Q & A - WITH RABBI RISKIN
Question: What is the source of the custom of waiting six hours between the eating of meat and the consumption of milk? Can this custom be changed?
Answer:
From the verse “Thou shalt not cook a calf in its mother’s milk,” we
learn that the cooking or frying of meat together with milk is forbidden
(i.e. cheeseburgers). The gemara adds to this prohibition a further
boundary, forbidding the consumption of milk following the eating of meat,
at the same meal.
According to Harav Bar Shaul, z”l, this
additional boundary developed into three different customs, according to
geographical region. In Europe, it was customary to wait six hours between
the meat and the milk; according to the Rambam, “k’shesh shaot,” or, “around
six hours,” which was interpreted by many poskim to mean five hours plus. In
Germany, the custom was to wait three hours, and in Scandinavia, to wait
just one hour.
Some attribute the custom of six hours to the amount
of time it takes the body to digest meat, and the custom of hour hour to the
amount of time required to remove meat from between the teeth. But then what
would the reasoning behind three hours be?
Rav Shaul explains that
it all derived from the eating habits of the various regions. In Europe,
primarily in Poland and Russia, breakfast was consumed at 6:00 am, lunch at
12 noon, and dinner at 6:00 pm. Hence, they determined that there should be
six hours between meat and milk meals.
In Germany, where a
mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack was also customary, the time between
meals was three hours and they thus waited that long between meat and milk.
And in Scandinavia, they would eat many small meals throughout the day;
therefore the custom of waiting just one hour between meat and milk
originated.
Based upon this explanation, in many locations in Israel
perhaps the possibility exists, for people who truly eat “aruchat eser”
(mid-morning snack) and “aruchat arba” (mid-afternoon snack) to perform a “hatarat
nedarim” (absolution of vows) and return to the custom of three hours.
