When bishul akum is a problem, the heat source, whether an oven, stove, griddle, or the like, needs to be lit by a Jew. For Sephardic Jews, this is insufficient, and the Jew must either put the food on the fire or stir the food once it begins to cook. The Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 113:14 rules that for a food to be considered eaten raw (and thus excluded from bishul akum - ibid.113:1), it needs to be readily edible raw, not just under pressing circumstances. Thus, to the best of my understanding, pancakes are inedible raw.
However, the Rabbis instituted the prohibition of bishul akum with another major limitation. They said that only foods which are the type to be served “on the tables of kings” (i.e. fancy dinners) are included in the prohibition of bishul akum (Avoda Zara 38a). The accepted logic is as follows. The reason for the prohibition is that being able to eat the non-Jew’s food freely creates the opportunity of the non-Jew inviting the Jew over to eat. The resulting social closeness between people/families could be a factor leading toward intermarriage. Were the non-Jew to invite the Jew over in a cordial manner, he would presumably serve particularly respectable foods (Rambam, Ma’achlot Asurot 17:16). Thus, it is sufficient to forbid “high level” foods in order to maintain the necessary social distance from non-Jews. Although they are popular, one does not serve pancakes at fancy affairs. Thus, the prohibition of bishul akum does not apply. The actual kashrut of the food must obviously be ensured.
The fact that the event took place in an Israeli hotel, which, presumably, is owned by a Jew, can make a difference in some cases. There is a rejected minority opinion that bishul akum was not forbidden when the cooking is done in the house of the Jew (Tosafot, Avoda Zara ibid.). Rav O. Yosef, shlita, rules that even a Sephardic Jew may possibly rely, in such cases, on the opinion of the Rama (ibid., seif 7) that it is sufficient for a Jew to light the fire (Yechave Da’at, V:54). This is based on the claim that in a case of s’fek s’feika (double doubt), a Sephardic Jew can be lenient even if each individual doubt was decided by the Shulchan Aruch to be forbidden.

In the Mishnah, Avoda Zara 35B, pat (bread) of non-Jews is included in the list of things which are prohibited to eat, but are permitted to benefit from. The origin of this prohibition is the “18 Gezerot” (Rabbinical prohibitions) which were enacted after the great debate between Shammai and Hillel (Shabbat 17a). The gezerah was enacted to limit the type of ties between Jews and non-Jews which might lead to intermarriage (what Chazal called, “because of their daughters”).
Although mentioned in the Mishna along with bishul akum, the halacha is more lenient regarding bread from a non-Jewish bakery for one or more of the following reasons:
1) This gezerah was not totally accepted throughout the entire Jewish world.
2) A special dispensation may have been made to allow a staple such as bread, especially since Jewish bakeries are not always available (see Avoda Zara 35b).
3) The practice of buying bread made in mass quantities to be sold is less likely to encourage dangerous levels of socializing (see Rashi ad loc.).

There are some who permit bread baked by a non-Jew only where there is no local alternative of pat Yisrael (Shulchan Aruch Yoreah Deah 112:2), whereas others permit buying from non-Jewish bakeries in any case (Rama, ibid.). In any case, the bread baked by a private non-Jew is certainly forbidden. Even those who permit pat akum only when pat Yisrael is not available might permit a type of bread which is only available or significantly more tasty by the non-Jewish bakery (Shulchan Aruch, ibid., 5; see Igrot Moshe II:33 regarding bagels). A major issue is the determination of which foods have the relative leniency of pat akum and which (like many cakes) fall under the broader, more stringent category of bishul akum (see Shulchan Aruch, ibid., 6). Regarding pat akum, any involvement of a Jew in the lighting of the oven permits the bread, even for Sephardim who are stringent on the matter by bishul akum. (Shulchan Aruch, ibid., 9).

Answer 1: One must first clean the dishwasher thoroughly. This includes removal of all particles from any of the racks, filters, grates, and the rest of the inside of the dishwasher After that, one must leave the dishwasher idle for more than twenty-four hours. Then one must run the dishwasher through the longest and strongest cycle that the dishwasher can be put through.

Answer 2: The poskim in our time have discussed in great detail the possibilities and problems of using a dishwasher for meat and dairy. There is a wide spectrum on this issue. One may rely on the permissions granted by Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav Ovadia Yosef, but one should not wash meat and dairy dishes simultaneously, rather one should first wash one set of dishes and then the other and ONLY AFTER THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS ARE FULFILLED .
1) One should rinse the dishes lightly prior to putting them in the dishwasher. This washing will remove any large pieces of food on the dishes. The dishwasher will then be used only to remove small particles of food which are left on the plate.
2) One should be careful that there is dishwasher detergent on the dishes at the onset of the washing.
3) One should be careful to wash out the dishwasher between the use of meat and dairy or vice versa to cleanse the dishwasher itself from any remnants of food (and especially careful about the filter).
4) One should use different racks for meat and dairy.

Answer 3: There are poskim who permit kashering dishwashers for Pesach, but we don’t recommend it.

 The Torah speaks at once about the often overlapping laws of hechsher keilim (ridding utensils of non-kosher residue) of used utensils and tevilat keilim of even new utensils obtained from non-Jews (Bamidbar 31:23). A major difference is that the former is needed to solve technical kashrut problems, whereas the latter is a mitzva of purification. One of the ramifications of this difference is that even if one failed to perform tevilat keilim, the food that came in contact with the utensils remains kosher (Tosafot, Avoda Zara 75b). The continued use of the utensil before tevila is the problem (see Rambam, Ma’achalot Assurot 17:3).

Rav Shlomo Zalman Orbach (cited in Tevilat Keilim (Cohen) 4:(2)) points out that there must be a full-fledged violation of the law of tevilat keilim if one uses a utensil before tevila. After all, since one does not have to do tevila unless and until he uses the utensil, if one were allowed to use it before tevila, when would he be required to immerse it? However, if the reason to disallow usage is not a classic prohibition but a failure to perform the positive mitzva to do the tevila, then if one is incapable of doing the tevila (e.g., there is no mikveh) the fundamental violation would not exist. Nevertheless, in that case, there is likely a rabbinic prohibition to use the utensil prior to the tevila (compare ibid. with ibid. 3:(24)).

However, there is an idea that you can implement in a variety of ways which will enable you to use the keilim without tevila. The halacha is that one must do tevila on utensils that are acquired from a non-Jew. However, if they remain the non-Jew’s property and one only borrows them or even rents them, he does not need tevila (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 120:8). Although you are not likely to find a non-Jew who is willing to lend or even rent you new utensils at a modest price, you can spend the same money as he is willing to sell them for and have in mind not to acquire them but to only rent them. The problem you will have in this scenario is that if the utensils remain his, you should have to return it to the store at some point. Here is at least one way to deal with that problem. Arrange with the storeowner (who may think you are strange, but that’s not the end of the world), that you are renting the utensils for part of the price, but you will give him the full price for the possibility that he does not want to accept back used utensils and/or you do not take the opportunity to return them.

Another technical idea is that you can find another non-Jew (perhaps a hotel worker or a neighbor) and say as follows: “I am not going to need these utensils after I leave so I want to give them to you as a present as of now. Since I am nice enough to give you them as a present, I ask that you agree to let me use them and that you be responsible to retrieve them when I leave.”

In theory, one could always use this type of ha’arama (shrewd halachic ploy) to get out of doing tevilat keilim. However, we are not supposed to be interested in getting out of mitzvot. However, in a case like yours, where you would be happy to the mitzva if you could but you cannot, this type of system is very appropriate.

(Note that many bodies of natural water are kosher as mikva’ot, and one may be available in the area you are visiting. However, since it is hard to know when this is the case, you do not need to try to do such a tevila that you will not even know if it was valid. Also, realize that neither disposable utensils nor utensils made out of substances other than metal and glass require tevila.)

The prohibition of bishul akum, is a rabbinic enactment.

The general principal of bishul akum is that anything that is impossible to eat when uncooked—anything that needs to be cooked in order to become edible—and is “suitable to be served on the table of kings”, if a non-Jew cooked it, the food is forbidden to eat. Even if the food item was made in a Jewish-owned vessel and in a Jewish home, the food would still be forbidden to eat. The reason for the enactment is a fear of intermarriage. It follows that food items that are not considered fit to be served to royalty or things that are eaten uncooked since it is not the manner of people to invite one’s friend—in such cases, the Sages did not prohibit (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 113:1; Taz, Ibid., sif katan 1).

You should know that if a Jew participates in the cooking or baking process, there is no prohibition of bishul akum, eating food cooked by a non-Jew. The Shulchan Aruch and the Rama are in disagreement what constitutes participation. According to the Rama, it is enough for a Jew to merely ignite the oven. However, according to the Shulchan Aruch, merely lighting the oven is not enough. Rather, the Jew must place the actual food item on the fire (Shulchan Aruch, Ibid, sif 7).

You must make an effort not to eat in a restaurant without kashrut supervision. In a place where the only way to eat kosher food is by double-wrapping the kosher food and cooking it or heating it in the restaurant’s or hotel’s oven is not kosher, you must ensure that a Jew lights the oven (for Ashkenazim) or (for Sefardim or Ashkenazim) that a Jew will put the food in the oven.

Regarding the use of knife to cut fish: If the knife is clean, you can use it to cut the fish, but only if the fish is cold (cf. Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 94:7, and in Sefer “Derashot”, perek 23, 25).

Regarding the type of cooking: There is no difference whether the food is cooked, roasted, fried, or toasted. The prohibition of bishul akum applies to all forms of cooking (cf. Sefer Bein Yisrael LeNochri, Inyanei Yoreh Deah 10:3).

Fish are not [generally] eaten raw. Fish dishes certainly are fit for royalty. Therefore, the prohibition of bishul akum applies.

Vegetables: It depends if they are eaten raw (like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers), then no prohibition of bishul akum exists. If they are only eaten cooked (like beets), the prohibition of bishul akum applies.

