Laws of Meat and Milk, Part 1 - Rabbi Binyomin Cohen shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Hello, everyone. Today we’ll talk about the laws of meat and milk—several practical points relating to them. The Torah says three times, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” Our Sages learn, as Rashi explains on the verse, that these three repetitions teach us three prohibitions: eating, deriving benefit, and cooking. The most obvious prohibition is eating: of course, one may not eat meat with milk. But cooking it is also prohibited. Even if I cook it for a non-Jew or for an animal, I may not cook it. And there is a prohibition against deriving benefit. For example, suppose I have an animal in my yard, and I want to give it leftover meat and milk. I cook them together so the food will be soft and tasty and the animal can eat it. That is considered deriving benefit: I benefit from the animal eating the meat-and-milk dish I gave it. The Torah prohibited that too. That is why the Torah says it three times. Had it appeared only once, we would have said that it refers only to the most severe prohibition, eating. We would not have known about the prohibitions on deriving benefit and cooking. So the Torah repeats it three times to teach us all three. The Torah says, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” It does not mean specifically a kid or specifically its mother’s milk. The meat of any kosher domestic animal cooked in the milk of a kosher domestic animal is prohibited, even if the milk did not come from its mother. Poultry or the meat of a wild animal with milk is prohibited by rabbinic law. Saying it is prohibited by rabbinic law does not, of course, diminish its seriousness, because this ruling

02:35 Speaker 2 was accepted throughout the Jewish people. But the prohibition is rabbinic, not from the Torah. What practical difference does that make? If it is prohibited either way, why does it matter whether the prohibition is from the Torah or rabbinic? The answer is that something prohibited by rabbinic law may be used for benefit. So if I have poultry with milk, for example, I may give it to animals. That is not prohibited, even though I benefit from it. And even with the prohibition involving the meat of a domestic animal and milk, the Torah prohibition applies when it is cooked in the usual way. If it is not cooked in the usual way, the prohibition is rabbinic. So, for example, suppose I have water used to wash meat dishes, containing meat residue, and water used to wash dairy dishes, containing milk residue. If the meat comes from a domestic animal, I may not mix the waters and give them to an animal. If the meat comes from a wild animal or poultry, I may give that water to animals, since deriving benefit from it is permitted. It is not like the meat of a domestic animal with milk. The verse says, “A kid in its mother’s milk,” but our Sages also prohibited poultry with milk. Why? Because the Sages were concerned that if poultry with milk were permitted, people might mistakenly say: Why is poultry with milk permitted? Because the verse says, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” So perhaps it applies only to a kid. What about a lamb? What about a calf? What if it is not its mother’s milk? People might then mistakenly permit the meat of a domestic animal with milk. So the Sages said that the meat of a wild animal and the meat of poultry are also prohibited with milk from a kosher animal. But we need to know that this is a prohibition instituted by the Sages. The Rambam says that anyone who claims the prohibition of poultry with milk is from the Torah transgresses the prohibition against adding to the Torah. In other words, we should not say it is from the Torah.

05:16 Speaker 2 It is not from the Torah; it is rabbinic. That does not mean it is less serious. On the contrary, the words of the Sages are more stringent than the words of the Torah. But we need to know that it is rabbinic, and that has implications. As mentioned, poultry with milk may be used for benefit, even though it may not be eaten. The same applies if it is not cooked in the usual way. The Torah says, “Do not cook.” Smoking is not cooking; it is smoking. So that, too, is prohibited by rabbinic law, because what the Torah prohibited is cooking in the usual way. “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” We need to remember that this refers to a time unlike today, when a person goes to a butcher shop to buy meat and to a grocery store to buy milk. In the past, people kept a cow or a sheep in their yards for milk, and when calves or kids were born, they would later use them for meat as well. So the common situation in those days was “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” A person had a kid from his own yard or pen, and he might use milk he had drawn from its mother. That is what the Torah prohibited. “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”: the Torah speaks of the usual case, what was common in those times. But that does not mean this is the only case the Torah prohibited. “A kid in its mother’s milk” includes all kinds of domestic animals. How do we know that “kid” does not mean specifically a young goat? Because we see that in several places in the Torah, when it wants to specify the kind of animal, it does so. In the account of Yehudah, it says, “He sent the kid of the goats.” Why specify “of the goats”? Because, as Rashi says, “kid” means a young animal. When the Torah says “a kid of the goats,”

07:30 Speaker 2 as in “I will send a kid of the goats,” or other verses that specify goat-kids, it is emphasizing that it means a young goat and not another kind of young animal. But “kid” on its own can also mean a calf or the young of a sheep. So our Sages learned that “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” applies to any meat from a kosher domestic animal with milk from a kosher domestic animal. But the meat of a kosher animal with milk from a non-kosher animal, or the meat of a non-kosher animal with milk from a kosher animal, is of course forbidden to eat because the non-kosher ingredient is forbidden. It may, however, be used for benefit. A person may give it to animals or to a non-Jew. That is not a problem, because the prohibition here is against eating, not deriving benefit. Suppose two people are eating together: one has a meat dish and the other has a dairy dish, and they are sitting in a restaurant or somewhere else. There is a problem with their eating at the same table, because we are concerned that one might offer the other some of his food. The person eating meat might taste the dairy food, or vice versa. Therefore, they may not eat at the same table. If they do need to eat at the same table, they must place a reminder between them—say, a plant, a bottle, or a loaf of bread—provided they are not both using it. For example, if they put a bottle of water or another drink between them and both drink from it, it does not count as a reminder, because they are both using the bottle. And if they put a loaf of bread in the middle and both take slices from it, that does not help either, because they are both using the same loaf.

