Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Halakhah הֲלָכָה
Avraham serves his guests a surprising meal made of dairy and meat (Bereishit 18:8). Wait a minute, isn’t that against the rules of keeping kosher?
There are some simple answers like:
1) The laws forbidding mixing milk and meat hadn’t been given yet, and wouldn’t be for many generations.
2) Who says the people being served had to follow these rules?
Whatever was happening in this story, this is a good chance to learn some of the traditions around that. The Mishnah (Hullin 8:1) says not to even serve meat and dairy on the same table, much less to eat them together. But how long are you expected to wait between eating them? Here is one simple rule laid out in the Talmud:
אָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: אָכַל בָּשָׂר - אָסוּר לֶאֱכֹל גְּבִינָה, גְּבִינָה - מֻתָּר לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר.
Rav Hisda said: If you ate meat, you may not then eat cheese; if you ate cheese, you may then eat meat.
Lots of different traditions emerged around this. Here are a few:
Waiting after meat to eat dairy
The basic standard is that, after meat, you can’t eat dairy until the next meal. There were three main interpretations of this:
- Clear the table or move to a new location, make a בְּרָכָה (berakhah, blessing) over the food you just ate, rinse your mouth, and wash your hands! In some Ashkenazi communities, this meant waiting just one hour after meat before eating dairy (see Rema, Yoreh Deah 89:1).
- Wait the normal time between meals, which is about six hours (see Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 89:1).
- Wait three hours—which might have been considered a normal time between meals in the winter, when days are much shorter (see Darkei Teshuvah, Yoreh Deah 89:6).
Waiting after dairy to eat meat
We don’t usually require any specific waiting period after dairy before eating meat. But the Rema (Yoreh Deah 89:2) states that if you eat hard cheese that has a strong taste and can get stuck in your teeth, you have to wait just as long as you would after meat.
Based on this, perhaps Avraham was following the laws of keeping kosher here. Note that he brings the dairy foods first. Maybe he meant for his guests to finish them before eating the meat (Daat Zekeinim 18:8)!
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