Potatoes: Halachic authorities debate their status whether they are considered to be served on the table of royalty or not. The Aruch HaShulchan (113:11) is inclined to permit (although he concluded, “one should ponder the matter”). The Chachmat Adam, however, prohibits eating potatoes that were cooked by non-Jews. He considers potatoes as fit for royalty (66:4). Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner is also inclined to side with the Chachmat Adam’s opinion (Shevet HaLevi, volume 2, siman 45). It also seems to be the generally accepted practice in our times. Therefore, potatoes that were cooked by non-Jews are prohibited.

The answer assumes that the cooking bag is reliable enough to prevent noticeable seepage of liquid the bag (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 95:2, regarding an egg shell, which is too porous to be considered a separation). If can not ensure this situation, the discussion below is academic. We thus will treat the bag as a pot within a pot.

Let us start with the case where you simultaneously cook fleishig and pareve together, separated by the “walls” of the cooking bag. In this case, the bag turns into a fleishig utensil. (Had the bag contained milchig food, then first level taste of milchig and fleishig would have joined together in the walls of the pot to become the forbidden substance of basar b’chalav [see Shulchan Aruch, YD 92:5].) There is a most far-reaching machloket between Ashkenazi and Sephardi p’sak regarding pareve food cooked in a flesihig pot. The Shulchan Aruch (YD 95:2, accepted as usual by Sephardim) says that the pareve food remains pareve because the fleishig taste is twice removed from its source (nat bar nat), once by entering the pot and again when leaving it to enter the pareve food. However, there is a significant machloket among Acharonim if that leniency applies if the fleishig source is still entering the pot from the outside at the time the pareve food is cooking inside. Some consider it that taste enters the other food directly (see opinions in Pitchei Teshuva 95:1; Yad Yehuda 95:1; Badei Hashulchan 95:7).

For Ashkenazim, the matter is quite straightforward. Even pareve food that has absorbed only nat bar nat taste may not be eaten together with milchig food (Rama, YD 95:3). Certainly then, one cannot eat the formally pareve food cooking on the other side of the bag with milchig, as it must be assumed to have absorbed fleishig taste from the food cooking in the crock pot. See below regarding other halachot for nat bar nat food.

A more pertinent question is if only water or pareve food was cooking at the time in the crock pot. Here even the food in the crock pot is only nat bar nat of fleishig. Even though Ashkenazim are stringent regarding nat bar nat, there is reason to believe that they would not go as far as to forbid the food on the inside of the bag. After all, the Rama (YD 95:2) says that not only may one eat nat bar nat fleishig food that was already mixed into milk but one may put nat bar nat food into the opposite type utensil. (See commentaries regarding the problem of pouring hot food directly from a fleishig to a milchig utensil.) On the other hand, several Acharonim say that one should not to set up a nat bar nat situation on purpose. For example, according to one opinion, one may not cook in a fleishig pot food that he is planning to serve on a milchig utensil (Pri Megadim, MZ 95:5; see Badei Hashulchan 95:30; Rav M. Feinstein (Igrot Moshe, III, 10) says one may be lenient for even a small need). That being said, if the crock pot was not used in 24 hours for fleishig food, there is further reason to be lenient. Compared to the Pri Megadim’s case, our’s has an element of additional leniency but also of further stringency. On one hand, he is not putting the nat bar nat in a milchig utensil but in a pareve one. On the other hand, he is cooking the nat bar nat food at the same time with the pareve, which we saw may be more stringent.

Let us summarize by saying that one should not certainly not cook pareve food in a cooking bag along with fleishig food in the same crock pot, at the very least for Ashkenazim. Regarding cooking the pareve along with a pareve base in a fleishig pot, it is hard to forbid the practice, but one who wants to be careful might try to avoid doing so when possible if he plans to eat the pareve with milchig.

Generally, the reasons you raised are correct. Rav Shaul Yisraeli accordingly ruled in responsa Mareh HaBazak, volume 2, siman 51 to permit the use of rennet produced from the stomach of a non-kosher animal.

However, the matter depends on whether the animal’s skin is dissolved in a chemical solution that is kosher. In addition, the chemical solution must nullify the skin to such an extent that not even a dog would eat it.

You should clarify if this process indeed takes place in the production of the type of rennet that you want to buy.

You could find additional sources for the discussion of your query in the above responsa.

One is allowed to assume the kettle was used only for water. It is possible that either in the course of washing it or by sitting on a stove or a counter it picked up residue from other things. If it does not look totally clean, there is more what to worry about.

A description of the domestic dishwasher in question is as follows:

The user is required to first rinse off the “serious” dirt (which would otherwise cause a blockage of the dishwasher). Then he may stack the dishes into the dishwasher, onto a wire tray that ensures a gap between the dishes. After closing the dishwasher door, the dishwasher begins to operate.

Its’ program consists of three stages-

During the initial stage, the dishwasher uses only water to rinse the dishes by means of a sprinkler device, which sprays water from the bottom of the dishwasher towards the dishes in order to rinse them. In some dishwasher models, the water is heated within the space of the dishwater by a heating element attached to the dishwasher bottom. The water reaches a temperature of at least 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

During the second stage, detergent is added to the water and the second rinse cycle of the dishes within the dishwasher begins.

During the third stage, the dishes are again rinsed using hot water in order to rinse off the detergent. Note that the dishwasher has a filter installed, which prevents leftover solid food items from clogging the drainage system. In such a case, the food would remain within the dishwasher space.

To answer the question, we must differentiate between several situations:

1.             When the dishes are dirty:

a.      If the initial rinsing of the dishwasher is done with hot water without detergent: since the water rinsing the dishes is like a keli rishon [“primary vessel”], if there is enough water to nullify the dishes and the dirt on them (by having sixty times the amount of water more than the dishes and dirt) – the dishes and the dishwasher are permissible to use. However, in the event that there is no possibility to nullify the forbidden item, the dishes and the dishwasher are forbidden and consequently require koshering.

b.      If the initial rinsing in the dishwasher is done with cold water and the dishes don’t have any remnants of food particles that don’t dissolve in water: one should regard the taste of meat and milk which was absorbed into the dishes during the second rinse cycle as a taste which has become spoiled (ta’am lifgam). This is due to the mixing of the detergent into the dishwasher water. In such a case, the dishes are kosher.

c.      If there are remnants of food particles in the dishwasher filter: one should regard the food particles which remain in the dishwasher after rinsing with detergent as pieces of food whose taste has become spoiled. Consequently, they don’t make the dishes forbidden to use. Also according to those who consider the taste that remains on the dishes hasn’t become spoiled, when there is enough water to nullify the remnants of food particles (by having sixty times the amount of water) – the dishes and the dishwater are kosher according to all opinions.

2.             When the dishes that were stacked into the dishwasher were clean:

a.      If the initial rinse cycle of the dishwasher is done with hot water but without detergent – since the dishwasher water is like a keli rishon [“primary vessel”], the dishes and the dishwasher are forbidden according to the Ramah. However, according to the Shulchan Aruch they are permitted.

b.      If the initial rinse cycle of the dishwasher is done with cold water, one should regard the taste of the meat and milk as spoiled, due to the mixing of the hot water with the detergent during the second rinse cycle. In such a case, the dishes are kosher.

Rav Sheshet (in Avoda Zara 75b) seems to have posited that the idea of toveling utensils (keilim) has to do with the fact that they were used and may contain traces of forbidden foods. However, the gemara concludes that even new keilim must be tovelled. In response to the question, then, why shearing scissors do not require tevilla, the gemara explains that only klei seuda (utensils of meals) require tevilla.

The question is: what is special about such keilim? You seem to understand that the issue is that such keilim come in contact with food. Rashi, however, says that the way we can tell the Torah is describing klei seuda is that it talks, in the interconnected topic of kashering keilim, about utensils that come in contact with fire, which, he says, is common specifically for food preparation (or serving) keilim. The Pri Chadash (Yoreh Deah 120:1) questions the veracity of the claim, as he says that there are plenty of utensils that have nothing to do with food and are used with fire. He therefore, prefers the Rashba’s (Torat Habayit 4:4) explanation that since the same section discusses kashering utensils for kashrut reasons, it refers to keilim with which the possibility of transfer of taste between food and keilim makes a halachic difference. This logical approach encourages the suggestion that you make: that the contact with the food, which could potentially have caused kashrut problems (even though in a specific case everything is cold and there will be no transfer), is what obligates one in tevilla.

If we were to look at the matter on that semi-pragmatic level, then one could talk along the lines that you used. If there will definitely be contact between the kli and the food, then we should say that tevilla is required. However, the poskim take a different approach. Whatever the exact reason for understanding from the p’sukim that we are discussing klei seuda, the issue is what is considered in that category. It is true that it has to be a utensil that is used directly in relation to the food. Thus, a tripod (or its modern-day equivalent) that only holds up the pot that contains the food does not require tevilla (Shulchan Aruch, YD 120:4). A pot cover is considered a kli seuda because the steam that emanates and continues to interact with the food touches the cover (Rama, ad loc.:5). However it is not the touching itself that is the issue, but whether the kli is considered to be used directly in relation to the food.

One of the cases that illustrates this distinction is your question. A can opener is not intended to interact with food but with cans, albeit usually ones that hold food (similar to the tripod above). The fact that there is incidental contact between the can opener and the food while opening is not significant enough to help define the can opener as a kli whose job is to come in contact with food. Therefore, a can opener does not require tevilla even if there is a p’sik reishei (Hilchot Tevilla (Cohen) 11:171).

Another case in point, this one going in the direction of stringency, is that of a tray upon which one always places aluminum foil or cookie sheets before putting on the food. In this case, one would view it as the tray is being used to hold the food as it is being baked, just as we would view it if there were not a lining separating between the two of them (ibid. 1:4, based on Rav S.Z. Orbach). Only if the separation would be significant enough to be considered a separate entity, as opposed to a lining, would we say that the tray is not made for holding the food and would it be exempt from tevilla (ibid.). While this explanation is not unanimously held, we believe it to be correct.

We will start with your assumption that the feed is fully forbidden as basar b’chalav, the combination of milk and meat. The halachic ramifications are very complicated, and we will but summarize them.

