Chullin 115

At the bottom of Chullin 115a, Reish Lakish asks a question that the past few dapim have already touched upon:

Reish Lakish says: From where is it derived that meat cooked in milk is prohibited for consumption? The verse states with regard to the Paschal offering: “You shall not eat it raw, nor boiled in any way” (Exodus 12:9). As there is no need for the verse to state: “Boiled in any way,” since it could simply have stated: “Boiled.” What is the meaning when the verse states: “Boiled in any way”? It is included to tell you that there is another manner of cooking, the product of which is prohibited like this one. And which cooking is this? This is meat cooked in milk.

As the Gemara has already noted, the only thing we are explicitly, unambiguously told here is not to cook a kid in its mother’s milk. Yet rabbinic tradition unanimously agrees that we are also prohibited, by Torah law, from eating meat cooked with milk, or even deriving benefit from it. Therefore, the rabbis need to explain how these other two rulings emerge from our text.

Reish Lakish derives this from verses about the Pesach lamb. The verse prohibits us from eating the lamb in any manner other than roasting; the language of “you shall not eat it … boiled in any way” involves an extraneous word, which the rabbis generally see as an opportunity to learn out an additional principle. Here, Reish Lakish suggests that the seemingly superfluous wording comes to teach that there is another cooked thing that one can’t eat: meat and dairy.

Rabbi Yohanan goes on to chide Reish Lakish for providing his own derivation, when Rebbe had already provided a different one several generations earlier! Rebbe learns the prohibition on eating meat cooked in milk from a verse’s seemingly repetitive warning not to eat the blood of kosher animals; he argues that the repeated warning comes to include the prohibition on eating meat cooked in milk. Reish Lakish replies that Rebbe’s reading only proves that it’s forbidden to eat meat cooked in milk, whereas his also proves that it’s forbidden to benefit from it, just like one’s forbidden to benefit from a disqualified Pesach sacrifice.

The Gemara goes on to list other origins for these rulings, mostly tannaitic:

The school of Rabbi Eliezer taught: The verse states: “You shall not eat of any animal carcass; you may give it to the stranger who is within your gates, that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a sacred people to the Lord your God; you shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” (Deuteronomy 14:21). The Torah stated the prohibition of meat cooked in milk after the halakhah of an animal carcass to teach that when you sell a carcass to a gentile, you shall not cook it in milk and then sell it.

The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: The Torah states three times: “You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19, 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21). One verse serves to teach the prohibition against eating meat cooked in milk, and one serves to teach the prohibition against deriving benefit from it, and one serves to teach the prohibition against cooking meat in milk.

It is taught in a beraita: Isi ben Yehuda says: From where is it derived that it is prohibited to eat meat cooked in milk? It is stated here: “For you are a sacred people unto the Lord your God. You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” (Deuteronomy 14:21). And it is stated below: “And you shall be sacred men unto Me; therefore you shall not eat any flesh that is torn of animals in the field [treifa]; you shall cast it to the dogs” (Exodus 22:30). Just as below it is prohibited to eat a treifa, so too here it is prohibited to eat meat cooked in milk.

The school of Rabbi Eliezer specifically offers a proof for the ruling that it’s prohibited to benefit from meat and milk, whereas the teaching of Rabbi Yishmael – which we’ve seen before, and which is certainly the most concise – offers a derivation for all three primary prohibitions. Isi ben Yehuda derives the prohibition on eating meat and milk from the juxtaposition of “you shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” to the prohibition on eating treifa animals. He goes on to prove the prohibition on benefiting from it based on a logical inference from orlah – the prohibition on eating or benefiting from fruit of a tree in its first three years – though the latter proof is challenged.

Why do we have such a wide array of derivations for such a core set of Jewish laws? One way to understand this is to compare eisegetical midrash (midrash mekayem) to exegetical midrash (midrash yotzer). Exegetical midrash begins with the text, and close analysis produces laws and additional meanings. Eisegetical midrash is when one already knows certain laws via tradition and norms, and is looking to locate those laws in the text. It’s clear that the prohibitions on cooking, eating, and benefiting from meat and milk were already known and in practice in the tannaitic period, despite the fact that two of those three prohibitions are not explicit in our text. One could argue that the derivation for eating is logically intuitive: If for many other prohibitions that we’re forbidden to eat we’re still permitted to cook them, here, where we’re forbidden to even cook them, would it not logically follow that we’re also forbidden to eat them? However, the prohibition on benefit is harder to infer, and seems primarily tied to an understanding that this prohibition is particularly weighty. 

Given these existing rules, which are understood as an inherent part of basar v’chalav (dietary rules about mixing meat and milk), and a text that doesn’t provide any explicit support for them, we get what’s been recorded here: a whole range of rabbinic attempts to locate these rules in the text. Ultimately, the Rabbi Yishmael midrash is cited most often as a basis for these rulings, likely because of its neatness; however, while tying the three prohibitions to the three mentions of “you shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” is very straightforward, deriving those specific prohibitions from the repetition is a bit more random than other derivations that learn them out from related cases in the text.

Read all of Chullin 115 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 23, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.