09:43 Speaker 2 They need to put something there that they are not using. For example, besides the bread they are eating, they could put down another, unopened loaf as a reminder between them, or a plant, or something else that will remind them that each is eating something different and they must not taste the other’s food. All this applies when the two people know each other. Because they are acquainted, we are concerned that one might offer the other some of his food: “Here, taste this delicious meat,” or “Taste how well this cheesecake turned out.” They could then come to eat meat and milk together. If they are two people who do not know each other at all, they may eat at the same table. Each can put his dish in front of him; one will eat meat and the other dairy. A person who has eaten meat, or food cooked with meat, must wait six hours before eating or drinking anything dairy. Even after six hours have passed, if any meat remains between his teeth, he must remove it. For example, someone ate meat and six hours have passed, but he can feel pieces of meat between his teeth. He did not brush his teeth afterward, or did not brush them thoroughly, and pieces remain. He must remove them before eating dairy food. All this applies when he actually ate meat. But if he ate food cooked in a meat utensil, he does not need to wait that long, because the food he ate was not actually a meat dish. When someone goes shopping for food for the home—bread, cheese, and so on—he may not put bread together with meat

12:00 Speaker 2 Or bread together with milk in the same bag, because we are concerned that the meat or the milk might touch the bread. The bread could absorb some moisture from the meat or milk and become meat or dairy, and then he would not be able to eat that bread with a meat dish if it touched milk, or with a dairy dish if it touched meat. All this applies when the items are not well wrapped. If each one is well wrapped in a separate bag, there is no problem putting meat and bread, or milk and bread, in the same basket. The prohibition applies when there is a concern that the meat or milk will touch the bread. If there is no such concern, it is permitted. The waiting time between meat and milk is known to be six hours. Although in some places people were lenient and waited three hours after chicken, and in some places one hour, the custom is to wait six hours between meat and milk, even after chicken rather than meat from an animal. For young children under the age of six, the practice is to add one hour for each year of age. That is, up to age one, one hour; up to age two, two hours; up to age three, three hours; and so on up to age six. Over age six, a child must wait six hours, unless the child is weak or ill and, on the doctor’s instructions, needs to eat dairy before six hours have passed since eating meat. Then one may be lenient under the rules for someone who is ill. As for the six hours, some maintain that they need not be six full hours; part of the sixth hour counts as the whole hour. That is the practice, for example, in nursing homes, even ones with good kosher supervision. They give the elderly residents a meat meal at lunchtime, and five and a half hours later they serve them a dairy meal. I once asked the people providing kosher supervision for those

14:18 Speaker 2 nursing homes about this. They told me that this is their practice because the residents are elderly and ill, so more than five hours is enough and they do not need six hours. Of course, that applies only when there is a need—someone who is ill or elderly, or some other constraint. Under ordinary circumstances, one should wait six hours. And we count ordinary hours, not halachic hours that vary with the length of the day. In other words, we do not say that because, in winter, the time from sunrise to sunset is less than twelve hours, each hour might be fifty minutes long. Conversely, in summer, the time from sunrise to sunset is more than twelve hours of daylight. So we do not say that we have to count hours of seventy or seventy-two minutes because the day is longer. We go by the ordinary hour of sixty minutes, and that is how we determine the waiting time, summer or winter. Otherwise, the rule would vary from case to case. If you said to use variable halachic hours, a person would have to check the times of sunrise and sunset every time, work out the length of an hour, and determine whether it was sixty minutes, fifty minutes, or seventy minutes. There would be no end to it. So a general rule was established: an hour is an ordinary sixty-minute hour. That is how we count the time between meat and milk: after meat, we wait six hours before milk. Between milk and meat, there are three opinions. Some say it is enough to rinse the mouth and wash the hands; some wait half an hour, which is the common practice; and some wait an hour, in accordance with the Zohar and the Shelah. That is the Chabad custom: to wait an hour between milk and meat. As for cheeses, there are soft cheeses and hard cheeses, and some opinions say one must