Generally, when a forbidden food undergoes a major change so that it reappears in a totally different form, the new food is permitted. Thus, for one of many examples, a bird born from the egg of a treif bird is permitted (Temura 31a). Nevertheless, we must contend with the following source. The mishna brings an opinion that if a kosher animal drank the non-kosher animal’s milk, it should not be used for a korban. The gemara (ibid.) says that it refers to a case where it drank milk in a manner that would sustain it all day. Tosafot surmises that similarly if an animal was sustained consistently on grains of avoda zara, it would be forbidden, apparently even for regular eating (not only as a korban).

Despite an apparent abundance of sources permitting such a case (see Pri Chadash, Yoreh Deah 60:5; Igrot Moshe, YD I, 147), the Rama (YD 60:1) rules like Tosafot’s stringency regarding animals that have consistently been fed non-kosher feed. The Shach (ad loc.:5) and others argue on two major grounds. First, Tosafot was explaining an opinion that is not even accepted as halacha. Secondly, Tosafot’s suggestion is regarding feed of avoda zara, which is assur b’hana’ah (forbidden in benefit), whereas the Rama forbade it even due to simple eating prohibition.

The second point suggests a distinction whereby more opinions can accept the stringency regarding issurei hana’ah. This raised a lot of discussion regarding milk on Pesach from animals that were fed chametz on Pesach. We can address this matter only superficially in this forum. A major principle indicating leniency is the acceptance of the opinion (Avoda Zara 49a) that zeh v’zeh goreim, mutar (=zvzgm), In other words, when something is the product of two or more physical factors, some of which are permitted and some forbidden, the resulting object is permitted. Here, the milk is a result of the chametz but also other feed and/or the animal’s body, and thus it should be permitted. One question, though, is whether the major dependency on chametz, especially over time, makes the animal and its milk some type of continuation of the chametz (along the lines of the Rama). There is also an issue that regarding chametz, where the rules of bitul (nullification) do not apply, zvzgm might not either (see Magen Avraham 445:5). Oversimplifying the matter, the Mishna Berura (448:33) is equivocal and Rav Moshe Feinstein ruled leniently (Igrot Moshe, ibid.).

Important to us in Rav Feinstein’s thesis is that he rejects not only the Rama but also the Shach’s distinction. He says that the use of a by-product of an issur hana’ah that is now gone (i.e., the animal feed) is far too indirect to be considered benefiting from the original item. The prohibition could only be based on seeing the milk as an extension of the original object, which is a fringe opinion we do not accept.

Instead of citing all the various opinions and applying them to the similar but slightly more lenient case of basar b’chalav, we will obviate the issue by sharing our assumption, corroborated by an OU web page. Even regarding the calf feed that is a mixture of milk and meat (not all are), the milk and meat are not cooked together. That feed thus is forbidden only rabbinically and it is permitted to benefit from (Shulchan Aruch, YD 87:1). It is hard to imagine that even according to the Rama, a rabbinic prohibition (whose nature is procedural to require a person to refrain from eating, rather than saying the object is intrinsically forbidden- see Chelkat Yoav II, 20) would extend on to a transformed by-product.

You can have plain coffee in a local coffee shop that does not have a hechsher only if you can acsertain that they do not have flavored coffees that they serve in the same utensils. The OU, for example, says that this is so at Starbucks stores. If so, you may buy such coffee in disposable utensils.

The matter of milk and meat is one in which we employ considerable stringency. This applies both to what is considered milchig and fleishig and to the separation between eating the two. We will see if your case also falls on the side of stringency.

In general, when something not kosher is cooked in a pot, it makes the pot “not-kosher,” which, in turn, makes the food that later cooks in it not kosher, etc. However, kosher foods that have the potential to become not kosher lose that ability when they are sufficiently separated from their original state. Based on this idea, known as nat bar nat, hot pareve food that was placed in a milchig or fleishig utensil does not become forbidden when mixed with the opposite type of food (Chulin 111b, Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 95:2). However, the Rama (ad loc.) says that if the food was cooked or roasted in a milchig or fleishig pot that had been used for its type within 24 hours, it may not be mixed with the other type of food. On the other hand, we do not treat the otherwise pareve food totally as milchig or fleishig, as the Rama says that you may put this food into a utensil of the other type. Your good question is whether according to Ashkenazim, who follow this Rama, this food is fleishig enough to require washing hands and mouth before eating milchig.

Let us peruse the laws dealing with the amount and type of separation between milk and meat. The gemara (Chulin 104b-105a) talks about waiting between eating meat and subsequently eating cheese but says that no time is required after cheese before meat. It does, though, say that one should either check or wash his hands and clean his mouth before eating meat. The Shulchan Aruch (YD 89:3) rules that the above requirements are true only regarding actual meat and milk/cheese, but between two pareve foods, one cooked together with meat and one with milk, he does not need to wait or wash. In practice, the minhag seems to be to wait even after pareve food that was cooked together with significant enough amounts of fleishig to give a taste before eating even pareve cooked in milchig (see opinions in Badei Hashulchan 89:82). In any case, the Rama (YD 89:3) states unequivocally that if one ate pareve food cooked in a fleishig pot, he can eat even cheese right afterward. This makes a lot of sense, as we saw that according to the Shulchan Aruch, one could even mix this basically pareve food straight into milk. In fact, to give this statement more of a chiddush, some say that it is talking about a case where there was a little actual meat gravy in the pot (Shach 89:19) or when the food that was cooked in the pot is sharp, in which case the leniency of nat bar nat does not usually apply (R. Akiva Eiger, ad loc.). Certainly, in the case of normal pareve food in a clean fleishig pot, one does not have to wait afterward.

What about washing and rinsing, which are more widely required than waiting, e.g., after eating dairy? While one could contemplate stringency, the Eliyahu Rabba (Orach Chayim 173:4) says that one does not have to take any of those steps, and this approach is accepted by the Kaf Hachayim (YD 89:61) and contemporary poskim (including the Halachos of Kashrus, p. 204). The Badei Hashulchan (Biurim to 89:3) raises the possibility that when the pareve food is sharp or when one actually sees or feels residue on the hands or mouth, one should have to remove them. However, as he seems aware, he did not substantiate his claim with sources, and as the logic can go either way, we will not introduce even further stringency than exists. Thus, the answer to your question is that after eating any pareve food cooked in a fleishig pot, no washing is needed.    

Only if you were to encourage your children to eat it would there be a problem. Otherwise the not so large chance that there are bugs in it would not create an obligation to make sure that your children do not eat it.

 The gemara (Pesachim 76b) says that one should not eat fish that was roasted together with meat because of the danger of leprosy. The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 116:2) codifies this in regard to eating meat and fish together. The Rama adds not to roast meat along with fish because of reicha (the aroma) but says that if this was already done, the food is not forbidden.

Your case seems to be like the Rama’s. The idea behind his compromise is as follows. In the context of roasting kosher and non-kosher foods together (Yoreh Deah 108:1) and baking bread near meat with the intention of eating the bread with milk (ibid. 97:3) we say that roasting things near each other facilitates only minor taste transfer (reicha) between the foods. While these situations are to be avoided, food does not become forbidden without more direct contact, including by cooking in the same pot, when the process produces zeiah (significant water vapor) in the oven, or when the foods touch. While one should avoid even roasting meat and fish together in an oven, it is fine if one of them is covered reasonably well (Shulchan Aruch, YD 108:1).

Even in your case, there is room for leniency as we will explain. The Maharshal (Chulin 7:15) allows one to roast meat and fish together in one oven, at least in a relatively large oven (like most of ours). He claims, based on the Rambam (Maachalot Assurot 9:23) that the prohibition referred to cooking the two together in one pot, whereas in one oven there is no danger. The Taz (116:2-3) cites the Maharshal but relies on his leniency only in regard to bread baked in the same oven with meat to be eaten with fish (not fish and meat together). The Shach (YD 116:1) cites the Maharshal leniency regarding our case as well, apparently even in a small oven. On the other hand, he also cites an opinion that it is forbidden even b’dieved (after the fact) without clearly favoring one opinion. There is an agreed upon issue regarding meat and fish that is more lenient than regarding matters of standard “religious” prohibitions: one can use the same utensils for meat and fish (Taz 116:2). In other words, not in all cases of transference is there deemed to be danger. On the other hand, there are opinions that we are stricter for meat and fish than we are regarding standard prohibitions, based on the rule that “danger is more severe than prohibitions.” See the Pitchei Teshuva (YD 116:3) who cites various opinions as to whether to apply the rule of nullification by 60 in this context.

As far as the propriety of following the lenient opinion, it seems that we have to decide how severely the concern of danger should be viewed. For one, is there an issue of a Torah law? Rav Kook (Da’at Cohen 55) writes that the prohibition to inflict on oneself a non-life-threatening danger is only rabbinic. Rav O. Yosef (Yabia Omer I, YD 8) says that while it is forbidden from the Torah to damage oneself, it is only rabbinically forbidden to eat meat and fish, as it only creates the possibility of mishap. Both see the rabbinic status as reason to rule leniently (each in their own context). Furthermore, many notice the Rambam’s (the famous rabbi/physician) apparent ignoring of this halacha. The Magen Avraham (173:1) sees this as support for his suggestion that the danger is not prevalent in our times and places. The Chatam Sofer (II, 101) raises an additional possibility that it applies only to a specific species of fish. (There is a rejected opinion that it does not apply to fowl- see Pitchei Teshuva, YD 116:2). While few go as far as ignoring the idea of not mixing meat and fish, many poskim factor these opinions in when looking for leniency in gray areas.

Therefore, while it is halachically safer to not roast meat and fish uncovered in the same oven, it seems reasonable to do so in a regular, large oven when there is a need.

This is the equivalent of cooking fish in meat pots, which we are permitted to do.

We understand that the top has glass-like qualities. Ashkenazim do not kasher glass for Pesach. However, we understand also that the top cannot be covered or replaced for Pesach, and therefore it is important to look for leniency. Since you are not talking about putting food on this top but only putting a pot on it, and according to the letter of the law, there is not transfer of taste from one utensil to another, one can rely upon kashering in the following manner. After cleaning the top well and preferably waiting 24 hours, get the top as hot as you can and then pour boiling hot water on it. During Pesach, when you use it, be extra careful that the bottom of the pots are free of residue and that nothing spills out. If it does, assume that the Pesach pots remains kosher for Pesach.

