דינים- א

We don’t need reasons for מצות to compel us to do them- it’s enough that we were מצוה. Though there are some חוקים that we don’t understand at all, we know most of the reasons for the מצוות. It’s not up to us to decide what the main reason is and what the secondary reason is. It doesn’t matter what the reason is and we don’t base the מצוה on the reason that we’re doing it. The רמב''ם states that it is best for us to try to understand the reason because it does help with קיום המצוות.

The פסוק says not to contaminate your נפש with creepy crawlies that are אסור because I am ה' who took you out of מצרים. From here, חז''ל come out with the אסור of eating things that aren’t good for our נפש. The פסוק writes the word "ונטמתם" without an א- it’s a רמז to something stuffed and clogged. The אבן עזרא says that if a person eats מאכלים אסורות, it clogs and stuffs up his heart in a way that רוחניות can’t penetrate.

ה' combined a גשמיות body with a רוחניותדיק נפש. ה' created the נפש with the גוף as a משרת to help it fulfill its goal in this גשמיות world. Therefore, the גוף must be subservient to the נפש. If the roles reverse, the גוף will force the נפש to do what it wants, thereby distancing the נפש from his goal in this world, which is עבודת ה'.

Your body develops according to the foods that you eat and digest become a part of your body. It’s important to make your body strong, but it shouldn’t have strong נטיעות that are negative because then the נפש won’t be able to control it. Only if the גוף is not domineering can the נפש control it. So don’t eat foods that give you bad נטיעות.

There is nothing that grows naturally that’s אסור to eat. All these things are צנוע and don’t have aggressive characteristics and therefore won’t have an overbearing affect on the נפש. Some animals have very overbearing and negative characteristics. If these characteristics enter our body, our גוף would be very overbearing. The animals that we are allowed to eat feast on grass and other natural things. We don’t eat prey animals because they have a certain measure of מדת האכזריות. The animals that we eat don’t have this מידה of אכזריות and what they eat is פשוט and צנוע. Even amongst the animals that eat grass, we can only eat the ones that have split hooves and chew their cud. Birds and fish must have other סימנים. Fish must have fins and scales. Certain birds we know through קבלה that we can eat since we aren’t experts in the הלכות of the סימנים.

Even kosher animals can’t be eaten right away. They must have a כשר שחיטה. Fish does not require שחיטה. There are certain מומים that would hasten the death of the animal. If you שחט the animal before it dies from its wounds, it’s treif and you can’t eat it. These מומים are usually found after the animal is שחטed. A נבלה is an animal that was found dead- you can’t eat it. When an animal is שחטed, certain organs must be checked. One of these organs is the lungs. Some of the blemishes on the lungs can be מתירed, but glatt meat means that the lungs are smooth. If an animal is treif, they will sell it to a goyish market. When you buy meat, you only buy a piece of it, so it’s really up to the slaughterhouse to check it properly.

Chicken is checked in the slaughterhouse for perforated lungs and other blemishes, but some things may be overlooked. You may find your chicken has a broken bone. If the bone was broken before שחיטה it will be very red around it because the chicken bled. By the wing, if the bone closer to the body is broken, it’s a שאילה because it could have perforated the lung. If you see something odd with the chicken that you are handling, ask!! Sometimes, the bottom of the drumstick is broken because the chicken was hung from there in the slaughterhouse. Ask a רב because he will be able to tell you if the bone was broken in the slaughterhouse or not. Just because something has a good הכשר doesn’t mean that you could assume that it has no problems.

There are certain parts of the animal that must be removed before eating it:
1. גיד הנשה
2. Other גידים. ניקור is the removal of גידים.
3. חלב
4. Blood

הלכות בשר וחלב-

א It says in the תורה, "לא תבשל גדי בחלב אמו". It says this three times:
1. אסור בישול- you can’t cook.
2. אסור אכילה
3. איסור הנאה
The אסור דאורית is only if the two were cooked together. This even applies to pet food- if it’s made of milk and meat together, you can’t feed it to your pet.

ב גדי is referring to the category that a גדי comes from- it’s a domestic, kosher animal. חלב אמו is talking about the milk of a kosher, domestic animal. The meat or milk of a non- kosher animal is not included in the אסור דאוריתא. דאוריתא, you would be allowed to eat, cook and have הנאה from anything that doesn’t fall into the category of גדי or חלב אמו. חז''ל gave us an איסור דרבנן of eating kosher things that aren’t בהמות in milk. Cooking the two together is אסור because of מראת עין. To cook fish in milk doesn’t fall under any איסור. There are some people though, that are מקפיד not to eat fish together with meat. Any combination of milk and meat aside from בשר בהמה טהורה cooked with חלב בהמה טהורה you can have הנאה from.

