sure other people have differing opinions. The point is this: we should be able to agree that countries have borders and laws for a reason.

14:29 What happens to a world where all boundaries and borders are thrown out the window? It's chaos because it means that we can't respect each other's differences. Because there's great dignity in difference. For example, in a world of healthy boundaries, I get to say you are different than me, and I respect the fact that you're different than me. And because I'm uniquely me, firmly planted in my own soil, and you're uniquely you, firmly planted in your own soil, we could create a shared space together. But what happens is that the less boundaries that are made, the less shalom there is, because the world is a fragmented place. The goal of harmonizing the world is not to make everyone the same. The goal of harmonizing the world is to see the inner unity of all things that are different and remain different. You don't want your husband to lose himself to you, because then who are you married to?

15:28 The beauty of marriage is only seen in the difference between you and your husband. That's what's amazing. My wife has this great line. She says People who get divorced might say, 'I'm so much happier now that I got divorced,' right? Again, assuming that the divorce wasn't because there was an abusive or immoral component in the relationship. It's just people who were deeply unhappy in their marriage and now they're happier. So my wife says she's 'It's easy to be happy.' When there is no conflict, the goal was to figure out how to be happy. Even when there is conflict, the goal was to learn how to stay engaged when things have deeply moved apart from each other. Does that make sense? That's a really sophisticated and profound concept. We think that our job in this world, and this is true, is to show the inner unity of all things. Every single thing in the world, even scientifically, do you realize this? Even scientifically, it's not so obvious that things in the world are different from each other.

16:44 Did you know that? Because ultimately, all things are made from certain basic elements, and they've just formed into the various things that we have today. But really, at its core, all things are one. This is what they're looking for in science today. They're looking for the theory of everything to show how one thing really combines all things. In Judaism, we've been expecting this because we've been saying since the beginning of time that all things are really expressions of Hashem in this world. So we know that there's an inner unity. But the danger of unity is saying, in order for there to be unity, there needs to be conformity. That's not unity. Unity is when you have all of these various particulars. But the particulars still come together. So now let's look again at this notion of keliyim, shatness, and baser bchalav. In keliyim, if you crossbreed two species What do you now have?

17:50 You now have a species. That on an essential level did not exist before. Does that make sense? You took two different species, two different animals. You mated those animals, and in mating them, you violated the essential levels of boundaries that exist. This animal is supposed to create itself. Instead, it created something fundamentally different. Let's say that were to happen unnaturally, like with a scientist. Would that be considered Hashem didn't create that creature? No. Again, I'm not. That's a fascinating question in Kabbalah of what happens when we do things and what's the elokust that's within that thing and how do the osios of the bria get in there? That's a fascinating question, but it's going to take us too far afield. But it's a beautiful question. I'm saying a very simple thing, a very pashut thing. Two species that mix together. If somebody mates them together, they created something that was not meant to exist. They violated the boundaries on an essential level. So far, so good.

18:51 Is that true of shatness? When you mix wool and linen No. When you mix wool and linen, wool remains wool, and linen remains linen. In general, the Torah tells us you have to be very careful. Things have boundaries. Wool should be wool, and linen should be linen. Because wool represents Chesed, and linen represents Gvura, and we don't have to get into the Kabbalah of it. These represent two different things, and they're not supposed to be mixed. Because when you do mix them, they retain their independent identity. And therefore comes along the Torah and says, if you're using them, this is a key point now, if you're using them for purposes of kedusha Then it's mutter. For example, by tzitzis For big day kahuna, because shatness would be the perfect mashal for a marriage. The wool remains wool, the linen remains linen. But if it's for the purposes of kedusha, they come together.