Lactose containing pills are not considered dairy and therefore they may be taken after one has eaten meat (Kovetz Teshuvot of Rav Elyashiv, volume 1, siman 73).

If it was made or acquired from non-Jews, yes. The food comes in direct contact with the grate.

The answer depends on the nature of both the friend and the food.

If your friend keeps kosher, try to determine whether she is making a mistake (and tell her nicely) or whether some legitimately believe the food does not need a hechsher.

If she is a Jew who does not keep kosher, the situation is as follows. There is a Torah prohibition of lifnei iver lo titen michshol against providing someone the opportunity to sin (e.g., buying them non-kosher food). However, when the sinner has the opportunity to do the forbidden act himself or by asking another (non-Jewish, according to some) person, most agree that the one assisting does not violate lifnei iver (see Rama, Yoreh Deah 151:1 with commentaries). Even so authorities say there is a rabbinic prohibition to aid in the violation. This issue may be overcome by some combination of mitigating factors, but we will focus on only one.

What type of food is involved? Let us assume the food’s actual kashrut is questionable. Regarding lifnei iver, if it is unclear whether the recipient will use the object improperly, one may give it to him based on the optimistic possibility (Avoda Zara 15b). It is disputed if this is true when he will certainty do something that might be forbidden (see Shut Pnei Yehoshua, YD 3 and Beit Shmuel 5:18). Even if this special leniency of lifnei iver does not apply, it is reasonable to be lenient because of a regular doubt when there is no Torah-level prohibition (as above). If the food is clearly forbidden, you should, under normal circumstances, refuse to buy it.

Even if the friend is not Jewish, the question is, if it is a Torah-forbidden food, whether the prohibition of commerce applies (see Shulchan Aruch, YD 117). There is significant discussion whether commerce is prohibited as a limited issur hana’ah (prohibition to benefit) or it is to avoid a situation where one is liable to eat what he is dealing with. Most of the discussion deals with cases where it is a Jew’s business (thus, he benefits) but the food is handled only by non-Jews (thus, the Jew is unlikely to eat it). Most poskim disallow this without other grounds for leniency (see Shut Chatam Sofer, YD 108; Pitchei Teshuva, YD 117:6).

The Chatam Sofer does say that the concern he may eat is enough to forbid one to be employed to work with a non-Jew’s “treif” food. We could then argue that it is forbidden for you to handle the food you are buying on behalf of a non-Jew. However, this is incorrect. First and foremost, contact was not forbidden but commerce, and commerce must include elements of financial benefit. Although some forbid buying non-kosher food as a present to a non-Jew, this is only based on an assumption that he is doing so due to a financial interest (see Shach 117:3). However, in a case like this, where you are but a simple agent, handling without intention to gain is permitted (see Taz, YD 117:2).

One can also argue for leniency based on the halacha that one may sell non-kosher food normally if he did not obtain it purposely (the classic example (Shvi’it 7:4) is of a fisherman of kosher fish into whose net some non-kosher fish entered). We might look at you as one whose friend’s request placed her in a one-time basis situation where the natural thing is to obtain and transfer the food and call that chancing upon the food.

Because of complicated issues of agency for a non-Jew and the impact of ownership on this question, it is proper to have in mind not to take ownership or responsibility for the non-kosher food that he buys for a non-Jew.

It can be kashered. You seem to be aware how to kasher. If you have questions, please write back with as specific questions as possible.

We can provide you with a source but must tell you that we do not agree with its application. The Rama (Yoreh Deah 105:3) says: “It is forbidden to pour from a kli that contains kosher fats into a lit candle cup that contains forbidden fat.” His source is a Mordechai based on a mishna in Machshirin (5:10) that when one pours a cold pure liquid into a hot impure liquid, the liquids are connected in the process and the contents of the pouring kli become impure. While some contemporary kashrut guide may learn from here that one cannot use one urn for milchig and fleishig keilim, we will present for you the consensus of the poskim and the logic behind it.

The strongest argument against the Mordechai’s thesis is that one cannot compare the laws of impurity, which revolve around contact, to the laws of kashrut, which depend on imparting taste (Terumat Hadeshen, P’sakim 103). Since several Rishonim disagree with the Mordechai, we can understand why the Rama concludes the quote above, “…and if was already done, one need not be concerned.” The question in the poskim is thus whether one should avoid pouring, not what happens to the kli.

Your case is more lenient than the Rama’s in several ways. One is that the mishna says said that the stringency applies (according to the accepted opinion) only when pouring from cold to hot, where the hot on the bottom sends up steam (see Shach, YD 105:11; Taz ad loc. 6; Pri Megadim ad loc.). In contrast your case is talking about pouring from hot into either hot or cold (see Pleiti ad loc. 8).

There are further points of leniency. Rav S.Z. Auerbach is quoted (see Vayizra Yitzchak, Melicha, pg. 32) as saying the Rama was speaking only in a case of forbidden foods, not with milk and meat. We find several leniencies in regard to taste coming from milk or meat into a pareve food or kli (see Avoda Zara 76a and Yoreh Deah 95). Even if we would decide that when hot water is poured from an urn onto milk, all the water becomes milchig, new water subsequently heated in that urn would be only b’chezkat chalavi (milchig-leaning). Regarding such water, there is a machloket between Ashkenazim (stringent) and Sephardim to what extent and under what circumstances it can be consumed together with meat (see Shulchan Aruch and Rama, Yoreh Deah 95:3 with commentaries). Therefore, it is very logical to not apply the stringency of transfer through pouring to more lenient areas.

Applying the stringency to pouring into milk or meat is in our opinion reasonable but unnecessary. However, it would certainly be permitted to pour from a pareve urn into a milchig cup when the cup does not contain milk. After all, even Ashkenazim who do not to eat pareve food that was cooked in fleishig or milchig with food of the other type agree that pareve food cooked in milchig or fleishig can be put hot into a kli of the other type (ibid.).

When a significant amount of hot steam reaches a kli from a food, it can change the kli’s status (Rama, YD 108:1). Therefore, in a case that an urn gets close enough to relatively thick steam of milk or meat, the type of issues we are discussing may exist (Darkei Teshuva 105:101).

Based on the above analysis we feel it is perfectly acceptable to have one hot water kettle to be used with milk and meat. It is proper, in addition to making sure that it is not soiled by milchig and fleishig substances, not to get it too close to foods that contain actual meat and milk because of the steam that can come out (see Hakashrut (Fuchs) 1:69). However, one does not have to assume that that has or will happen and in almost all cases, the kli will remain pareve. Further precautions beyond what we have mentioned are, in our opinion, unwarranted. However, you can check with your personal halachic advisor to clarify his stance.

If they are completely raw and no ingredients added, we are not aware of any kashrut problem. If grown privately in Israel then Tremot Uma'asrot need to be removed.

Since it is something that is usually used for cold in a manner that does include long term soaking, it is permissible to give it to her. After she finishes using it, just wipe it clean or if it seems soiled, wash it in some way.

If, by the time you used the hot water, you could assume that the milk residue was sufficiently soaped that the residue no longer had an edible taste, then everything remained pareve.

Whatever was hit by a direct stream of water of around 110 degrees F while dirty with edible dairy residue became dairy. 

As far as we were able to ascertain, the seaweed undergoes a process of pickling and has also been found to contain very small crustaceans and thus requires supervision.

A fleishig pot has kosher meat taste in it, but there is a danger that it could become not kosher if that taste combines with milk taste. However, this cannot happen once the taste is sufficiently weakened. In one such case, known as nat bar nat, hot pareve food that was placed in a milchig or fleishig utensil does not become forbidden when mixed with the opposite type of food (Chulin 111b, Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 95:2). However, the Rama (ad loc.) says that if the food was cooked or roasted in a milchig or fleishig pot that had been used for its type within 24 hours, it may not be mixed with the other type of food. On the other hand, the Rama does not treat the otherwise pareve food totally as milchig or fleishig, as he permits putting this food into a utensil of the other type. Your eggs are such a pareve/fleishig food known as chezkat besari, and you want to know if an Ashkenazi can eat them at a milchig meal. We will also see if other precautions need to be taken.

Let us peruse the laws dealing with separation between milk and meat. The gemara (Chulin 104b-105a) talks about waiting between eating meat and subsequently eating cheese but says that no time is required after cheese before meat. It does, though, say that one should either check or wash his hands, and clean his mouth before eating meat. The Shulchan Aruch (YD 89:3) rules that the above requirements are true only regarding actual meat and milk/cheese, but between two pareve foods, one cooked together with meat and one with milk, he does not need to wait or wash. In practice, the minhag is to wait even after otherwise pareve food that was cooked together with fleishig food in a manner that it tastes fleishig.

In any case, the Rama (YD 89:3) states unequivocally that if one ate pareve food cooked in a fleishig pot, he can eat even cheese right afterward. This makes a lot of sense, as we saw that, the Shulchan Aruch’s opinion is that one could even mix this basically pareve food directly into milk. In fact, to give this statement more of a chiddush, some say that it is talking about a case where there was a little actual meat gravy in the pot (Shach 89:19) or when the food that was cooked in the pot is sharp, in which case the leniency of nat bar nat does not usually apply (R. Akiva Eiger, ad loc.). Certainly, in the case of normal pareve food in a clean fleishig pot, one does not have to wait afterward.

What about washing and rinsing, which are more widely required than waiting (e.g., after eating dairy)? While one could contemplate stringency, the Eliya Rabba (OC 173:4) says that one does not have to take any of those steps, and this approach is accepted by the Kaf Hachayim (YD 89:61) and contemporary poskim (see Halachos of Kashrus, p. 204). The Badei Hashulchan (Biurim to 89:3) suggests that when the pareve food is sharp or when one actually sees or feels residue on his hands or mouth, he should wash and rinse. However, he did not substantiate his claim with sources, and as the logic can go either way, we will not introduce further stringency than appears explicitly in the poskim. Thus, after eating any pareve food cooked in a fleishig pot, no washing is needed. They just cannot be eaten together.  

