Eating Their Curds Their Way?

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Abstract

This article addresses the question of early Jewish laws relating to cheese and cheesemaking as presented in the Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud. These sources provide us with various kinds of information: general insights into cheese and cheesemaking in their respective contexts, more specific insights into the rabbis’ approach to these subjects in each case, the developing relationship between cheesemaking and kosher law, and the numerous reasons for which non-Jewish cheese was prohibited. As we shall see, in the formation of written Jewish law, cheese and cheesemaking were discussed from a number of different angles. These include the consideration of cheesemaking on Shabbat (the Sabbath) and festivals, the question of whether a herdsman may eat the cheese he produces, and how making cheese with milk and animal stomachs might be permissible (and kosher) despite the rabbinic restrictions on mixing meat and milk.