16:30 Speaker 2 wait six hours between cheese and meat. But according to most halachic authorities, the cheeses we have here in Israel are not the cheeses they were referring to. Even the yellow cheeses produced here are not hard cheeses of the type discussed in halachah, whose production takes several months. That is the position of the Eidah Hachareidis. I also heard this from Rabbi Ashkenazi, a"h: cheeses in Israel have the same status as milk, so the waiting time after them is the same as after ordinary milk. That means rinsing the mouth for those who consider that sufficient, half an hour as most people practice, or an hour according to the stricter Chabad custom—but not six hours. There is no need to wait six hours after these cheeses. There are cheeses abroad, in Switzerland and France, including kashkaval cheeses, whose production really does take several months. Those are hard cheeses after which one really must wait six hours. But these are not the cheeses commonly found in ordinary grocery stores and supermarkets. The cheeses found there have the same status as ordinary milk, and the wait before meat is the usual one: no more than an hour, not six hours. There is something called non-Jewish powdered milk. You see it often in sweets, chocolates, and cookies. The label often says, “Contains non-Jewish powdered milk.” What exactly is non-Jewish powdered milk? Many people mistakenly think non-Jewish milk and non-Jewish powdered milk are the same thing, but they are two entirely different matters. Non-Jewish milk is milk that a non-Jew milked when no Jew was present to observe the milking. We are therefore concerned that he may have mixed in milk from a non-kosher animal. Abroad, as anyone who has visited dairy farms and milking facilities knows, it is not like Israel, where a cowshed has only cows. A shliach who goes to milk cows himself told me that on the same farm there are cows, pigs, camels—everything

18:58 Speaker 2 on the same farm. So the concern is that the non-Jew might mix in some of that milk. When a Jew observes the milking, the non-Jew cannot mix it in, because the Jew sees that he is not adding milk from non-kosher animals. Milk milked by a non-Jew without Jewish supervision is considered non-Jewish milk even if the farm has only kosher animals—for example, a farm with only cows. The Sages nevertheless prohibited it, because a Jew did not observe the milking. What is non-Jewish powdered milk? They take that milk, dry it, and turn it into powder, and we know that no milk from a non-kosher animal was mixed in. Why do we know that? Either because there is government oversight, or because non-kosher milk is more expensive than kosher milk, so the non-Jew has no reason to add it: it would cost him more. Whatever the reason, once we know with certainty that the milk came from a kosher animal and it was dried and ground into powder—a powder often used in sweets—many halachic authorities permit it. They say the decree applied only to non-Jewish milk, not to non-Jewish powdered milk. There is a responsum from the Chasam Sofer in Yoreh De’ah, section 7, a responsum from Rabbi Frank, and other responsa on the subject. But even those who are lenient allow it only abroad, in places where nothing else is available. In Eretz Yisroel, where, boruch Hashem, almost every product can be obtained with good kosher supervision and with chalav Yisroel, there is no basis to permit non-Jewish powdered milk either, unless it is needed for an infant who has no alternative. Some infants have digestive problems. They cannot have regular Materna, only a particular Materna formula that contains non-Jewish powdered milk.

21:09 Speaker 2 Again, every such case must be considered on its own, and one should ask a rabbi. If there truly is no alternative and the infant must have that particular formula, it is permitted, as it falls under the rules for someone who is ill. There are many well-known stories about this. There was a case of parents whose child was an outstanding student. All his grades were good—100 or close to 100—except in his Torah subjects. In Mishnah, Gemara, Navi, and Shulchan Aruch, his grades were very low, and his parents did not know what to do. He was not a weak student. If he had been, he would have had low grades in arithmetic and his other subjects too. But in those subjects he had high grades. Only his Torah-subject grades were low. So they wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote back that they should pay careful attention to the kashrus of the food and drink the child consumed. This was a fully observant family, and they did not understand what the Rebbe meant. Everything in their home was kosher to the highest standard. How could the Rebbe tell them to be careful about the kashrus of their food and drink when they were a family meticulous about every detail of observance? But the Rebbe had said to check, so they began checking. It turned out that everything at home was indeed perfectly fine. But when the child came home from cheder, he passed a grocery store and bought sweets there. Some of the sweets were kosher, but they contained non-Jewish powdered milk. The child did not check every item. All his friends bought things there, so he did too. Once they noticed this and explained to him, “We don’t buy this product, and we don’t buy that product,” and so on, they began being careful about milk

23:21 Speaker 2 Yisroel. His grades really did go back up. His grades in religious studies also went back up, and he earned high marks just as he did in his other subjects. In other words, we see that this affects the person who eats it, even someone like this child, who ate it in all innocence. He didn’t eat it because he wanted to eat something non-kosher; he was sure it was kosher. He bought it at the neighborhood grocery store, at the same shop where all his friends bought things. He was sure it was perfectly fine. Yet once he ate that powdered non-Jewish milk, his grades in religious studies dropped somewhat. So we see how important it is to be careful to consume only cholov Yisroel and powdered cholov Yisroel.