What constitutes eating together? Two things are apparently included. First, the foods cannot be discernibly mixed before entering the mouth. Therefore, the same plate or flatware should be used only if they appear clean. The second thing is that if one has not finished chewing a bite of these eggs, he should not yet, for example, drink milk. There is more room for leniency when the pot went 24 hours since being used for fleishig (based on Rama, YD 95:3), but we are not allowed to use utensils having in mind to rely on that leniency (Chochmat Adam 48:2). Therefore, it is proper to kasher the pan (with hagala or libun kal­ – details are beyond our present scope) if you plan to regularly use this pan at milk meals.

Generally, by medicine, if the medicine is bitter and not edible, a hechsher is not required as this is considered "not the way of enjoyment" (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 155, 3, and Mishna Berurah 466, 1). Medicine which is sweet and edible and people usually suck it and not merely swallow it needs a hechsher, and if one cannot find with a hechsher then one should consult a doctor and a rabbi.

Regarding vitamin supplements taken by a healthy person just to strengthen his health, some authorities permit taking these supplements if they are not edible at all, and according to Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Refuah Beshabbat 9, 84) one must swallow and not suck on the pills. However, some authorities prohibit, and therefore one should initially try to find with a hechsher, and only if one cannot find then one may take the non-edible supplements without a hechsher.

If the iron cookware was used only with cooking with water, it may be koshered by haga'alah. One would need to thoroughly clean it, wait 24 hours since its last use, and immerse it in boiling water which preferably has soap in it. If it was used with food directly on it, such as roasting, grilling, etc. it requires libbun, which would mean heating it to an extremely high temperature (approximately 700 F). One practical way to do it would be to place it in a self cleaning oven for a self clean cycle, although one should first make sure that safety wise this may be done.

You may buy used cookware and kasher it, but unless there is special need we would recommend not doing so and thus avoiding the problems that may arise in the koshering process.

Had you cut a potato with a fleishig knife, it would not have become fleishig for up to three reasons: Taste transfer from a utensil to a food requires heat; the taste expelled from a fleishig utensil into a pareve food (nat bar nat) is too weak to be a building block of a prohibited milk/meat combination; taste remaining in the walls of a kli for 24 hours is assumed to give a negative taste (notein ta’am lifgam) to the food it enters and not change its halachic status.

Poskim derive from two gemarot that these leniencies do not apply to a davar charif (a sharp food), including, according to most, onions. Avoda Zara 39a says that one may not eat chiltit (a very sharp food) bought from a non-Jew because they cut it with non-kosher knives. The gemara posits that there is a transfer without heat from a non-kosher knife to this davar charif and that it is prohibited even if the knife had not been used within 24 hours. Chulin 111b says that a radish cut with a fleishig knife may not be eaten with milchig food. Besides the matter of cold transfer, we learn that a “twice-removed” fleishig taste in a davar charif is forbidden with a milichig food.

However, the rules in these gemarot may be limited. Some say that only the ultra sharp chiltit removes the leniency of notein ta’am lifgam (see Beit Yosef, Yoreh Deah 96). Also, some say that the problem with the radish cut with a fleishig knife is that most knives have caked on fat on their blade (see Rashi, Chulin 1121a and Aruch Hashulchan, Yoreh Deah 96:15), and maybe today we keep knives cleaner (see Badei Hashulchan 96:10). However, the Rama (Yoreh Deah 96:1) is stringent on all grounds, Therefore, you are correct that the onion is fleishig.

Your case has two additional points of leniency. One is that the gemarot discuss the davar charif as absorbing the taste in question. The sharpness may heighten the taste’s absorption and/or how people sense it. Here, though, the question is not just about the onion’s ability to become fleishig but whether it is uniquely capable of making other things fleishig. The Magen Avraham (451:31) does say that if ginger was cut with a fleishig knife and then it was ground, the mortar and the spices later ground in it becomes fleishig.  However, the Even Haozer argues that fleishig taste that leaves a davar charif loses its special qualities, and therefore the mortar remains pareve.  

Another factor is that the gemara says that transfer of taste without heat occurs only due to the combination of “the knife’s pressure” and the davar charif. Is a cutting board subject to this special pressure that the gemara discussed? The cutting board would not seem to be affected by the friction of cutting. There are differing opinions (see Badei Hashulchan 96:7) on this matter on whether the downward pressure on the cutting board is equivalent. (The Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 96:3 compares crushing with a mortar and pestle as equivalent, but there the pressure seems to be much stronger.)

Considering all the reasons for leniency, it is hard to say that hard, smooth surfaces like glass or glazed material would become fleishig due to the cutting that occurs on top of them. On the other hand, regarding the type of plastic cutting board that is rough and has multiple deep serrations from repeated use, taste from the onion can accumulate and be difficult to remove. One can also speak, in that case, about a certain amount of friction during cutting. There, one should at least scrub the surface well before non-fleishig use, and, while we not require it, kashering it would but an understandable stringency.

It becomes meat in regard to mixing with milk and using meat dishes but not in terms of waiting six hours.

While setting up that situation on purpose is questionable, once you have made the noodles in a not recently used pot, you may mix them with meat.

There may be a problem with the oil, as the manufacturer may use animal oil. Therefore, it is best to kasher the pot by libun gamur. A cleaning cycle in a self-cleaning oven is certainly considered libun gamur, and therefore you may kasher the pot in this way. Just check first that the pot will not be ruined by the self-cleaning cycle.

There is a metal element inside that becomes very hot and melts the sugar and turns it into cotton candy. There may be non-kosher flavors in the sugar. To kasher it would require libun gomur, which is not practical.

The Torah forbids eating milk and meat only when they are cooked together. Chazal forbid eating them together in any case, and after meat we must wait significantly before eating milk products (Chulin 104-105), according to most, for six or so hours (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 89:1).

There are practical disputes in cases of nat bar nat (double removed taste = nbn). Sephardim permit eating milchig with pareve food heated up in a meat pot, while Ashkenazim forbid that if the pareve food was cooked or fried in the meat pot. Your good question is whether it follows that chezkat chalavi is considered milchig to the extent that one may not eat it within the six hours after eating meat.

In the opposite question, the answer is easier. After eating pareve food cooked in a meat pot, one does not have to wait six hours (Rama, YD 89:3).  The Shach (ad loc. 19) says that this is so even if there was a small amount of meat residue left in the pot (even if there was not 60 times more pareve than meat- Pitchei Teshuva 89:7). Rabbi Akiva Eiger (ad loc.) says that even after eating a sharp food that was cut with a meat knife, which is treated like meat, not nbn (Rama, YD 95:2), one is not required to wait. The reason for these leniencies is that not everything that is considered meat requires six hours, just as we do not wait after milk. The reasons for the wait after meat are: meat between the teeth (Rambam, Ma’achalot Asurot 9:28); a taste left in the mouth (Rashi, Chulin 105a). Thus, if the meat component of a food is qualitatively weak, it lacks the special qualities that make six hours necessary.

However, if the milk is the nbn component, the logic is weaker. After eating meat and being assumed to have meat between his teeth and/or a taste in his mouth, eating chezkat chalavi should be like eating milk and meat together. Also, the Yad Yehuda (89:5) says in the case of the meat nbn, it is likely that when one ate it, he did not discern a meat taste, in which case there is more room for leniency. Regarding nbn milk food one wants to eat after meat, how can he assume he will not taste the milk?

Despite these indications for stringency, Rav Shlomo Kluger (Tuv Ta’am Vada’at III, 183) strongly rejected the possibility of such a ruling. He points out that the Rama and others who said that one should not eat nbn meat and milk together should have added not to eat nbn milk “within six hours of meat,” and no classical works say that (stimat haposkim). He also says that the standard practice (minhag ha’olam) is not to wait.

What are the grounds for leniency? The first answer is based on adding up the indications of leniency. Rav Kluger argues that we do not know there will be taste in the mouth, but just that there might be. Plus, even Ashkenazim do not say that nbn is certainly milchig or fleishig, as if it already got mixed in with the other type of food, one may eat the combination (Rama, YD 95:2). Thus, when there is a ‘double doubt’ indication for leniency (with the worst-case scenario being rabbinic), we can be lenient. Furthermore, he says, perhaps there is definitely no problem. Eating milk after meat is forbidden because it resembles eating the two together. When the second food has at most a weak taste of milk and no actual milk, it no longer resembles eating them together.

The Pri Megadim (Eshel Avraham 494:6) says that one must wait six hours before eating a sharp pareve food cut with a dairy knife. This goes well with Rav Kluger’s reason of adding up indications of leniency, as a sharp food cut with a meat knife is treated as more certain fleishig (see Rama, ibid.). Apparently, the minhag is not to be careful about this, and this can be justified by Rav Kluger’s second reason. Furthermore, regarding sharp foods that were sautéed in a dairy pan or were cut with a clean knife that had not been used for 24 hours, there are additional sources and logic for leniency (see Yad Yehuda 89:5).

The prohibition against eating fish and meat (including fowl - Pitchei Teshuva, Yoreh Deah 116:2) that are intermingled is based on a fear of danger and is governed by the rule that danger is harsher than ritual prohibitions (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 173:2). The gemara (Pesachim 76b) writes that fish which is roasted with meat is forbidden to eat because it is bad for one’s breath and for tzara’at (roughly, leprosy). This also applies to eating together fish and meat that were prepared separately (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 116:2). The Shulchan Aruch require cleaning one’s hands and mouth between the two (ibid., 3), whereas the Rama (ad loc.) rules that it suffices to just eat and drink something between the fish and meat.

Since the aforementioned opinion in the gemara assumes there is a significant transfer of matter from one food to another when roasted together, an opinion we don’t normally subscribe to, some authorities say that the problem exists only when the meat and fish are cooked together (Taz, Yoreh Deah 116:2).  There is also a question if gravy of one fell on another, and there is less than 1/60^th of one of them, whether one can employ the halachic rule of bitul b’shishim.  The gemara (Chulin 111b) discusses whether fish that is placed hot on a meat plate can be eaten with milk. It seems to imply that it is not a problem to eat the fish cooked in a fleishig pot by itself. While some argue (see Taz, Yoreh Deah 95:3), the minhag is to allow cooking fish in a meat pot, whether for Ashkenazim (Badei Hashulchan 95:8) or Sephardim (Yalkut Yosef, Issur V’heter III, 87:85).

