The Package Deal of Judaism
We’ve done this before - more than once - but it bears repetition, so that we can hopefully renew our commitment to the idea... and even spread it around. Or at least make it a topic of conversation.

Jewish Law involves a package consisting of the Written Word, the Oral Law, and Rabbinic legislation. Not only are these components all important to living a Torah life, but the distinction and interplay between Torah Law and Rabbinic Law is also essential. Let’s use food to illustrate, specifically the topic of Basar B’Chalav, rendered into English inaccurately, but nonetheless instructive, as Milk & Meat. Question: Can a Jew cook baby goat milk in its own mother’s milk? Of course not. By what authority? Torah law. Correct. Next: Can a Jew eat the dish described in the first question - baby goat meat pouched in its mother’s milk? Of course not. By what authority?

If you answered Rabbinic, you would be mistaken. Although the Written Torah uses the term LO T’VASHEIL, thou shalt not cook..., we are taught by the Oral Law that the Torah’s prohibitions include eating Basar B’Chalav. Can you feed the above-described dish to your cat? No. And this too is a Torah prohibition. If one were to object to this statement because it is not written in the Torah, then one is missing the significance of the relationship between the Written Word and the Oral Law. BOTH are part of Torah. Eating Meat-in-Milk is no less a prohibition than cooking it, because the former is taught in the Talmud and the latter fits the literal meaning of the Written Word. When the Sages teach us that eating Basar B’Chalav is forbidden, they are not interpreting the Torah, nor are they legislating Torah-inspired laws. They are DEFINING G-d’s words to us, as G-d explained them to Moshe Rabeinu.

How about cooking cubes of lamb meat in cow milk? Forbidden, of course. By what authority? Again, the answer is Biblical. Torah Law. D’Oraita. But the lamb and the cow are not related - and the Torah says, G’DI (the young of a domesticated animal) in the milk of its mother? Oral law teaches us that G-d defined the prohibition for Moshe and told him to teach the people His intended guidelines for the mitzva. The meat of cow, goat, and sheep is forbidden to be cooked with the milk of cow, goat, and sheep. By Torah law. We are forbidden to eat such mixtures or derive any benefit from them. By Torah Law.

Can one eat a salami (glatt kosher) and cheese (chalav Yisrael) sandwich? No. By what authority? Rabbinic. The salami and cheese are not cooked together. The making of such a sandwich is not forbidden (even by Rabbinic law). The eating of it is a Rabbinic prohibition. There is much more to say on this specific topic, and more so on the general idea.

Let us suffice it here to say that G-d gave the Sages the awesome responsibility of transmitting Torah to the successive generations of Jews, to protect and promote Torah observance by carefully legislating a wide variety of Rabbinic laws. He commanded us in D’varim 17:11 to faithfully live by the whole package of Torah Judaism.