19:54 And yet they still retain their own independent identity. So when it comes to things that are usser Wool and linen should not be mixed. Only a husband and a wife should be mixed. The species need to remain separate. But if it's for the purposes of kedusha, what does that mean? It means each one retains their own independent identity. But they become one. That's a super important point. So now we've seen as follows. In unhealthy boundaries, you lose yourself. What example is that in halacha? That's kalayim. Don't crossbreed different species. You're making things that shouldn't exist. You're not respecting the boundaries of creation. Shatness is wool and linen. Do wool and linen really violate them? They're really on an essential level. Does it violate their boundaries? No. Wool remains wool and linen remains linen. If it's not for the purposes of kedusha, that's not a good mixture.

20:51 That's inappropriate. When men and women who aren't married get together, that's not appropriate. There has to be a division here, a healthy division. But if it's for the purposes of kedusha, then of course that's a good thing. Because wool remains wool and linen remains linen. Now we get to the question of meat and milk. So which one? Not thinking out loud, just thinking to yourself for a second. Which one is meat and milk more like? We can kind of see it both ways, no? Because on the one hand, maybe you'll say it's like kliyim Because two things are coming together And they're impacting each other. On an essential level, meat is still meat and milk is still milk, but the meat taste has been infused within the milk and the milk taste has been infused within the meat. So now you see why the medrash had to tell you that you might have thought that meat and milk was like shatness.

22:01 That meat still is meat and milk still is milk, and therefore what? Used for the purposes of kedusha It would have been mutter. But comes along the Torah and tells us no. If meat and milk are cooked together From our purposes, the way that we see it, it's like it's this inseparable mess. It's now this new thing called a cheeseburger, and we can't separate the cheese from the burger. So it's like kliyim, and therefore it's never mutter. You hear that's an unbelievable word because it teaches us the basics of boundaries in a relationship. I'm looking at something. I say kliyim. That's never good. I can't lose myself to the other person. Shatness could be good within the context of kedusha, but what happens when it's somewhere in between? This is by the way, for most of us, we live in the world of basar b'cholav, right? It's like I don't know. Is this relationship healthy or unhealthy? Am I losing myself? I'm certainly impacted by the relationship. Have we become one mass that's indistinguishable from each other? Are we just impacting each other? It's very hard to know.

23:14 And here's the monkey wrench. This is the part I was keeping in my back pocket. Just for this moment. You ready for it? There's an unbelievable rabino b'chaya. If I didn't know that this rabino b'chaya was real, I would tell you it doesn't exist. The Rabbeinu Bachaya says, in the world of Mashiach You'll be able to eat basar b'cholav And that seems to undo every single thing we just said in the shiur. There's only one monkey wrench, right? We just got done beautiful shear. Keliyim, you're making a new species. Not good to have a new species. Shatnus, you could have it because they each retain their own independent identity. I could see it both ways. Is it like chatnis because the baser remains baser and the chalav remains chalav, but they've been impacted by each other? It's this new thing called baser b'chalav, and therefore it's like kliyim, and that's what the Torah tells us. Baser b'chalav is always aser, even for the purposes of kedusha in the base of mikdash.

24:17 So then, why does the Rabbeinu Bechaya say that one day it will be muter? Imagine in the world of Mashiach, we should all be davening for Mashiach. In the world of Mashiach, we're going to walk in. To a restaurant We're gonna walk into not just one of these Jewish restaurants. I was in a restaurant in Miami called Fuego. You see, some of you are from Miami. Fuego is delicious, and I had the opportunity to sit with the owners of the restaurant. They took me out to eat and they were sampling all these new parve cheeses and they made me like a real cheeseburger. And I was sitting there going like this is what I have been waiting for. You know what I'm saying? I have strange yitzharas. I don't know why that's such a big yitzhar for me, but I want to have a cheeseburger. You know what I'm saying? Every guy, anytime I'm on YouTube, do you ever do this? Do you ever go on YouTube and just see all these things that they make? Guys have cheese on everything.