It would seem that one can be lenient in these and other related questions, as several major poskim point out that this danger is no longer prevalent (see Magen Avraham 173:1; Pitchei Teshuva, YD 116:3, in the name of Chatam Sofer; Aruch Hashulchan, YD 116:10).  It is perhaps for that reason that the Rambam doesn’t bring this halacha.  While we will not permit that which Chazal forbade, this does justify a tendency toward leniency (Chatam Sofer, ibid.). Others explain the Rambam’s omission based on the possibility that the gemara was talking about a specific type of fish, which is no longer prevalent (see Pitchei Teshuva, ibid.).

How does use of a grill for both meat and fish fit into the picture? Most people do not clean a grill as they do other food-preparation utensils, mainly because of the difficulty in doing so thoroughly. If so, the residue of the fish or meat will combine with the new food being grilled and make it forbidden (see Taz, ibid.). Even if the grill has not been used for more than 24 hours, the impact of time passed helps only for that which has been absorbed into the walls of the utensil. If we were sure that the residue is less than 1/60^th of the food being grilled, we could be lenient, as above, but that it is not always the case. Indeed, we saw instructions on the Star-K website (focused on meat and milk) that indicate that one should double wrap fish that he wants to grill on a meat grill.

It seems, though, that this is more stringent than is necessary. First, since one is allowed to use a clean fleishig utensil for fish, a single separation (if done carefully) should be enough. Second, we would suggest the following system, if one prefers it to wrapping. Clean the grill reasonably well between meat and fish. In that way, what will remain will probably be burnt residue. As “charcoaled” remains are not halachically considered food in regard to a variety of halachot, it does not seem that we would have to assume that it is still considered meat or fish, respectively, in regard to our issue. In case a small amount of edible residue “survived” the previous grilling and the cleaning, we can assume it is batel b’shishim in the food. (One is not allowed to set up such a situation regarding non-kosher residue.)

If the spoon had been used for hot dairy food within twenty four hours then the soup should not be eaten with meat (for Ashkenzim). However, the pot remains pareve. If the spoon was not used within twenty four hours then the soup also remains pareve.

If both the silverware and the pot for kashering were cleaned and not used for their type within 24 hours, you could use either. We would suggest to use the type of pot that the silverware were and will go back to being (in your case, dairy). In that case, make sure that the silverware were properly cleaned and that you waited 24 hours.

The bowl, spoon and crockpot do not need to be koshered as the ants are considered "noten taam lifgam" – they do not give positive taste.

This is a complex issue which depends on many factors. We'll try to give a general guide.

We will first define three kinds of vegetables that Halacha distinguishes:

1. Hot vegetables – vegetables heated to over 45 degrees Celsius.
2. Charif (lit. sharp) vegetables – the Halacha recognizes a vegetable as charif if it is spicy (such as hot peppers, onions, garlic etc.) or acidic (such as lemons, green apples, etc.).
3. Plain vegetables – vegetables that are not hot nor charif.

 Regarding plain vegetables we must differentiate between two cases:

1. If the knife is clean – It will not affect the vegetables Halachically. Furthermore, in a case of special need, one may use the knife Le'Chatchila (scrubbing it well first to make sure it is clean).

2. If the knife isn't clean - if the residue is greasy, one may scrub the vegetables with soap and rub the residue off, or cut off a minimal slice to remove the layer of vegetable that touched the residue. Otherwise, washing the vegetable with water would suffice.

Regarding hot vegetables:

1. If the knife hasn't been used for the last 24 hours, and is clean - the food will not be affected.

2. If the knife has been used in the last 24 hours or isn't clean – the exact Halacha may depend on how exactly the knife has been used, and you should ask a Rabbi with the details.

Regarding charif vegetables, there is a difference between the Ashkenazi and Sefardi ruling: 

According to Sefardi custom –

1. If the knife is clean and hasn't been used in the last 24 hours, the knife would not treif the vegetables. In fact, in case of great need it may even be used.

2. If the knife isn't clean, or has been used in the last 24 hours – a finger-width of the vegetable will become treif, and should be removed before use.

According to Ashkenazi custom –

cutting such a vegetable with a treif knife will treif the entire vegetable (regardless of the cleanliness of the knife or when it was last used) and it cannot be koshered.

Extra virgin olive oil is unique because it is cold pressed and unrefined while other oils are refined and require supervision.

It depends what you mean by rinse. It is best to scrub with something abrasive (like steel wool) with cold (or lukewarm, but certainly not even a little hot) water. Since the residue which might be removed could contain remnants of either meat or milk, it is best to do so in a sink that is not exclusive for meat or dairy and to throw out that with which you scrubbed.

It seems to us that if the silicone pan was used for baking something treif that it cannot be koshered because as far as we were able to ascertain, one cannot heat it to a temperature of libun chamur.

Generally, extra virgin olive oil which is cold pressed and unrefined does not require a hechsher.

Vodka is indeed considered charif, but since the most Machmir opinion regarding charif holds that it must sit motionless in the vessel for 7 minutes, straining through a dairy strainer will not render the liqueur dairy, it will remain parve, as long as it doesn't sit in the strainer for 7 consecutive minutes. 

Clean the glass top well and turn on all the burners to the highest temperature for approximately fifteen minutes. Following that you may use it.

If they use non-flavored coffee beans then no hashgacha is required and you may drink the coffee.

Assuming you are talking about a hard boiled egg or an egg that is still in its unbroken shell, and both the egg and the milk are cold, it is sufficient to rinse the egg off and it remains pareve. If any of the assumptions are not correct, it should be considered dairy.

In our days, where hens for raising eggs are kept separately from roosters, the blood spots and the need to check for them are a stringency. Therefore, regarding hard boiled eggs, you do not have to check for blood spots. If you find a blood spot after peeling the egg, you should cut off that part of the egg.

If one does not have access to a fish store with kosher certification, one can purchase fish from a non-certified store under the following conditions: The fish must still have the skin attached, in order to ensure that the fish has scales.  One may be lenient to purchase salmon, even if the skin was already removed (assuming that one can identify it by its appearance as salmon), since salmon does not look like any non-kosher fish.

One should preferably bring one's own knife and paper for the fish to be cut upon, since the fish seller's utensils may contain non-kosher fish residue.  Alternatively, instead of bringing ones own utensils, one can ask the fish seller to wash his utensils well before cutting the fish.

If this was not done, or, for example, if one is purchasing frozen fish, which is already cut, one may scrape off the edges, where the fish was cut, with a knife, and use it, or, if this is too difficult, those areas can be washed well, and the fish may then be used.

If one is buying pre-cut fish that was prepared in bulk (such as from a factory), one may eat the fish without scraping or washing the edges, as one may assume that any non-kosher residue was rubbed off on the pieces cut beforehand.

Virtually all eggs sold commercially in America, including organic and free range eggs, are not fertilized (unless the package is specifically marked as fertilized) .  Although there is a custom to check eggs, and to throw away eggs that contain blood spots, that is not strictly required, as the blood is not from an embryo.

If one discovered the blood spot in the cooked food, the food should be discarded, but the utensils do not require any kashering, although some are stringent and have the custom to not use the utensils for 24 hours.  If the eggs were not from America, you should let us know, as the halacha might be different.

From our experience with these ovens, there are areas in the oven door and gasket which remain outside the oven chamber and thus are not cleaned in the self-cleaning cycle. While this theoretically should not pose a problem as they are outside in any further use of the oven, it is recommended not to rely on this, and one should clean these areas.

Paneer is indeed similar to cottage cheese in regards to the prohibition of gevinat akum. However, supervision is required because of other potentially non-kosher ingredients.

We must deal with a few issues.

Some of the main kashrut concerns in Israel, Land-based mitzvot (e.g., teruma and ma’aser, Shemitta, orla) are of little concern outside of Israel, but stam yeinam is a major remaining issue. Stam yeinam is wine that was handled by non-Jews from the time the grapes are squeezed, and even after it is produced (until it has been mevushal (literally cooked) – the parameters are beyond our scope). Unsupervised wine made by non-Jews is therefore certainly forbidden as stam yeinam, a rabbinic prohibition of a complex nature, which we will briefly highlight.

One part of the prohibition of stam yeinam is that it is forbidden to drink the wine, out of concern that such behavior could lead (down the line) to intermarriage (Avoda Zara 36b). (This concern finds expression in similar prohibitions, e.g., bishul akum). If the wine was actually involved in idol worship, it could become yayin nesech, which is forbidden on the level of Torah law even in benefit other than drinking. Because these two prohibitions can be confused with each other, the Rabbis added a rabbinic prohibition on benefit from stam yeinam (Avoda Zara 29b; see Beit Yosef, Yoreh Deah 123).

There are sources that show leniency regarding the rabbinic prohibition on benefit from stam yeinam. The Shulchan Aruch (YD 124:7) rules that the wine of a non-Jew who is not involved in idol worship is forbidden only to drink, not in benefit, but it is not clear what category members of various religions  fall under. The Rama (YD 123:1) says that since it is not common for non-Jews to use wine for libations, not all agree that there is a prohibition in benefit and that one can receive benefit if needed to avoid a loss of money (e.g., when it is the main available asset of a non-Jewish debtor). Wine tasting, even if one spits the wine out, is benefit due to the taste, and therefore it is forbidden if there is no loss. Not taking part in wine tasting is not a loss of money, and the loss of a pleasant opportunity does not count in this context. (Even being precluded from doing commerce in non-kosher wine is just a lost opportunity and forbidden- ibid.).

If stam yeinam were only forbidden to be drunk, we would have to check the status of putting food in the mouth and spitting it out. [For those who are unaware, it is cultured to spit out wine into a spittoon at wine-tasting events, allowing one to sample many wines and drive home.] According to the great majority of sources, it is forbidden to taste foods one is forbidden to eat (see Pitchei Teshuva, YD 98:1). One of the main sources for this concept is the gemara’s halachic advice for someone who is unsure if a mixture of kosher and non-kosher foods is permissible (discernable taste of the non-kosher minority element makes it forbidden). The gemara (Chulin 97a) says that one should give it to a non-Jew to taste, implying that a Jew may not taste it even if he plans to spit it out. On the other hand, Rishonim (see Beit Yosef, YD 42) allow a Jew to taste a piece of liver to see if the animal had a hidden gallbladder (important for the laws of tereifot), even though if they discover it is missing, the meat is forbidden.

