Was Abraham kosher before God? (Modern Judaism)

I recently met someone who had come back to the Church after having been fallen away for about 20 years, and he was given the icon pictured here by someone at his Confirmation earlier this year. He wasn't sure what this icon was about, so he asked me. I immediately recognized the "three angels" from a more famous version of the icon that you've probably seen (here), but I hadn't seen this 'version' with the two people in the background. I turned to the passage in Genesis 18, known as "The Hospitality of Abraham," where this event took place and I showed him the story:

(Genesis 18:1-21) 1 The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5 while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.”6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three cups of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” 7 And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” 10 The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

16 Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. 17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” 20 Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” ²² So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.

A surface level reading of this passage is pretty straightforward, but the more you know about the OT and Salvation History, you cannot help but struggle to get through it, since you feel like you must stop and ponder each of the many mysterious "details". For example, who are these "three men"? Are they angels? Are they, at least symbolically, the Three Persons of the Trinity? Or is one of them the Pre-Incarnate Son (as I've noted in an earlier post here)? There are various opinions on this matter, but under my limited meditation, personally I think the "three men" can on a 'symbolic' level refer to the Trinity, while on the 'exegetical' level refers to the Pre-Incarnate Son and two angels. The main reasons for my conclusion is that: (1) it certainly seems God Himself is talking to Abraham from among these three men, without the three men being mere accessory individuals; (2) we see chapter 19:1 begin by speaking of "the two angels" arriving in Sodom, suggesting the "third man" was someone more than an angel, thus God the Son; and (3) I recall St Justin martyr pointing out Gen 19:24 speaks of 'two Yahwehs', or two LORD's, one on earth and one in heaven, raining down fire upon Sodom, which at least hints at the idea of Father and Son. You can read St Justin's thoughts on using Genesis 18 as prooftext in his Dialog with Trypho the Jew, ch56 (here). Also, this passage is speaking about a miraculous conception of a promised son who will bring about promised blessings, which I discuss in detail on my Romans 4 article (here in the comments box).

Aside from the reflections on the Trinity and Incarnation, we get yet another fascinating look into Abraham's personality within the chapters of Genesis, this time seeing his generous hospitality (a very big deal for ancient cultures), his quiet meditation and prayer life always ready for when God decides to speak to us, his patience in awaiting the promises, and his intercession for even the worst sinners. St Peter even notes how Sarah had such reverence for her husband that she referred to him as "lord" (Gen 18:12), modeling how every Christian wife should have such submissive-reverence for their own husband (1 Peter 3:5-6). And as I noted in a recent post (here), the plans God had for Abraham to make good on His "promise" does not sound like a Faith Alone scenario, but one which requires faithfulness and righteousness in behavior (Gen 18:19). I would even say that the Hospitality shown by Abraham has the moral lesson of how we should have our house in order, ready to receive God, even being in a State of Grace so that your soul is welcoming to the Trinity to indwell (which I wrote about here).

All that said, what this post was really supposed to be about was what is said in Genesis 18:8 above, namely that Abraham prepared and fed the Three Visitors both meat and dairy at the same time for their lunch. Why is this important? Because following the Destruction of the Temple in 70AD, which I've written about before (here and here), the Jews who remained scattered abroad had to gather together and decide how they should live out their religion now that all their leadership, Temple, priests, prophets, worship, kingdom, land, official leader, etc, had been taken away forever. This 'modern' form of Judaism developed over the centuries after 70AD, and became known as "Rabbinic Judaism," which is a religion substantially different from the Biblical Judaism of the time of Jesus and the Apostles. This 'modern' form of Judaism does not have priests or sacrifices, thus making large portions of Leviticus and the Torah unobservable, and thus those portions of the OT have to be explained away somehow, similar to how Protestants must ignore or explain away any passage of the NT that sounds "too Catholic". In fact, the great majority of Jews today do not even eat lamb at their yearly Passover (see here), which Biblically was to be the main dish, and is equivalent to Catholics celebrating the Eucharist without having bread or wine - which you could say is akin to the Protestant worship service consisting of a Glorified Bible Study (as I've noted here). Among these many 'traditions of men' that the Rabbis had to come up with to keep their religion going and protect it from being absorbed into their Christian or Islamic neighbors, the Rabbis came up with some unique food regulations known as "kosher dietary laws".

