Dairy Crackers

Q. Does the prohibition of dairy bread apply to dairy crackers?

A. In a previous halacha, we quoted the Maharit who allows dairy cookies or cake because cake is not eaten with meat, but rather at the end of the meal. If a person erred and ate a dairy cake after meat, the violation would be Rabbinic, and therefore the gezeira of dairy bread would not be applicable. This rationale would seemingly not apply for crackers, since it is common to eat crackers with liver, or to add crackers to meat soup. Nonetheless, Rav Belsky zt’l permitted dairy crackers and the OU certifies dairy crackers for the following reason. The Maharit originally considered permitting dairy pastries if the baker would inform each customer of their dairy status, but then rejected this approach because the baker might forget to do so. This is difficult to understand. If the Maharit thought that dairy pastries have the same status as dairy bread, then the pastries would be forbidden as soon as they were baked, and it would no longer suffice to alert the consumer, just as dairy bread cannot be corrected by making an alert. How do we understand the “hava amina” (original assumption) of the Maharit?

Rav Belsky explained that cake is not included in the formal gezeira of dairy bread, because cake is not bread. (Halacha categorizes cake as “pas haba b’kisnin”, snacking bread. Cake is not served as the staple of the meal, and therefore the beracha is mezonos.) Furthermore, the Shach (YD 97:2) writes that Chazal forbade dairy bread because bread is eaten at every meal. (We often find that Chazal only restricted common situations.) If so, the prohibition of eating dairy bread does not apply to cake or crackers which are snack foods and are not eaten at every meal. Still, the Maharit and others considered prohibiting dairy cakes because of the potential michshol (possibility of accidental transgression) if the consumer did not realize the item is dairy. Nonetheless the OU certifies dairy crackers because there is minimal concern of a michshol. It is well known that crackers come in dairy and pareve varieties and the consumer can easily ascertain the status of the cracker by examining the label and seeing if the crackers are certified dairy. Although it is also well known that commercial bread may be dairy or pareve, there is a formal gezeira on dairy bread which cannot be ameliorated by labeling the product OUD.

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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.