Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Bemidbar

Dear Dairy

May 29, 2025

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Rav Yosef Jacobovits

The Rama (O.C. 494:3) writes that it is customary in many places to eat both dairy and meat on the first day of Shavuos. He explains that eating meat after dairy in the same meal requires that the bread on the table be replaced with a new loaf, and doing this symbolizes the shtei halechem, the korban of two loaves brought on Shavuos in the Bais Hamikdash.

The Mishnah Brurah (15) adds that the minhag is to bake the challah for the dairy meal with butter. This is puzzling, because it is forbidden to bake dairy bread (Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 97:1). The answer is that the Shulchan Aruch (ibid.) permits baking dairy bread where it is either in a small quantity or of a different appearance from regular bread, so the Mishnah Brurah must mean that one should bake small challos or make them look different from standard challos.

When eating dairy and meat at the same meal, the Mishnah Brurah (16) says that one need not recite Birkas Hamazon between them. Rather, he should clean his mouth out by eating and drinking pareve items to avoid potential basar bechalav. Some are stricter and divide their meat and dairy foods into separate seudos, based on the Zohar. They also wait an hour between the meals, as the Zohar says one must wait “sha’ah achas” between dairy and meat.

The exception to this rule is hard cheese (as noted by the Mishnah Brurah himself), after which most wait six hours (see Rama Y.D. 89:2), though some poskim maintain that halachic hard cheese does not exist today (R’ Aharon Kotler, R’ Shmuel Kamenetsky). Others hold that parmesan cheese and the like do qualify as hard cheese (R’ Moshe Heinemann).