More than Red and Blue

Prepared for print by Faigy Peritzman

On Shavuos we want to combine our dairy and meat seudos into one. Is there anything we need to do between those courses to switch over?

The Shulchan Aruch rules that meat may be eaten after milk during the same meal, without bentshing or even waiting any time in between. All you need to do is make sure all dairy residue is removed by carefully washing your hands, chewing and swallowing a bit of pareve food, and then rinsing out your mouth.

Obviously, all the dairy food and dishes must be removed from the table and the tablecloth will have to be changed before the meat or meaty dishes are brought to the table. In addition, the loaf or slices of bread that remained from the dairy meal and may have come in contact with dairy must be removed, and a different loaf of bread served along with the meat meal.

As a matter of fact, the original custom of eating dairy on Shavuos was to do exactly that — wash on bread and then eat a dairy meal (in some communities, they even baked special dairy bread for this purpose), and then remove the bread, bring in another loaf, and serve the meat meal without bentshing in between. This was done to commemorate the korban of Shtei Halechem, the two breads brought on Shavuos when the Beis Hamikdash was standing.

While the basic halachah follows the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch, and one may follow this ruling lechatchilah, many communities and families have accepted upon themselves a stringency — based on kabbalistic sources and strongly recommended by several poskim — and are careful to bentsh (or recite a brachah acharonah) between eating dairy and meat, in addition to waiting at least a half hour to an hour in between.