ג בישול is only when you physically cook the two together. If the two just touched each other, it’s only איסור דרבנן. Any meat that absorbed milk or milk that absorbed meat is אסור דרבנן. If one falls into the other, you must ask a שאילה. What causes absorption? Two foods that are hot or one hot thing. Contact with heat and moisture will cause immediate absorption. Cold, wet contact doesn’t cause absorption, but if it’s left there מעת לעת- twenty-four hours, absorption will occur. Absorption goes from both כלי to food and from food to כלי. Sharp foods under certain circumstances will have immediate absorption. Any absorption that doesn’t happen through בישול is only an איסור דרבנן.

ד The איסור דאוריתא is only the cooking of a בהמה טהורה in the milk of a בהמה טהורה. Anything else would be an איסור דרבנן. Included in this is the cooking of a bird, חיה, or not kosher animal in milk (because of מראת עין).

ה Certain גדרים were made so that milk and meat don’t come together- you shouldn’t eat meat and then milk. Additionally, they made an איסור not to have both milk and meat on the same table. If you’re eating milk, don’t put a cold cut platter within arms reach because the person could forget and taste what’s on the platter. If two people are eating together, it shouldn’t be that one is eating milchig and one fleishig. If you have something that you can make a היקר with, it’s ok. If you don’t know the other party at the table or you do know them but you are not close, you can share a table. You can put an odd object between the two of you to make a סימן. As a היקר, one should rip open his bag and put it underneath his food like a placemat. If you’re eating two different things, make sure not to drink the same drink and make sure not to eat from the same פת or bite into anything that they bit into. These הלכות apply to עוף and חיה
even though they are only דרבנן.

ו it’s not only that you can’t eat milk after meat. It says in the גמרא, "אכל בשר אסור לאכל גבינה". מר עוקבא explains that you can’t eat cheese with meat- you must wait until סעודה אחרת. What is the meaning of סעודה אחרת? Why do we need a הפסק?

ז סעודה אחרת:
1. Six hours- that’s how long they waited between lunch and supper.
2. Literally within the סעודה you can’t eat both. You must make a ברכה אחרונה in between to finish off the סעודה. Then, you must eat a bulky solid to cleanse your mouth. You must drink something to rinse your mouth and then wait one hour.

ח The ספרדים wait the six hour שיעור and the אשכנזים wait a shorter שיעור. The six hour שיעור has spread almost everywhere. If you don’t know your שיעור, wait six hours. You only use the shorter שיעור if you have בקבלה to do less, like Holland- they wait one hour. Some wait three or four hours- they go according to the שיטה of waiting the amount of hours in between meals. If your מנהגis six hours, you can’t go and change- going against "אל תטש תורת אמך".

ט If someone has to eat milk and meat closer together for specific reasons such as ulcers, he could hold the one hour שיטה because he has the need. This would also apply to a nursing mother who needs more dairy products. Someone using this שיטה should make sure to clean their mouth out very well before eating milk.

A קטן up to nine years old who either needs more milk, or insists on having something milchig can eat it before the complete number hours are finished, but with the cleansing process. A child under three years old doesn’t need to wait at all. Between the ages of three and six, one should train their child in this ענין by slowly increasing the number of hours between fleishigs and milchigs.

Someone who made a ברכה on something milchig before the six hours are up- if it’s after one hour, he can take a bite. If it’s before one hour though, he must allow it to become a ברכה לבטלה.

י Two reasons that we wait:
1. It leaves fatty residue in your mouth for up to six hours. You can’t eat milchigs because you will be having the טעם of milk and meat together.
2. There may be tiny particles of meat stuck between your teeth. After six hours though, the meat has been broken down by the enzymes in your mouth, and it’s no longer considered meat.

יא It makes a difference why you are waiting the six hours. If it’s because of the fatty residue, if you only chewed the meat but didn’t swallow it, you have no טעם שומן so it’s no problem. But the second explanation presents a problem because you might still have meat between your teeth. Also, if after six hours you find particles of meat in your teeth, the second שיטה doesn’t find it a problem but the first one doesn’t specify whether it’s a problem.

יב If you bit into meat, even if you didn’t swallow it your mouth is fleishig for six hours. If you have to taste it, just put it on your tongue. If you have a particle of meat in your teeth and it’s after six hours, you must wash you mouth out and then you can have milchigs. If you swallow the particle though, you must wait another six hours. By doing this, you are being מחמיר for both טעמים.