Several possible distinctions are raised: 1. Tasting without swallowing is permitted when it is not clear that there is forbidden food, but one needs to swallow to rule out the presence of non-kosher taste (Taz, YD 98:2). 2. One may only stick out his tongue to taste but may not put the liver in his mouth (see Pitchei Teshuva ibid.). 3. If it is almost always kosher, it is permitted to taste to make sure (Shach, YD 42:4). However, the consensus is that it is forbidden to taste even a rabbinically prohibited, fully edible food by putting it into the mouth. This is even clearer if one is tasting it in order to enjoy the taste.

Therefore, for two reasons, you may not taste the non-kosher wine.

Yes, it requires supervision.

The gemara derives from Vayikra 11:11 that one may sell non-kosher species that come into his possession but may not actively acquire and then sell them. This applies to most foods that are forbidden by Torah law (mainly meat and fish – not wine, …) (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 117:1).

According to most Rishonim, the prohibition of commerce in forbidden foods is from the Torah (see Shut Chatam Sofer, YD 104-106, 108; Yabia Omer VIII, YD 13). The Rashba (Shut III, 223) says that the reason is to minimize the chance one will eat forbidden foods; others say it is a gezeirat hakatuv (Heavenly decree without a known reason). In any case, it applies only to things that are usually acquired for eating purposes (Shulchan Aruch, YD 117:1). The consensus of poskim is that this prohibition applies as long as a Jew owns the food in the framework of a commercial process, even if he is not expected to come in direct contact with the food (Chatam Sofer, ibid.108).

The Rama (YD 117:1) rules that it is forbidden to buy non-kosher food in order to feed it to non-Jewish workers. The Taz (ad loc. 2) explains that for one who is required to feed his workers, buying them the cheaper non-kosher food is a commercial act like buying it to pay a debt. The Shach (ad loc. 3) argues with the Rama, apparently because he considers it using the food for his own non-eating purposes, not using it commercially. He asks on the Rama from a Yerushalmi that says that how one who bought pig to give his workers can sell it. (The Taz counters that the Yerushalmi was discussing getting rid of what was bought improperly.)

All agree that one can give money to his non-Jewish worker so that he can buy food for himself, even if he knows the non-Jew will buy non-kosher (Knesset Hagedola, YD 117, Beit Yosef 20). Based on this, the Pri Chadash (YD 117:3) argues that since the Jew does not benefit by acquiring the food and then giving it to the worker (as opposed to giving the money to the worker), the prohibition of commerce does not apply. Those who are stringent can argue that the fact that there another way of getting to the same point does not mean that the acquisition is not beneficial.

There is logic to distinguish between where the food is delivered to or by the Jew, who then gives it to the non-Jew, and where he arranges someone to deliver it to the non-Jew. First, when the food enters the Jew’s domain, the concern he might come to eat it, which some say helps define the prohibition’s parameters, pertains. Additionally, it is more difficult to arrange or claim that the Jew does not acquire ownership, which might be at the heart of the problem (see Chatam Sofer ibid.) when it is brought into his home (the details are complex). On the other hand, consider the Aruch Hashulchan’s logic for agreeing with the Shach that there is no prohibition to buy food to give to workers. The Aruch Hashulchan (YD 117:19) argues that if one has workers in his home whom he needs to feed, since the natural thing is that they should eat (the cheaper) non-kosher food, fulfilling that need in the natural way is not considered initiating commerce. If the worker lives and functions independently, but they have included food into his “compensation package,” it is more likely to be considered initiating commerce. Paradoxically, giving non-kosher food as a present is forbidden (see Shach ibid.) because the investment in good relations is considered equivalent to selling to the non-Jew.

 In the final analysis, there are respected opinions on this matter in either direction, and it is legitimate to acquire non-kosher food for a non-Jewish worker in cases of significant need. One should try, if feasible, to arrange that the Jew does not acquire the food but arranges its transfer from supplier to worker and thereby also avoid marit ayin (see Teshuvot V’hanhangot II:394).  

Regarding heating the food up, as long as it is double wrapped, there does not have to be self-cleaning. Self cleaning is good for next time they make food, which, depending on the food, could be otherwise kosher even by accident. But I don't think it is right to lie to them and say it is needed if indeed it is not. 

You must be careful that only kosher utensils are used after the wrapping is removed. Covering surfaces with a simple tablecloth or the like and disposable kitchen and serving utensils may make things simpler regarding supervision of the goings on.

If it is on Motzaei Shabbat, you should try to see to it that there not be a situation where the less observant people would have an interest in starting to heat on Shabbat, which is hard to police. The most important thing is that the party not be too close to the end of Shabbat.

The Mishna (Sheviit 7:3) states that it is forbidden to do business with items that are forbidden to eat.  The Mishna is codified in the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 117:1.  There is a dispute between the Rishonim and Achronim regarding if this prohibition is from the Torah or rabbinic[1].

The Gemara Yerushalmi (Bava Kama 7:7) states that this prohibition applies only to foods that would themselves be prohibited from the Torah to be eaten, but it is permitted to do business with foods that are only rabbinically forbidden to be eaten.  This Halacha is codified by the Rambam (Maachalot Asurot 8:18) and Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 117:1).  Furthermore, several poskim[2] write that if there is an opinion that the food is permitted to be eaten[3], even if one does not accept that opinion to permit eating the food, nevertheless, it is permitted to do business with such a food.

Therefore, practically, it would seem that virtually all vitamins and supplements, even if they contain non-kosher ingredients, would be only rabbinically forbidden or there would be opinions who permit eating those ingredients[4], and therefore it is permitted to do business with vitamins and supplements.

Ideally, if one could manage the internet business virtually, and have the vitamins and supplements stored elsewhere, and have non-Jews do the handling and shipping, then that would be preferred[5].

One should look through his inventory and check if any items do not meet the conditions stated above, and, if they do not, please contact with us with the details to see if it is permitted to sell them.

Finally, it is important to note, that there probably will be Jewish consumers, who will unwittingly purchase vitamins and supplements, which have questionable kashrut issues or which are rabbinically forbidden, from the website.  Therefore, if you could try to offer kosher vitamins where possible, then that would be meritorious[6].

There is near consensus on the basic principles and only small differences regarding their application to common cases.

Waiting six hours between meat and milk is a double-level stringency. The gemara (Chulin 105a) talks of waiting to the next meal to eat milk after meat. It implies that it is the proper way to be extra careful to avoid eating milk and meat together, and failure to do so may not be equivalent to eating a Rabbinically forbidden food. There is a machloket among the Rishonim if it is sufficient to finish the meat meal and take steps to ensure there is no meat in his mouth or whether one has to wait the normal time that exists between meals (see Beit Yosef and Darchei Moshe, Yoreh Deah 89). Sephardic authorities ruled the need for six (or so) hours, while significant Ashkenazic opinions required just to finish the meal or wait no more than an hour (see Rama, YD 89:1). While the prevalent practice of observant Ashkenazim is now to wait six hours, this may be more of a stringency than a clear ruling (see Chelkat Yaakov, YD 16).

The consensus of poskim is that under the age of three, when a child is too young to be significantly educated in religious matters, they do not need to wait at all between eating meat and milk products (they should not be fed them at the same time at any age). Although we generally accept the opinion that forbids “feeding” a young child Rabbinically forbidden food (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 343:1), waiting between these two types of kosher foods is not included (see one of the explanations in Teshuvot V’hanhagaot I:435).

After age three, children start becoming capable of following halachic restrictions, but their ability to keep some of them remains a factor. There is a concept, arising in several contexts (see Rama, OC 325:17), that the physical needs of a healthy child are halachically equivalent to the needs of a sick (non-life-threatened) person. For this reason, the halachot of even partial fasting on Yom Kippur begin only at age nine (Shulchan Aruch, OC 616:2). While waiting to eat milk products is not the same as fasting, a full-fledged requirement to wait six hours can compromise a young child’s well-being, especially those whose eating patterns are inflexible. Regarding the sick, very prominent opinions allow eating milk an hour after meat, after cleaning the mouth by eating and drinking (Chochmat Adam, 40:13; see Pitchei Teshuva, YD 89:3), including Sephardic poskim (see above; see Yalkut Yosef, YD III, p. 395 in the name of Zivchei Tzedek). Thus most poskim are equally lenient for children, at least under the age of nine (Chelkat Yaakov, ibid.; see Shema B’ni 54). Many take the pragmatic, graduated approach that the number of hours increases over time (ibid., in the name of Rav M. Feinstein; Teshuvot V’hanhagot, ibid.). Yalkut Yosef (ibid.), while legitimizing leniency even for Sephardim, limits it to eating nutritious food at meals, not to indulging in milchig treats.

The Chelkat Yaakov posits that keeping six hours is a minhag and as such should not apply to children under bar mitzva, but he stops short of practical leniency to children over nine. Yalkut Yosef contemplates leniency until one year before bar/bat mitzva.

A parent should use common sense and fine parenting skills in applying the general guidelines provided. The laws of chinuch (lit., education) have a formal element and a pragmatic one of how to best raise a specific child under specific circumstances. Maturity and demeanor are among the changing variables. In the face of potential eating disorders, some which can become grave, it is possible to be very lenient, and it is good for a family to have a wise rabbi they are in touch with. This forum does not enable giving advice regarding identifying real health concerns, including eating disorders.

There is a disagreement amongst the authorities in this specific case whether the pan requires kashering. You may be lenient and use the pan without kashering. If you do wish to kasher it, immerse it three times in boiling water. In the future, we recommend working out a solution with your housekeeper so this will not occur again.

The Mishna (Sheviit 7:3) states that it is forbidden to do business with items that are forbidden to eat.  The Mishna is codified in the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 117:1.  There is a dispute between the Rishonim and Achronim regarding if this prohibition is from the Torah or rabbinic[1].[1]

The Gemara Yerushalmi (Bava Kama 7:7) states that this prohibition applies only to foods that would themselves be prohibited from the Torah to be eaten, but it is permitted to do business with foods that are only rabbinically forbidden to be eaten.  This Halacha is codified by the Rambam (Maachalot Asurot 8:18) and Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 117:1).  Furthermore, several authorities[2] write that if there is an opinion that the food is permitted to be eaten[3], even if one does not accept that opinion to permit eating the food, nevertheless, it is permitted to do business with such a food.