24:17 Speaker 2 As an aside, not about meat and milk but about Pesach: in many homes, the custom is not to eat commercially manufactured products, certainly not luxuries like chocolate and the like, even if they have a high-standard kosher certification. But I heard from a Jew who lived abroad, in Italy, where throughout the year all the dairy sweets were made with powdered non-Jewish milk. So they didn’t eat sweets all year. On Pesach, supplies arrived from Israel and New York, including chocolates. The only holiday on which they ate chocolate was Pesach, because only then did they have cholov Yisroel. In a place like that, you certainly shouldn’t tell a child, “No, we don’t eat chocolate on Pesach.” If he doesn’t eat it all year, and on Pesach he has cholov Yisroel once a year, there is certainly room to be lenient. But in Israel, the United States, or other places with an established Jewish community and powdered cholov Yisroel available year-round, of course one can be content with eating those sweets during the year and not necessarily on Pesach. As I said, that was an aside about Pesach, but again it shows the importance of cholov Yisroel and powdered cholov Yisroel. Now, something that isn’t dairy but resembles milk and looks like milk—for example, almond milk. May a person eat meat while having a glass of almond milk in front of him at the same meal? Or soy milk, which outwardly looks like milk? Although it isn’t meat and milk together and is permitted, there is an issue of maris ayin—how it appears to others. People might see it and think it’s milk. That’s why it says that if a person eats meat and drinks almond milk with it, he should place some almonds next to the milk so everyone can see that it’s almond milk.

26:43 Speaker 2 Again, although it isn’t milk and there is no prohibition of meat and milk here, maris ayin is a concern. It’s very important that people not make a mistake and say, “Look, this Jew is observant, so apparently meat and milk aren’t such a serious matter. He’s drinking milk with meat.” That is why halachah says to put the almonds next to the milk. Or take soy- or rice-based milk and the like that is not dairy. There are products that contain milk as well; those are certainly dairy, and that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about milk made entirely from other ingredients. So you need to put the bottle next to it, or the carton that says “rice milk” or “soy milk” in large letters. Then everyone can see that it isn’t dairy; it’s pareve, it’s soy milk or rice milk, and there’s no room for confusion. We might think that nowadays people know about these things, that everyone knows soy milk exists and there’s no problem. But that isn’t true, because mistakes can always happen. I’ll give two examples. One happened in Tel Aviv—not on some remote island at the end of the world, but in Tel Aviv, a major city in Israel. Quite a few years ago, two families lived next door to each other in south Tel Aviv. One family was religious, chareidi; the other was traditional. They kept Shabbos and kosher, though they weren’t particularly meticulous. They observed the basics: Shabbos, kosher, and so on. One Shabbos, half an hour before Shabbos ended, one of the daughters of the religious family went to visit her neighbor. She saw that the radio and television were on. “What, you turn on the radio on Shabbos?” “Of course not! Shabbos is over,” they

29:02 Speaker 2 told her. “What do you mean Shabbos is over? There’s another half hour until Shabbos ends.” What had happened? The traditional family would watch to see when the lights came on in their neighbors’ home. The neighbors had a Shabbos timer. When the lights came on half an hour before Shabbos ended, they were certain Shabbos was over. After all, their religious neighbors had turned on the lights. They didn’t know it was a Shabbos timer. So what would we say? Tel Aviv—who doesn’t know what a Shabbos timer is? But no. Even so, where maris ayin is a concern, we have to be very careful. The same applies to pareve milk: you should put its bag or carton next to it, with “pareve milk” written on it, so that anyone passing by or looking can see that it isn’t dairy. Another example took place in the 1970s. A woman who used to cover her hair with a headscarf wrote to the Rebbe that she wanted to switch to a wig. Since in Chabad it is customary for a woman to wear a wig, she wanted to change from a headscarf to a wig. The Rebbe wrote her a very unusual reply. I don’t know whether that letter was published, but I know the story personally. The Rebbe wrote that since her neighbors were very simple families and might not know it was a wig, they might mistakenly think, G-d forbid, that she had stopped covering her hair. Therefore, she should keep wearing the headscarf and not switch to a wig. To that extent! For all the emphasis on the fact that Chabad is careful about wearing a wig, when it could cause someone else to stumble because of maris ayin—because those neighbors might not realize it was a wig and might think she had taken off her headscarf—the Rebbe wrote that she should keep wearing the headscarf. Admittedly, this was in the early 1970s, in [unclear], but in any case, we see here

31:11 Speaker 2 the principle: when there is a concern about maris ayin, we refrain from doing something that might otherwise be desirable if it could cause someone else to make a mistake. We have to be very careful. That is what maris ayin means: something is permitted, but others might draw the wrong conclusion from it, so we don’t do it because of how it appears. Just as I mentioned maris ayin with regard to almond milk and the like, the same applies to meat substitutes. Today there are various kinds of sausages or soy products that look like meat but are actually pareve, made from soy. If a person eats one at a dairy meal, it’s a good idea to put the package beside it, with “pareve” written on it in large letters, so no one thinks, G-d forbid, that he’s eating dairy food with a meat sausage. Once the package is there, people can see that it says “pareve.” That addresses the concern of maris ayin, so that people won’t see it and suspect, G-d forbid, that meat and milk are being eaten together. Now let’s talk about what happens if meat and milk become mixed in one way or another. Suppose someone accidentally cooked milk in a meat pot. He had a meat pot, thought it was a dairy pot, and cooked milk porridge or noodles with milk—something dairy—in it. Here it makes a difference whether the pot was ben yomo or not ben yomo. What does ben yomo mean? It means that meat was cooked in that pot during the twenty-four hours preceding the present cooking. For example, if I cooked meat in the pot within twenty-four hours before cooking the milk in it now, the pot is considered ben yomo. If more time has passed

