Leviticus 22: Oh Baby Baby

“When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall stay seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as an offering by fire to God/However, no animal from the herd or from the flock shall be slaughtered on the same day with its young” (verses 27-28)."שׁוֹר אוֹ כֶשֶׂב אוֹ עֵז, כִּי יִוָּלֵד—וְהָיָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תַּחַת אִמּוֹ; וּמִיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי וָהָלְאָה, יֵרָצֶה לְקָרְבָּן אִשֶּׁה לַי יָ. וְשׁוֹר אוֹ שֶׂה, אֹתוֹ וְאֶת־בְּנוֹ—לֹא תִשְׁחֲטוּ, בְּיוֹם אֶחָד." (ויקרא כ״ב:כז–כח)These two verses discuss general rules regarding sacrifices. The Midrash explains that these verses come to teach a humane element to selecting animals for korbanot. The first is that a mother animal should have the young animal taken right when it is born and the second that a mother and its young should not be sacrificed on the same time. The midrash contrasts this with Haman who commanded that all Jews- young and old- be killed on the same day of Purim. There are other opinions about these two verses that have no connection to humane actions. Chizkuni explains that the seven-day waiting period is only for an animal that has reached the full gestation period. An animal that was born premature must wait longer. The implication of Chizkuni’s opinion is that the eight-day waiting period is meant to allow the animal to reach some sort of viability. Chizkuni’s explanation makes sense in the context of both the first-born animal gift and a brit milah. Both of those events must happen on the eighth day. If a baby is not well on the eighth day, then the brit milah is postponed. The second prohibition sounds similar to the prohibition of not cooking a goat in its mother’s milk. While that prohibition spawns the commandment of not eating milk and meat together generally, the specific rule given by the Torah does have the added humane element to it. Perhaps these two verses then, have different motivating purposes. The eight-day waiting period if about viability of the sacrifice and the prohibition not to take the mother and child on the same day have humane origins. Why did the Torah put them back-to-back? The answer may be as simple as that they thematically similar. The first verse discusses a mother and a baby animal, so the next one does as well.