Please revisit post #10 and report back. 
It was my understanding that the prohibition in question only applied to those who were voluntarily castrated. Certain groups (Moloch worshippers leap to mind) castrated themselves for their god. The prohibition meant that Jews were not to do this.
IIRC In the NT, the reverse is endorsed. ‘Some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. . . . Let him that can receive it [castration], receive it.’
As the cleverer Jonathan Miller continued, “not the whole hog.” 
It seems to depend on the cemetery and the rabbi. I remember a episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” where Larry David’s character has to bribe a gravedigger to get his mother buried as she had a small tattoo.
Did you just cite *Larry David *as a source?
So what happens to Amy Winehouse?
She eventually dies, but nobody can tell the difference, so she’s not buried until several years later?
Just cut them off.
I like the idea of my ancient ancestors standing in line to get PAs (Prince Alberts).
I saw this funny story yesterday (funny about the Leviticus tattoo, not about the beating.)
And for at least the past couple thousand years, certain criminals were marked by branding. So marking your skin with tattoos probably got associated with the markings from the legal system.
He’s fibbing. But observant Jews are not supposed to wear linsey-woolsey. Leviticus 19:19
Or any other mixed fiber … though why anybody wants cotton - poly blend is beyond me, the damned stuff pills and sheds fibers:rolleyes:
aruvqan:
I don’t know why you think so; it’s not true. Wool and linen is the only fabric combination that is forbidden by Jewish law.
Serious question- Many prohibitions are specific but taken to have a general application
Fer example (unless you’re a karaite) ‘Thou shalt not boil a kid goat in the milk of its mother’ is very specific, but taken to mean a general ‘no mixing meat and dairy’
Why is the prohibition on mixing wool and linen taken to be specific rather than a general prohibition on fabric mixing?
Doc Cathode:
A very valid question, and the answer can be found in the Talmud. Tractate Chullin, page 114a discusses how we know that the verse you quoted applies to all mammalian flesh with any type of milk. I’m not going to repeat the entire thing here (unless you insist), but suffice it to say that the Rabbis found certain textual cues that lead to a generalized interpretation of that verse, and such cues are not found in relation to the mixed-fabric prohibition.
I’m still confused. Could you give me more details, please?
DocCathode, those are great examples for the specific/general question that you’re asking.
The answer is: Because while God was dictating the Torah to Moses and telling him what to write down, He also explained what it all meant. And this means this, and that means that.
The classic proof of this is Deuteronomy 12:21 - "… slaughter your cattle as I have commanded you … " - This is telling us that the animals have to be killed a specific way in order for us to be allowed to eat their meat. The trouble is, nowhere in the Torah is this specific method described. But this verse tells us that God DID command us how to do it. The solution o the riddle is that He did tell us how, but it was part of the verbal explanations He told Moses, and wasn’t included in the written Torah.
Even so, some things have clues and shorthand notes in the Written Torah. For example, getting back to your example, it’s not only forbidden to cook meat and milk together, but even if they were already cooked together (by someone else, for example) it is also forbidden to eat that cooked mixture. On top of that, even without eating it, it is forbidden to get any use of the mixture.
One might think that the second and third of these do not appear in the Torah, which seems to forbid only the cooking. But actually, those words appear in the Torah three times: Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21. The three appearances of this law in the Torah are to remind us that there are three prohibitions. On the other hand, we must rely on the oral teachings to know what the second and third prohibitions are. And we also need the oral teachings to know that it applies to all domestic livestock, not just goats.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
Much more explanatory than the joke where Moses keeps asking G-d about having different plates and stuff, G-d keeps repeating, “Don’t seethe a kid in it’s mother’s milk” and finally says, “Oy, Moses, do whatever you want.”
I once spoke with the Reform Rabbi here about it. I made the argument that given the transportation of food and the specialization of dairy and meat animals that the odds of the meat and cheese coming from the same farm would be very small. He explained that milk represents life and blood death and it was wrong to mix the two.
He also argued with the Baptist minister down the road (that church and the Reform Temple are in Pleasant Valley, a wealthy area); the Baptist remarked that homosexuality was an abomination against G-d, and Rabbi replied, “So is eating a cheeseburger.”
OK, just remember, you asked for it:
The Talmud asks: How do we know that all (mammalian) animal meat is prohibited (since the various verses regarding milk and meat mention only a kid, in Hebrew, “G’di”)? Rabbi Eliezer says: The verse in Genesis 38:17 has Judah saying, “I will send a kid goat (in Hebrew, “G’di Ha-izim”)”, implying that anywhere the Torah mentions “G’di” without the qualifier “Ha-izim”, it could refer to the young of any animal (goat, cow, sheep, etc.) The Talmud asks him: how do we know that the verse you quoted isn’t meant to actually clarify that “G’di” always refers to a kid goat? He responds: Because there is another verse, Genesis 27:16, which also uses the specific phrase “G’di Ha-izim” for “kid goat.” And we have a principal of scriptural derivation that when two (or more) verses are specifying the same way, then that indicates it’s not meant to be clarifying the more general term (but rather, as he first stated, is meant to show that the term in question can be taken as generalized when the qualifier is absent).
Further discussion in the Talmud centers around how the Torah indicates that the milk in question need not come specifically from that animal’s own mother, and not specifically, even from the same species.