33:40 Speaker 2 If more than twenty-four hours have passed since meat was last cooked in this pot, it is called a pot that is not ben yomo. What difference does it make whether it is ben yomo or not? If it is ben yomo, the pot may still impart the flavor of the previous food cooked in it. For example, if meat was cooked in the pot, its walls may release some of the meat flavor absorbed in them into a dairy dish. But if twenty-four hours have passed, that is considered an impaired flavor. Even if the meat absorbed in the walls of the pot releases a little flavor into the dairy dish, that flavor is impaired, a spoiled flavor, so there is more room for leniency. Now let’s go through what happens in practice in each situation. So we said: a meat pot in which milk was cooked, and it was ben yomo—meaning meat had been cooked in it within the last twenty-four hours—so the meat flavor in it was not impaired. After cooking the milk in it, I remember that this is actually a meat pot. This can happen often when children cook and don’t pay attention, or when guests or family members come over—an aunt or a niece—and she is sure that, because a pot like this is dairy in her home, this pot is dairy too. Whatever the mistake was, in practice milk was cooked in a meat pot that was ben yomo. Here there is a difference between how we treat the food and how we treat the pot. As for the food itself, we say that if the pot was not ben yomo—if twenty-four hours had passed—then the food is permitted. In other words, that dairy dish may be eaten; there is no problem. When we say it may be eaten, we mean if it was cooked—

36:13 Speaker 2 It may be eaten. We do not mean that one may deliberately cook a dairy dish in a meat pot that is not ben yomo. One may not cook it that way to begin with. If it was cooked, the food may be eaten. In other words, after the fact, once it has been cooked, one may eat the dish; that does not mean one may cook it that way to begin with. As for the pot itself, one may not cook either meat or milk in it: not meat, because of the milk just cooked in it, and not milk, because of the meat cooked in it previously. But one may cook something pareve in it. For example, if I want to cook rice or vegetables in it, I may do so. Although meat was cooked in this pot and then milk was cooked in it, since it was not ben yomo, vegetables or another pareve dish may be cooked in it. To restore the pot to its status as a meat pot, it must undergo hagalah. One must know that before doing hagalah, one has to wait twenty-four hours without cooking anything in that pot. Only afterward can hagalah be done with boiling water. One cannot do hagalah immediately after finishing cooking the dairy dish. Only once twenty-four hours have passed since cooking that dairy dish can one do hagalah and restore it to its status as a meat pot. When we say that if someone mistakenly cooked meat in a dairy pot or milk in a meat pot, the law concerning the utensil is such-and-such, all this is when it was hot. If it was cold—for example, someone took a clean meat bowl or pot and poured cold milk into it, without heating or cooking it, then immediately remembered and poured the milk out—there is no problem. It only needs rinsing. You rinse it with water, because both were cold. The prohibition applies when it was hot; if it was cold, there is no problem. So if something cold touched something cold, one just has to make sure that nothing stuck to it or passed from one to the other—

38:40 Speaker 2 that no cheese stuck to the meat, for instance. You rinse the pot, and it remains as it was; it does not become treif. What happens if someone put a dairy spoon into a meat pot? For example, someone was cooking meat soup and wanted to stir it, and by mistake put a dairy spoon into the pot. Here again, there is a difference between whether that spoon was ben yomo or not. Ben yomo means it was used with hot dairy food within the last twenty-four hours. So if the spoon was ben yomo—meaning it was used with hot dairy food within the last twenty-four hours—we say there must be sixty times the volume of the spoon in the pot. This is the rule of nullification in sixty: Chazal established that it is considered nullified in sixty, and if there is sixty times the volume of the spoon, the dish is permitted, because its flavor is nullified. If the spoon was made of something other than metal, it is enough to have sixty times the volume of the portion of the spoon that entered the soup. For example, if it was a wooden spoon and I put half the spoon into the pot while the other half remained outside, I do not need sixty times the volume of the whole spoon. I need sixty times the volume of the half that entered the meat pot when I stirred it with the dairy spoon. But if it is a metal spoon, we have a rule in halachah: when part of a metal utensil is hot, the whole utensil is hot. What does that mean? It is different from something that is not metal. Take a wooden spoon, for example. If I put it into a hot pot, only the part inside the pot will be hot. The part outside the pot will not be hot, because wood does not conduct heat. Metal, by contrast, conducts heat. If I take a metal spoon and put it into a boiling-hot pot, then it is not only the half—