יג If you eat something that has no meat in it- it’s pareve on its own, but it was cooked together with meat, even if it’s clear and won’t leave residue between your teeth or a fatty residue, you must wait six hours.

יד if the pareve food was cooked in a clean, fleishig pot do we have to wait six hours after eating it? No.

טו Even if the pot wasn’t one hundred percent clean, your not fleishig, but you can’t eat something milchig with it. If the כלי is a בן יומו meaning it has absorbed the fleishigs within the past twenty- four hours, the טעם is still in it so it could affect the food you eat from that כלי. If it’s not a בן יומו it is stillטעם נותן, but it’s a טעם פגום and will not enhance the food like a בן יומו- the טעם is משבח it. לכתחילה, you shouldn’t cook pareve food in a fleishig pot with the intention to eat it with milchigs. But even בדיעוד, בני אשכנז are מחמיר that even if you already cooked pareve in a fleishig pot, you shouldn’t eat it with milchigs if it’s a בן יומו. However, it it’s not a בן יומו, then you could eat it with milchigs. Why? Because of טעם of a non בן יומו is פגום so it won’t make the food אסור to eat with milchigs. But this is only בדיעוד, after you have already cooked the food. Don’t do this לכתחילה. There are situations in which you can do this לכתחילה- if you have no other pot, you can cook the pareve in a fleishig pot to eat with milchigs as long as it’s not a בן יומו. If you had a pareve food that you planned on using for fleishig and you cooked it in a fleishig בן יומו and someone put milchigs into it, you should eat it so as not to do בעל תשחית, but this is not an optimal situation.

טז When we deal with sharp foods- בן יומו applies to mild foods. Sharp foods such as radishes, onions, garlic, horseradish, acidic fruits, pickled herring and other pickled things have a fresh, active taste. This enhances the dormant flavor and draws out the טעם from the כלי. It now has to be treated as a בן יומו, even if it hasn’t been used in the past twenty- four hours.

יז Specifically a knife, because it is used this way, but it could be something else. You press a knife into the food and it causes a transfer of flavor. If you are cutting a cold, baked apple, the flavor doesn’t transfer. But if you are cutting a cold onion, because of its sharp flavor and the pressure, there will be a transfer of flavor. If you cut an onion with a fleishig knife, you can’t eat it with milchigs. If you take a sour pickle out of a container with a fleishig fork, you can’t eat it with milchigs because there is immediate absorption with sharp foods. Even though the knife may not be a בן יומו, by sharp foods everything is considered a בן יומו.

יח You must wait six hours between milchigs and fleishigs after eating hard, aged and cured cheeses. After soft cheeses, you must wash your hands, rinse your mouth out with a liquid and clean it out with a solid. By a liquid, don’t touch it so that you don’t have to wash your hands. According to some, you must make a ברכה אחרונה in between and other hold you must wait a half hour.

יט Since aged cheeses have a strong flavor and the fatty taste remains, you must wait six hours. Most cheeses aren’t aged.

כ With bread, חז''ל are מקפיד that you shouldn’t use a milchig knife to cut bread that you want to eat with fleishigs. You must be מקפיד because bread is something that is eaten together with the milchigs or fleishigs and there might be something left over on the knife. If you only have one knife, you do נעיצה בקרקע- stick the knife in the ground ten times, in ten different spots. This only works for a smooth knife- not one with a serrated blade. Some people are מדקדק to have separate bread knives. When you buy dishes and cutlery, you should buy different kinds for milchigs and fleishigs. If you have two of something, you should make a mark on the milchig one. Why? So that it’s universal- if anyone finds something marked, they will know that it’s milchig.

כא They used to use dipping כלים for salt- must have separate ones for milchigs and fleishigs. Why? Because when you dip something milchig in, there is a שארים of milchigs. Now, we use salt shakers. It is highly unlikely that something will go into the salt shaker, but nevertheless people have separate ones because when you handle it, there might be a bit of residue on your hands or steam may go into it. The same applies to ketchup bottles- you don’t have to have separate ketchup bottles. If it isn’t handled carefully though, it is commendable to have two.

כב You can’t use the same tablecloth for milchigs and then fleishigs. Also, bread that’s left over after a fleishig meal you can’t eat with milchigs. Why not? Because you aren’t careful with it to make sure that it’s not touched by fleishig hands. If you slice bread for liver, the part that you sliced is considered fleishig. Most hold however, that the rest of the bread isn’t considered fleishigs because you were careful with it. If you know that you weren’t careful with it, don’t eat it with milchigs. It’s better not to put something pareve down at a milchig meal if it was previously served at a fleishig meal.

