Dairy Cookies and Cakes

Q. Does the prohibition of dairy bread apply to dairy cake or cookies?

A. The Maharit (YD 2:18) was asked whether a baker may sell fleishig pastries (pas haba b’kisnin) if he tells each customer that it is fleishig. The Maharit refused to allow this, because he was concerned that the baker might forget to alert the customer. Nonetheless, the Maharit concludes that the prohibition of baking dairy bread does not apply to sweet cakes or to fruit-filled pastries. Chazal forbade dairy bread because of a gezeira (a preventative decree) lest a person may not realize the bread is dairy and will eat the bread with meat. There is a general halachic principal that a gezeira is enacted only to prevent Biblical violations, but not to prevent Rabbinic restrictions. (The Talmud explains that enacting a gezeira to prevent violation of a Rabbinic decree would be a gezeira l’gezeira, an enactment upon an enactment, since most Rabbinic restrictions are preventative measures.) In the case of dairy bread, the Rabbis were concerned that a person might accidentally eat dairy bread with meat, which potentially could be a violation of Biblical law. On the other hand, cakes and cookies are not eaten with meat, but rather at the end of meal as a dessert. If a person erred and ate a dairy cookie or slice of cake after meat, the violation would be Rabbinic. As such, the Rabbis did not enact a gezeira against eating dairy cakes or cookies.

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The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt"l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.