ABSTRACT

As we saw in chapter four, once the rabbis instituted the prohibition of mixing meat and dairy foods, the question immediately arose of how, practically speaking, this mixing was to be avoided. What, in other words, counts as “mixing” and what steps are necessary to avoid it? The gemara in tractate Hullin proposed two sorts of methods for avoiding mixing: (1) washing one’s hands and either wiping or rinsing one’s mouth, and (2) waiting some period of time (“until tomorrow at the same time” or “until another meal”) after eating meat before one eats dairy. The former steps seem to define “mixing” as the contact of the two categories of food, for they facilitate the physical removal of the actual food substance from one’s hands or mouth. The assumptions of the latter method are less clear, for, on the one hand, it could be directed at avoiding the mixing of residual tastes which might remain long after the actual food substance is removed. On the other hand, it could be directed at accomplishing a “symbolic” separation of the foods, seeking to avoid mixing literally at the same meal. The gemara, while offering these different methods, was utterly unclear concerning how they might relate, and it would be left to centuries of rabbinic commentators to work out the details. As we will discover in the present chapter, the solutions they would propose would be as diverse as in any area of rabbinic practice. Ultimately, where a Jew was found on the map of these possibilities would define his community affiliation as much as any halakhic choice. If you knew how long a Jew waits between meat and dairy, you could more-or-less tell where she came from and the community with which she identifies.