Daf Yomi, Marriage Counseling, Psychotherapy, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Torah and Psychology
As we discussed in Blogpost Psychology of the Daf Chulin 103, there is much debate and various proposals to resolve how the angels who visited Avraham could have eaten milk together with meat. Sefer
Daf al Daf offers an answer based on our Gemara on Amud Aleph, which states that Rabbi Yossi Haglili’s rationale for permitting chicken and milk is because the verse states “in its mother’s milk” (Shemos 23:19), and chicken does not have mother’s milk. There is a tradition that Avraham created the calves using Sefer Yetzira. Since such a calf also has no mother’s milk, it should be permitted to eat with milk.
Sefer Daf Al Daf also offers a different answer (it seems to be based on Rav Yonasan Eibshutz, see Tiferes Yonasan (Shemos 23:19), but there are differences). There is a Midrash Tehillim (8:2) which records the angels as arguing before God that they should keep the Torah and it should not be given to humans.
Two rebuttals are offered: (1) The Torah has commandments having to do with ritual purity, sexual prohibitions, and honoring parents, which clearly do not relate to angels. (2) The angels believed that they would keep the Torah, yet they violated eating meat and milk when they visited Avraham.
Let us go deeper into this story. The angels very well knew God’s point that the Torah had all these commandments which related to physicality. Their argument must have been, let us assume the role of physicality, and in that capacity, if you gave us bodies, we would do a better job than humans and not sin. This is why God made the second point in His rebuttal: when you had a physical body, you also sinned. In a lomdishe vein, if they wanted to consider their spiritual incarnation as physical, then even if the calf was created by Sefer Yetzira, it too should be considered a full physical entity and subject to all the requirements of physicality, and therefore it is real meat and milk.
I believe this is part of a deeper idea represented as well in Zohar (Bereishis 25a): The angels criticized Adam after his having sinned. God said to them, “If you were on earth like him, you would sin worse.” And this is the backstory of the fallen angels (Bereishis 6:4) who seemed to have sinned with sexual immorality. The psychological lesson is that it is easy to judge and look down upon the sins of others, however if you were in that person’s place, you might sin even worse. As the idolatrous King Menashe scolded Rav Ashi in a dream: “Had you been there at that time, you would have taken and lifted the hem of your cloak and run after me to worship!” (Sanhedrin 102b)
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Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, LMFT, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com