Chicken Milk: Have you tried it?

(1) The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: (2) Speak to the Israelite people thus: These are the creatures that you may eat from among all the land animals: (3) any animal that has true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chews the cud—such you may eat.

(4) [A mixture of] the meat of a permitted animal with the milk of a permitted animal is forbidden to cook and forbidden from benefit. [A mixture of] the meat of a permitted animal with the milk of a prohibited animal, [or] [a mixture] of the meat of a prohibited animal with the milk of a permitted animal is permissible to cook and permissible for benefit. Rabbi Akiva says, "Wild animals and birds are not [forbidden in mixtures with milk] from the Torah, as it says, 'You may not cook a kid in its mother's milk,' three times. It exempts the wild animal, the bird, and the prohibited domesticated animal." Rabbi Yose HaGelili says, "It is stated, 'You may not eat any nevelah [an improperly slaughtered animal of a permitted species],' (Deuteronomy 14:21) and it is stated, 'You may not cook a kid in its mother's milk,' (Ibid.). That which [may become] forbidden as nevelah is forbidden to cook with milk. A bird, which [may become] forbidden as a nevelah, one might think that it should be forbidden to cook with milk, [but] the Torah says, "In its mother's milk." This excludes a bird, which does not have mother's milk.

As a rabbinic court can make decrees to prohibit that which had been [Biblically] allowed, and that prohibition stands for generation ... what is it that the Torah warned "thou shalt not add nor subtract?" Not to add nor subtract and establish something new forever and claim it as Biblical law, whether the Written Law or Oral Law.

How so? It is written in the Torah (Ex. 23:19) "thou shalt not cook a g'di in its mother's milk", and by oral tradition [of Biblical force] we learned that this verse prohibits cooking and eating the meat of any mammal, whether domesticated [such as sheep] or wild [such as deer], in milk; but chicken could be cooked and eaten with milk, as far as the Biblical law.

Should a rabbinic court go and allow wild-mammal meat in milk, they have "subtracted"; and if someone prohibits chicken in milk, claiming it was included in the Biblical prohibition on g'di, that would be "adding."

But if it was stated that: chicken [in milk] was permitted Biblically, but we [the rabbis] shall prohibit it, and inform the people that this is a decree to prevent problems; as people may say "chicken is okay because the Torah didn't literally say chicken, so it didn't say wild-animal either"; and the next person will say "any domesticated mammal is fine too except for goats", and the next person will say "goat meat is acceptable in the milk of cows or sheep, as it said its mother's, meaning that same species"; and the next person will say "I can cook a goat in goat's milk, as long as it wasn't this particular goat's mother" ... therefore, we shall prohibit all meat in milk, even chicken. This is not adding, it is creating a protective fence around the Torah. And so too all similar matters.

(3) The law [of not mixing meat with milk] only applies with meat from a pure [kosher] animal and milk from a pure animal, but meat of a pure animal in milk that is impure, or meat from an impure animal in pure milk, is permitted to cook and benefit from. Meat of a wild animal and of fowl, even in milk which is pure, is permitted to cook and benefit from; and even eating is only prohibited rabbinically. Fish and grasshoppers are not prohibited [with milk] even rabbinically. We make milk from almonds and place bird meat in it, since [milk and bird meat] is only rabbinically [forbidden]. But with meat from a domesticated animal, place almonds next to the milk, so that people don't misunderstand. This is as we said above, in chapter 66.