25:16 Guys have cheese. Meatballs have cheese in them. Every single thing has cheese on it. So I wanted my whole life. I've been waiting to have a cheeseburger. But now I know it's a kosher cheeseburger. I want to cook a kid in its mother's milk. That's what I want. In the times of Mashiach, I want to be sitting there with a cheeseburger, and I want to know that this burger was cooked in its mother's milk. I'mavish want it. I want it on it. You look at me like I'm crazy. Don't look at me like I'm crazy. I have my yitzchares, you have yours. Don't judge. You're judging me. I can see you're judging me. I'm judging you for judging me. Don't judge me. I want a nice toasted brioche bun. The whole nine yards, guacamole. I want butter. I want a buttered bun. That's what I want. I want a momish like the guy. I want to have. They have that wheel that the butter is on, and they put the. I'm talking about. You could tell I spent some time on this.

26:04 What's the pshat in this, Rebbeinu Bechaya? It's an unbelievable Rebbeinu Bechaya. We'll finish up with this. There are two reasons that Yemasa Mashiach are different. The first is that remember In Yemasa Mashiach. In Olam Habah There is no such thing as chol. Everything is kodesh. There is no such thing as mundane. In the world of Mashiach and Olam Habah, we will be able to understand that the entire world is really an expression of Hashem, and therefore nothing could be part of Hashem. Nothing could be ungodly. So of course a cheeseburger is going to be okay, but there's a second reason, and this is the reason I really want to bring out. Right now in our world We can't access. We look at these two forces that have been combined and go, they're combined. That's it. We don't know how to separate them. So we look at basar b'cholav and we say it's like kliyim, it's two forces, and you destroyed nature's boundaries.

27:14 But really, really If you think deeply about it Baser is always baser and chalav is always chalav on a quintessential level. Meaning, we can't perceive the difference between the baser and the chalav. It's not like in kliyim. In kliyim, you're taking two different species and you're making a brand new species. In basar b'cholav, you're not really making a new species called basar b'cholav. It's just that we can't tell the difference between where the basar ends and the cholav begins, or when the cholav ends and the basar begins. But in the times of Mashiach Where we're going to be able to see the essence of all things And we're going to see to the depths of creation. And you'll be able to see the spiritual essence of all things when you look at a cheeseburger in Yomosha Mashiach. What will you see? You'll be able to see where the basar begins and the chalav ends. You'll be able to see where the chalav begins and the basar ends. Why?

28:24 Because in the world of Mashiach, there will be true harmony. And in true harmony, you're always going to be able to distinguish between one thing and another and to be able to see their inner unity. So in Yomosha Mashiach, when you look at a cheeseburger, you'll be able to say, I can see that on a quintessential level. That's cheese and that's meat. And I can see how the cheese and the meat could come together And it could still retain its own cheese identity and its own meat identity. And this is the highest level of a relationship that could occur. The highest level And this is the level that we all aspire to in our relationships. It's what we're preparing ourselves for in seminary, so that one day when we're married, we're going to have these ideas rock solid inside of ourselves. That's what we do.

29:19 It's to know my husband is my husband And he is his own quintessential thing. He belongs to himself. And I'm me And I'm something unique and independent, and I belong to myself. And we're so thoroughly fused together that we're truly one. But within our oneness, you're still able to perceive the unique identity of both of us. In other words, in Yemosa Mashiach Were we able to see the meat is the meat and the cheese is the cheese? But I can see how they can fuse together and still maintain their identity. That is the ultimate goal of a relationship. The ultimate goal of a relationship is to be a cheeseburger and Yomosu Mashiach. It's a funny thing to say, but if you think deeply about it, it makes sense. I'm me, and he's him. And we're also one. But even in our oneness, you can always perceive our own unique identity.

30:24 And that is a deep thing to aspire to. If you ever want to look at one of your relationships and wonder why you're struggling in this relationship, I could share the answer with you right now. It's because somewhere along the line there was a boundary violation. If there's a fight in a relationship, or a conflict in a relationship, I can guarantee you it's because somewhere along the line somebody violated their boundaries. Somebody lost themselves to the other person. They didn't know how to maintain that oneness and their uniqueness at the same time. We should all be blessed. To be in healthy relationships where we're firmly planted on our own soil We're totally one with each other, but even within our oneness, you can still perceive our uniqueness.