How Important Is Your Halacha?
Halacha - Ha - la - kah is a Hebrew word which literally means "behavior" or "The way you live." For the orthodox Jew, this is totally wrapped up in the teaching of the Talmud which uses the Torah as its basis, but includes the rabbinic teachings and established traditions. A Jew's halacha includes the keeping of the 613 laws found in the Torah, but will be expounded upon by the interpretations and additions made by the rabbis. For example, the Torah teaches in Ex. 23:19 not to boil a kid (goat) in its mother's milk. This is a sanctity of life matter and about respect for the mother, but the rabbis added their interpretation of this to mean don't mix meat and dairy products. In modern times, this was elaborated upon to prohibit the cooking of meat and dairy in the same oven. So, an orthodox Jewish home must have two ovens - one for meat and one for dairy because the very steam from cooking meat may collect on the walls of an oven and possibly cont