כג In an oven, you can’t cook milchigs and fleishigs uncovered at the same time because the טעם and ריח of one may go into the other. If you are baking something fleishig that’s uncovered and something pareve that’s uncovered at the same time, don’t eat the pareve thing with milchigs, but it doesn’t make you fleishigs for six hours. If you use the oven for dry, fleishig foods, you can cook dry, milchig foods after as long as the oven is clean and there is no שארים of meat. Theoretically, if you cover them well enough, you can cook milchigs and fleishigs at the same time because there is no transfer of flavor.

כד What we mentioned above applies to a solid, but not to a liquid that’s uncovered because liquid gives off vapor or steam, the steam has the same דין as the food itself. Should you cook something fleishig where the steam will rise and hit the top of the oven and then cook a milchig, wet food and the steam will reach the top of the oven too, there’s a חשש that if there’s a lot of steam, the treif steam will drip back down into the food. If first you cook something wet and fleishig and then something pareve, you can’t eat the pareve thing with milchigs.

כה This only applies to steamy foods. If the second food is covered well enough or it’s dry, you won’t have this problem.

כו You should make your oven what you make most often. If you always make milchigs, be מיחד your oven for milchigs. If you want to use it for fleishigs, you can either cook a dry food if the oven is clean, or cover the food. Don’t bake one open and one closed together or just the fleishigs alone, uncovered if it’s steamy and you have previously baked a steamy milchig dish. Another way to keep the clean so that you can do this is to line the racks with foil just in case it drips.

כז If your milchig oven turns fleishig, you should ask your רב how to כשר the oven. According to some, you would have to clean out the even well, wait twenty- four hours so that the טעם is a טעם פגום and put the oven on high for an hour. Self cleaning does the same job as this whole process.

כח A microwave is much more חמור than an oven in some ways because it’s much smaller and closer to the food. Some people use their microwave for both milchigs and fleishigs and cover both. You can really use it for both if one is uncovered as long as the other one is always covered. You can’t use the same plate for both. In order to כשר your microwave, you must clean it, wait twenty- four hours and boil a cup of water in it.

כט One should refrain from hanging utensils close to the stove top because hot steam from the cooking foods will rise and hit the כלים. It really depends on how close the כלים are hanging. For פסח, you must cover the hood of your stove. Usually steam doesn’t hit it, but it may come in contact and drip down- during the year it would be בטול. But on פסח, חמץ is never בטול so you must cover it.

ל חצובה- the metal grates over the burners. They don’t have to be separated for milchigs and fleishigs because you’re not putting food on it, and even if something would spill over into the grate, it’s constantly cleaning itself out. If you see something like milk on the surface, you must clean it off before putting a fleishig pot on it. Some people do have separate grates or stovetops, but this is not necessary.

לא חז''ל made a גזירה that unless certain הלכות are met, you can’t make milchig or fleishig bread because bread is something that is eaten together with other foods. If you made a mistake and made milchig bread, the bread is אסור to be eaten, even by itself.

לב if you made an amount that you had in mind to finish that same day, חז''ל were חושש that you won’t forget so you can use those milchig rolls. If you made too many, but thought that they would all be finished on that same day, since they were made בהטר, you can eat them.

לג if you want to bake in advance, you must make the shape different so that you will immediately be aware that this bread is different. If you can see visible milchigs or fleishigs on it, such as cheese, it’s ok too.

לד חז''ל didn’t make an אסור on pastries because they aren’t usually eaten with the meal. You can make milchig pastries, but be sure to label them.

לה When does bread that is איסור actually become אסור? The איסור takes place as soon as it is baked. Once baked, you can’t be מתיר it.

לו If you use a fleishig כלי in something milchig- if it’s not hot, you can wash it off in cold water. Don’t wash it with hot water because that would cause a בלי'. Both the כלי and the food are fine. If you use a fleishig knife to cut a milchig block of cheese if they are both cold and the cheese is not spicy- hard cheese leaves a milchig film of grease. You can clean it off by doing נעיצה בקרקע. נעיצה בקרקע never כשרs a כלי- it just rubs off the surface. If you have cold, wet contact for twenty- four hours or more, there was probably absorption and you must ask a שאילה about the כלי and the food.

לז It is preferable not to use one sink for milchigs and fleishigs. But if you only have one:
1. Never place anything into the sink itself.
2. Have separate milchig and fleishig sink racks. Be careful when you put the silverware on the rack that it doesn’t slip through into the sink.