41:23 Speaker 2 of the spoon inside the pot that will be hot; the entire spoon will be hot. That is what is meant by “when part of a metal utensil is hot, the whole utensil is hot.” Therefore, we need sixty times the volume of the entire spoon, not just the portion of the dairy spoon that I put into the meat pot. What happens if I put it in twice? I put it in once to stir, and five minutes later I put it in again to stir. All that time, I did not know or did not remember that the spoon was a meat spoon. After the second time, I remembered, or someone pointed out to me, that the spoon I was using to stir the meat was actually a meat spoon that was ben yomo—or a dairy spoon that was ben yomo that I was using to stir the meat. There is a dispute about this in halachah. Some say you need sixty times its volume twice over—that is, the volume of two spoons. Since I put it in once, putting it in a second time is as though I put in another spoon, even though it was the same spoon. Others disagree and say that sixty times the volume of one spoon is enough. Of course, it depends: if a substantial loss is at stake, there is room to be lenient. If there is no substantial loss, one can be stricter and require twice sixty times the volume of the spoon, as though I had put in two separate spoons. If there is sixty times the volume of the spoon, the pot and the dish are permitted, but the spoon is prohibited. In other words, only the spoon needs hagalah; the pot does not. This differs from a meat pot in which milk was cooked, when the pot requires hagalah. Here I cooked meat in a meat pot; I merely put in a dairy spoon and stirred the meat soup with it. So the dish is permitted, the pot is permitted, and only the spoon needs hagalah. If there is not sixty times its volume, then of course the dish and the pot are also prohibited. Without sixty times its volume, this is meat and milk together. Having sixty times its volume makes the flavor nullified. If there is not sixty times its volume, then—

44:16 Speaker 2 it is not nullified, and the dish is prohibited. All this, of course, is when we are talking about a spoon that was ben yomo—that is, a spoon used with hot dairy food within the preceding twenty-four hours. But if it was not used with hot dairy food during those twenty-four hours—meaning it is a spoon that is not ben yomo—then the pot and the dish are permitted. As we said, only the spoon needs hagalah; the pot and the dish are permitted because the flavor is nullified in sixty. When we say “nullified in sixty,” what does that mean? The Sages determined that a quantity of sixty parts is enough to nullify the flavor of one part. According to the basic law, it says that one can have a non-Jew taste it. For example, I have a meat pot and a cup of milk fell into it, but I do not know how to assess whether there is sixty times the volume of the milk. According to the basic law stated in the Gemara, one would give it to a non-Jewish chef who works in a kitchen and understands flavors, and ask him, “What do you taste here?” If he says, “I taste meat soup,” then there is no problem. But if he says, “There is also an aftertaste of milk,” then it is prohibited. The Rema writes that nowadays we do not rely on a non-Jew tasting it, so we assess it by whether there are sixty parts. We can give another example: terumah that fell into ordinary food. Only a kohen may eat terumah. When the Beis Hamikdash stood, a kohen was permitted to eat terumah. Now, if terumah fell into ordinary food, one can give it to a kohen to taste. We rely on a kohen; we do not rely on a non-Jew, but we do rely on a kohen. If the kohen says there is no taste of the terumah in it, then even if we do not know whether there are sixty parts, the kohen’s statement that there is no taste is enough. A non-Jew we do not

46:48 Speaker 2 Rely on it. In the Shulchan Aruch, there is a disagreement between the Beis Yosef and the Rema. The Beis Yosef writes that one may rely on a non-Jew, while the Rema writes that one may not. That means someone who follows the Rema cannot rely on a non-Jew tasting the food; there has to be sixty times the amount. But there could be a situation where even someone who follows the Rema can rely on a non-Jew’s tasting. How? For example, there are two Jews here. One follows the Beis Yosef, as is Sephardic custom; let’s call him Reuven. Shimon follows Ashkenazic custom, like the Rema. Shimon cooked a pot of meat, and a cup of milk fell into it. According to the Rema, you can’t give it to a non-Jew to taste, because we don’t rely on a non-Jew. You have to know whether there is sixty times the amount. They can’t estimate whether there is sixty times the amount or not. So what do they do? They give the pot to Reuven, and Reuven asks a non-Jew. Once the non-Jew tells Reuven that there is no taste of milk in it, according to the Beis Yosef he can rely on that. So Reuven can taste the dish, because according to the Beis Yosef, asking the non-Jew was enough, and Reuven follows the Beis Yosef, the Mechaber. So when Reuven gives it to the non-Jew to taste and the non-Jew says there is no taste of milk, Reuven is permitted to taste it. After the non-Jew says there is no taste of milk, Reuven himself tastes it and tells Shimon, “I don’t taste milk in it either.” Shimon relies on Reuven. As for relying on a non-Jew, the Rema says we don’t do that, but we do rely on a Jew. So once the non-Jew’s statement that there is no taste of milk permits Reuven to taste it, and Reuven tastes it and says there is no taste of milk, Shimon is permitted to eat it, because he is relying on Reuven’s statement that there is no taste of milk. That

48:59 Speaker 2 means we’re working through a chain, as it were. Shimon can’t rely on the non-Jew, because the Rema writes that we don’t rely on a non-Jew and need sixty times the amount. So if he can estimate whether there is sixty times the amount, he does. If he can’t, then he has a problem. But he gives it to Reuven, who follows the Beis Yosef, according to whom one can give it to a non-Jew to taste. Once the non-Jew tastes it and tells Reuven there is no taste of milk, Reuven can eat that dish, because he follows the Beis Yosef’s view that one may rely on a non-Jew. After Reuven tastes it, Shimon is permitted to eat the same food, because Shimon is relying on Reuven’s taste, as a Jew, and not on the non-Jew’s taste. In other words, although Reuven relied on the non-Jew’s tasting, in accordance with the Beis Yosef, Shimon relies on Reuven’s tasting. That is permitted even according to the Rema, because the Rema says we don’t rely on a non-Jew, but we may rely on a Jew. So Shimon ends up relying on what Reuven said. The whole principle of nullification means that the Torah has determined that this thing becomes permissible. For example, we know that a forbidden food may not be eaten, and if a person eats it, then, as the Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya, forbidden foods cause dullness of the heart and mind, and so on. But suppose there is a food that isn’t kosher, and a person is ill, and the doctor says it is a matter of saving his life and he must eat it. There are pills or medicines for heart conditions that are made, in part, from substances derived from pigs. If taking them is a matter of saving this person’s life, he must take those medicines. Here the Alter Rebbe says that if a person consumes it on a doctor’s instructions, it will not cause dullness of his heart and mind.