When we hear the Hebrew term "kosher" in modern slang it means we know something is "approved" for doing. Most of the Rabbinic kosher laws are found in the Bible, such as God forbidding the Israelites from eating 'unclean' foods such as pork and shellfish, as well as draining all the blood out of an animal before eating it, etc. But some of their major kosher laws are not actually Biblical. For example, one of the main kosher laws that Rabbinic Judaism emphasizes (even to this day) is that a Jew is not allowed to eat both meat and dairy at the same time, within the same meal. It sounds strange to us, but it is a big deal for them and their daily practice. Their only 'proof text' for this comes from the three times the Torah says "do not boil a young animal in its mother's milk," taken directly from Exodus 23:19; 34:26; and Deut 14:21. Since it is mentioned three times in the Mosaic Law (Torah), they claim it must be an especially important law, even if it doesn't have any explanation for it (which is understandable).

The main question I think most people who are new to this would ask is: what about this strange phrase on the surface proves that you cannot eat meat and dairy together? There doesn't seem to be any clear basis from this. Even various Jewish websites admit that, on the surface, this text doesn't suggest meat and dairy together is a bad thing. In fact, most Christians have (understandably) simply taken this passage to mean this refers to some pagan practice that the Israelites were not supposed to emulate, as many of the laws that Moses gave was to keep the Israelites from falling back into the pagan practices of Egypt. What is astonishing about the Abraham example from Genesis 18:8 above is that it would seem Abraham blatantly violated this specific (alleged) kosher law. In fact, I've not been able to find any good explanation from Jewish sources online about this situation. At most, someone could say Abraham lived before Moses, but that doesn't really help because (1) that would mean that if Abraham was allowed to do it, then it's not that serious of an issue, and (2) more importantly, Rabbinic Judaism teaches Abraham was allegedly supposed to know all the kosher laws and pass them down orally.

To cause further problems with the Rabbinic teaching, consider the three times this passage appears:

Exodus 23: 18 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. 19 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. 20 Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

Exodus 34: 25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. 27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

Deut 14: 20 All clean winged things you may eat. 21 You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. 22 You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.

Notice that the "young goat in mother's milk" prohibition stands seemingly alone, without any qualification. While there are detailed lists of clean and unclean animals, as well as details of how to worship and prepare sacrifices, this mixing prohibition seems random and out of place. Admittedly, after seeing the context, interpreting the prohibition as referring to a pagan ritual also seems kind of out of place, but still more feasible than the Rabbinic view. That said, after looking around on Google, I found two much better explanations. First, one Jewish scholar on a scholarly website (hidden from me behind a paywall) showed the article summary which said this text hasn't been translated properly, and rather than a young goat it's actually referring to young/new life in the form of fruits/grapes, and thus fits with the "firstfruits" context of offering to God your best grains, fruits, etc. This makes sense, but the weakness is that it means most every translation 'got it wrong', which isn't a safe assumption.

The second and more satisfying answer I came across, from someone from a Protestant denomination known as "Messianic Judaism" (here), says that the phrase was probably a Hebrew idiom, the exact meaning of which has since been largely forgotten. As I've come to find out and share on this blog, many Hebrew idioms in Scripture have been lost on us, causing us to misinterpret many passages, such as "Calling upon the name of the Lord" (which I discuss here). I think that when it comes to seemingly strange statements in Scripture, we should more often consider whether we are dealing with an idiom, rather than trying to interpret it too literally. In this case, the Hebrew idiom is something along the lines of "do not mix the prior generation (milk) with the present generation (kid)". It sounds somewhat similar to Jesus saying "do not put new wine into old wineskins," which our modern ears wouldn't understand unless we had someone explain it. Recall that the context of all three passages above was "firstfruits" and "tithing" to God what is your best and first harvest. In this case, God is saying take care to not mix or pad this years tithe/firstfruits with last year's crops. It might be tempting for a poor farmer to bring to their Levite priest a mixture of 50-75% this years firstfruits from his garden/farm with a mixture 25-50% of last years crops, and nobody except the farmer (and God) would know the difference.

To wrap things up, I think the Abraham example in Genesis 18:8 along with the Hebrew idiom angle together form a more than convincing argument against the Rabbinic kosher teaching. This realization is important not only because we now have a better appreciation for what the Bible actually says, but we also have a means of evangelizing those of the Rabbinic tradition, who might give Christianity a fair look once they see their own position has some serious difficulties on relatively important matters (i.e. kosher dietary laws are very important to their daily practice of their religion).