50:55 Speaker 2 Why? Because it becomes completely permissible. What does “completely permissible” mean? It’s pork. How does it become completely permissible? The same Torah that determined it is forbidden to eat it determined that when it is a matter of saving a life, he must eat it. Not only may he eat it; he must. It’s like a sick person who needs to eat on Yom Kippur. If an ordinary person eats on Yom Kippur, the penalty is kareis. It says, “That soul shall be cut off.” But if a sick person eats on a doctor’s instructions, not only does it not cause dullness of his heart and mind, it becomes completely permissible, because he is eating on a doctor’s instructions. They tell of a certain tzaddik who, when he was very advanced in age, was told by doctors that he had to eat on Yom Kippur, because otherwise his life would be in danger. Before he went to wash his hands and eat on Yom Kippur, he put on his coat and hat, fastened his gartel, and washed his hands. They said, “What is this? Are you going to daven now? You’re eating. Why are you putting on a gartel?” He said, “I’m going to fulfill the mitzvah of listening to the words of the Sages. The Sages said I need to eat now. The Torah says, ‘And you shall live by them.’ I’m not eating because I like the food; I’m eating because the Torah commanded me to eat.” So when a person eats it because of a Torah commandment or on a doctor’s instructions, it becomes completely permissible. The same is true when we talk about nullification. Take, for example, a central kitchen, like a yeshiva kitchen serving many students or an army kitchen serving many soldiers. There’s a large pot of soup, and a cup of milk falls into it. There is sixty times the amount of the cup. That pot of soup doesn’t contain sixty cupfuls; it contains three hundred or four hundred cupfuls. We say the milk is nullified in sixty times its amount. All the students or all the soldiers will drink everything that’s there. It’s not that they’ll drink some and leave a little, and we’ll say that perhaps what remains is the milk. They’re permitted to drink all of it. So someone here has certainly consumed meat and milk together. After all, one cup of milk went into the pot. So even if there are three hundred cups of meat soup, there are now three hundred and one cups, and three hundred people—or three hundred and one people—ate it. At least one person has eaten meat and milk together. So how is that permitted? The Ramban says that the same Torah that said it is forbidden to eat meat and milk together said that when it is nullified in sixty times its amount, it becomes permissible. In other words, just as when it is a matter of saving a life, or of a sick person’s needs, we say it becomes completely permissible, so too with nullification in sixty times its amount: it becomes completely permissible. It is nullified and may be eaten from the outset. We don’t have to leave a little and say, “Perhaps what’s left at the end is the... let’s say the meat and milk remained in that portion.” Rather, everything may be eaten, because the rule of nullification in sixty times the amount means it is nullified and becomes truly permissible. If there isn’t sixty times the amount, then of course it is forbidden, because it contains the taste of the milk that fell into the meat, or the meat that fell into the milk—the mixture of meat and milk. The story is told that a woman once came to the Chofetz Chaim, I think, or perhaps it was another rabbi. I believe it was the Chofetz Chaim. She told him that she had cooked meat soup for Shabbos, and a cup of milk, or half a cup of milk,

52:54 Speaker 2 Three hundred cups, four hundred cups. We say it’s nullified in sixty. All the students, or all the soldiers, will drink everything here. It’s not that they’ll drink some, leave a little, and we’ll say that perhaps what’s left is the milk. They’re allowed to drink all of it. So someone here certainly consumed meat and milk together. After all, one cup of milk went in. Even if there are three hundred cups of meat soup, there are now three hundred and one cups here, and three hundred people—or three hundred and one people—consumed it. So at least one person here consumed meat and milk together. How, then, is it permitted? The Ramban says: The same Torah that forbade consuming meat and milk together said that when it’s nullified in sixty, it becomes permitted. In other words, just as when a life is at risk, or when a sick person needs it, we say that it becomes entirely permitted, so too with nullification in sixty: it becomes entirely permitted. It’s nullified in sixty and may be consumed from the outset. We don’t have to leave a little and say, “Perhaps what’s left at the end is the… let’s say the meat and milk remained in that portion.” Rather, it’s permitted to consume all of it, because the law of nullification in sixty means that it is nullified and becomes genuinely permitted. If there isn’t sixty times as much, then of course it’s forbidden, because it has the taste of the… of the milk that fell into the meat, or the meat that fell into the milk—the mixture of meat and milk. It’s told that a woman once came to the Chofetz Chaim, I think—or perhaps it was another rabbi. I think it was the Chofetz Chaim. She told him that she had cooked meat soup for Shabbos, and… a cup of milk, or half a cup of milk

55:00 Speaker 2 had fallen into the soup. And there wasn’t sixty times the amount. What should she do? “How much is there?” he asked. She said, “I assume there’s fifty times the amount, but not sixty.” If there isn’t sixty times the amount, it would seem to be forbidden. It hasn’t been nullified. So he told her to wait a moment in the waiting room. Then he asked someone to call the milkman, the man who sold the milk, and have him come urgently. The rabbi was calling him. When he arrived, the rabbi said, “Listen, I’m not the tax authorities, but I’m asking you for a halachic reason: How much water do you mix into the milk? Of the milk you sell, what percentage is actual milk, and how much is water?” He said, “Honored Rabbi, I’ll tell you the truth. I put in sixty percent milk and forty percent water.” “Thank you very much. Be well.” Then he called the woman back and told her the soup was permitted to eat. Why? Because we don’t need sixty times the amount of the entire cup. Only sixty percent of that cup of milk was milk. Another forty percent was water. Water doesn’t make meat non-kosher. What makes the meat non-kosher is meat and milk together, not water and meat or water and milk. So we need sixty times only the sixty percent of the cup that was milk, and the dish did contain sixty times a little more than half a cup. Here again we see the rabbi’s wisdom in knowing to check whether that milk really was one hundred percent milk—in which case there wouldn’t have been sixty times the amount of the milk—or whether it wasn’t one hundred percent milk but only fifty or sixty percent milk. In that case, we need sixty times the amount of milk that was in the cup. And so, in this situation, he permitted the dish, because it contained sixty times the amount of the milk, since it is only the milk that entered the meat that we

57:04 Speaker 2 There has to be sixty times as much food in the pot to nullify it. The rule of nullification in sixty applies when, for example, meat gets mixed into a dairy pot, or milk into a meat pot, and there is sixty times as much food as the amount that got mixed in. Then it’s permitted. But that’s only when we’re talking about something prohibited by halacha. Take meat and milk: the Torah forbids us to eat them together, but non-Jews do eat them together. In other words, the food itself is fit to eat; it’s forbidden to us because of what the Torah established for us. For the same reason, we said that if chicken and milk get mixed together and there isn’t sixty times as much food to nullify the mixture, a Jew may give it to a non-Jewish neighbor. Since the prohibition of chicken with milk is only rabbinic, one may derive benefit from it. With meat from an animal and milk, which is a Torah prohibition, deriving benefit is also forbidden. How does this relate to what we’re about to discuss? Some things are forbidden not for halachic reasons but for health reasons. Halacha describes this as “danger is more severe than a prohibition.” For example, it says that one may not eat fish with meat because it’s dangerous and can cause illness—tzaraas is mentioned, and so on. So if a fish dish were mixed into a meat dish, the question would be whether sixty times as much food would nullify it, or whether that wouldn’t help here. A man asked me just such a question. He regularly buys trays of beef, puts the pieces into small bags in the freezer, and every Shabbos, when they make cholent, he takes out one or more bags and puts the beef into it. One Friday, by mistake, they took out pieces of fish instead of meat. They were frozen, and they thought it was meat. After the cholent had cooked, they saw that they had actually

59:50 Speaker 2 put fish in it. And of course, the cholent also contained meat. If it hadn’t, there would be no problem—it would have been pareve cholent with fish. But this cholent contained pieces of chicken, pieces of meat, and the fish. There was sixty times as much food as the pieces of fish: the potatoes, the rest of the cholent, and the meat together amounted to sixty times the fish. Looking at it from the standpoint of the usual halachic rule, it would seem to be nullified in sixty, just like any other prohibited food that’s nullified in sixty. But there’s another problem here. Since the prohibition against fish with meat is based on a health concern, perhaps sixty times as much food won’t help. If someone were told, “Listen, a drop of poison fell into this dish,” would we also say, “It’s nullified in sixty; no problem”? Certainly not. He’d throw the whole thing out, because no one wants to take the risk of eating food that contains poison. The rule of nullification in sixty is a halachic concept. It applies to something that is inherently fit for human consumption but that the Torah forbids. When something is forbidden because of a health concern, nullification in sixty doesn’t help. So if fish gets mixed into a meat pot, even if there’s sixty times as much food as the fish, it would seem that we’d have to throw it all out—or perhaps give it to animals, to cats or dogs that can eat it. There’s no prohibition against deriving benefit from it; this isn’t meat and milk, it’s fish and meat. But a Jew may not eat it because there’s a concern of danger. The Torah says, “You shall guard your lives.” Not eating something dangerous isn’t just a health matter; it’s also a halachic obligation to look after one’s health, as the Rambam says in Hilchos

1:02:04 Speaker 2 Deios, “Having a healthy and sound body is among the ways of Hashem.” In other words, a Jew must look after his health and avoid things that could harm it. So when fish has been mixed with meat and cooked together, the entire dish is a problem, even if the meat and the rest of the dish amount to sixty times the fish.