Therefore, since it seems that most products sold in a convenience store, even if they don’t bear a kosher symbol, would either be only rabbinically forbidden[4] or would be considered kosher according to some opinions, they could therefore be sold.  Non-kosher meat and non-kosher fish (e.g. shellfish) products should not be sold.  There are probably some other products that would be prohibited to be eaten from the Torah, but we aren’t able to give a list of every potential item, so if you have more questions relating to specific products please feel free to ask[5].

Finally, it is important to note, that there probably will be Jewish consumers who will unwittingly purchase foods from the store, which have questionable kashrut issues or which are rabbinically forbidden.  Therefore, if you could try to offer kosher products where possible (meaning, when the price difference between a kosher and non-kosher item is negligible), then that would be meritorious[6].

Questions of nat bar nat (twice removed taste, i.e., food into pot and then pot into food) are often complex due to the multiple permutations of l’chatchila (proper action) and b’dieved (after the fact). Let us proceed from rules to details.

Amoraim dispute whether pareve food that was placed while hot on a fleishig utensil can be eaten with milk, and we rule leniently (Chulin 111a).  Therefore, the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 95:1) rules that one may mix pareve food cooked in a fleishig pot (nat bar nat of fleishig) into milchig food. However, the Rama (whom Ashkenazim follow) rules that cooking food in a fleishig pot is more severe than simply placing hot food in a utensil. He says that in the former case, the originally pareve food may not be mixed in with milchig food (ad loc. 2).

However, the Rama incorporates a few leniencies. If the food cooked in the fleishig pot was subsequently mixed into milchig food, it may be eaten, b’dieved. Also, the pareve food may l’chatchila be placed hot into a milchig utensil without affecting the status of the pot or the food (ibid.). Thus, the soup you describe may be placed in a milchig pot or bowl.

However, there is a complicating factor – a further level of l’chatchila.  The Beit Yosef cites several Rishonim who say that one may not set up l’chatchila a situation of nat bar nat. While his final opinion is unclear, most prominent Sephardi poskim (see Kaf Hachayaim, YD 95:1) say that one should not put hot pareve food in a fleishig pot if he intends to subsequently mix it in with milchig. The question is whether there are other cases where a food would be treated as pareve, b’dieved, but should not be “created” in that way.

One case in point is when a fleishig pot has not been used for fleishig within the 24 hours before the pareve use. The Rama says that in such a case, the resulting food is pareve enough to mix in with milchig.  The Gra (95:10) says that in such a case it is even permitted to l’chatchila cook the pareve in that fleishig pot with intention to mix it in with milchig. However, the Chochmat Adam (48:2) says that one should not cook it in the fleishig pot with that intention, and this is the more accepted position.

Regarding your first specific question, making the soup in a fleishig pot with intention to put it into a milchig pot, there is a machloket among the Acharonim. Among the earlier authorities, the Bach allows it, and the Pri Megadim (Mishbetzot Zahav 95:4) forbids it. Amongst contemporary authorities, Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igrot Moshe, YD III:10) leans toward leniency, whereas several less prominent authorities lean toward stringency (see differences of degree in Badei Hashulchan 95:30, Ma’adanei Hashulchan (95:23), and Laws of Kashrus (Artscroll), p. 242). (Realize that there are serious opinions that even b’dieved, it should not be put into a milchig pot (see discussion in Darchei Teshuva 95:23).) It seems to be better policy to have a large pareve pot for big soups to avoid this issue. However, in cases where this is not readily feasible, leniency is legitimate.

In cases where there is an additional reason for leniency, one can be lenient freely. One is the second case you ask about – where the second utensil is itself pareve, not milchig. Since nothing can go wrong to the food in this utensil, and it is just a question of making the utensil fleishig, we do not have to go so far in our concern. It also makes sense that if the fleishig pot has not been used in 24 hours, it is permissible to cook in it with the intention of putting the food in a milchig pot.

It is important to realize in questions such as these that “all bets are off” if one is dealing with onions or other sharp vegetables that were sautéed in the fleishig pot or cut with a fleishig knife (Rama, ibid.). The details are beyond our present scope.

The question is general(/theoretical?), so we will not ask clarifying questions. The issue of providing non-kosher food for Jewish customers is beyond our scope.

Most non-kosher foods are permitted in benefit. Some notable exceptions are chametz, wine with a concern of use for idolatry, and beef and milk that were cooked together. In such cases, one may not earn money from dealing with them, even if he does not own the food or get direct physical benefit from it (see Taz, Orach Chayim 150:6). However, it is not common for these foods to be forbidden in benefit according to all opinions. Regarding wine, many are lenient about benefit in times (like ours) where libations for idolatry are rare) (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 124:6; Rama, YD 123:1). Regarding meat and milk, many combinations are permitted in benefit (e.g., poultry, meat from a non-kosher animal, combined without cooking – learn Yoreh Deah 87). It is thus possible that one could work in a non-Jewish restaurant without violating a prohibition of benefiting from forbidden foods (see more in Tzitz Eliezer XVII:33).

Another issue is working professionally with food that is forbidden to eat. The gemara (Pesachim 23a) derives that even concerning forbidden foods from which one may benefit, one may not seek to obtain them for commercial purposes (sechora), just that he can sell that which came his way. According to most Rishonim (see Shut Chatam Sofer, YD 104-106, 108), this is a Torah-level law, although significant opinions among Rishonim and Acharonim say it is Rabbinic (see Noda B’Yehuda II, YD 62).

The Rashba (Shut III, 223) says that the prohibition’s rationale is that one who does commerce with food might eat it. Indeed, the prohibition applies only to things that are slated for eating (e.g., animals such as pigs, not horses). However, most (see Chatam Sofer ibid.) posit that the prohibition applies even if an owner is not in a position to eat the food.

Your question is the opposite case – someone who does not own the food but is in a situation where he is liable to eat it. The Pitchei Teshuva (YD 117:6) assumes that if the prohibition of sechora is to distance one from eating the food, we should follow that logic for stringency and not allow one to work with non-kosher food even without owning it. On the other hand, many poskim (including Sho’el U’meishiv I,III:122; Igrot Moshe, YD I:51) do not extend the prohibition to such a worker.

There are often additional grounds for leniency. Sechora is forbidden only regarding food forbidden by Torah law (Shulchan Aruch, YD 117:1). In many dairy eateries, the food is primarily forbidden Rabbinically, at least according to many opinions (again, beyond our scope). When the commerce is mainly not in the context of the prohibition of sechora, even if some is problematic, it is likely not forbidden (see Shut Chatam Sofer, YD 108). The classic example is one who raises animals for kosher meat and sells the forbidden parts of the animal to non-Jews.

Even when the prohibition of sechora does not apply, it might still be halachically required to refrain from situations where one could easily come to eat non-kosher food (see a variety of opinions in Yabia Omer IV: YD 6). One interesting source is the Maharsha on Rashi, Chulin 106a, who discusses one who, after separating the non-kosher parts of an animal, would cook them before selling them to non-Jews. The issue of the practical concern of eating may be influenced greatly by the type of contact with the food and the extent to which one has permission to eat freely from the food with which he is working (see Yabia Omer ibid.).

The Mishna (Sheviit 7:3) states that it is forbidden to do business with items that are forbidden to eat.  The Mishna is codified in the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 117:1.  There is a dispute between the Rishonim and Achronim regarding if this prohibition is from the Torah or rabbinic[1].

The Gemara Yerushalmi (Bava Kama 7:7) states that this prohibition applies only to foods that would themselves be prohibited from the Torah to be eaten, but it is permitted to do business with foods that are only rabbinically forbidden to be eaten.  This Halacha is codified by the Rambam (Maachalot Asurot 8:18) and Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 117:1).  Furthermore, several poskim[2] write that if there is an opinion that the food is permitted to be eaten[3], even if one does not accept that opinion to permit eating the food, nevertheless, it is permitted to do business with such a food.

Your question was regarding investing in the company Frutarom, which produces and sells the dye carmine, which is derived from the cochineal bugs.  There are opinions[4] that one is allowed to ingest foods with carmine, since the cochineal bugs used to produce carmine are first completely dried out, nullifying (according to those opinions) the prohibited status of the bugs.  Therefore, even though those opinions are normally not relied upon to allow eating products with carmine in them, one can still rely upon them for the purposes of doing business with carmine, and similarly, investing in a company that manufactures carmine would certainly be allowed.

We will divide our view of the sources and analysis to deal with this excellent question into three parts: 1. What causes timtum halev? 2. How severe is exposure to it? 3. How should concern about it affect our decisions?

What causes timtum halev? The classical source that introduces the concept of timtum halev is the gemara (Yoma 39a). It derives from the spelling of “v’nitmeitem bam” (you will become defiled) in the context of eating sheratzim (crawling creatures) (Vayikra 11:43) that it causes not just tumah but also timtum of the heart. (We will not try to describe it exactly – Rashi (ad loc.) says “it seals off and blocks out all wisdom.”) The gemara’s statement is that “sins causes timtum halev.” There are at least three ways to understand this gemara (the approaches are not mutually exclusive but can be complementary):

A. Acts of sin cause timtum halev, irrespective of exposure to a problematic object. The Maharal (Tiferet Yisrael 8) and Rav Kook (Mussar Avicha 1:4) have this understanding, which is the simple reading of the gemara (see Beit Halevi, Bereishit 6:5).   

B. The reason that certain foods are forbidden by the Torah is their negative impact on the spirit. While it may be strongest regarding certain specific forbidden foods (e.g., sheratzim), this is generally true, to some degree, of forbidden foods (Ramban, Shemot 22:30).

C. Forbidden foods are not necessarily naturally damaging to the spirit, but after the Torah forbade them, they become so.

There are practical differences between these approaches. The following prohibitions seem to lack a naturally damaging element. Therefore, A applies and B does not (C depends on the case). 1. Forbidden actions that do not include ingesting foods; 2. Foods that are forbidden based on Rabbinic law – Hashem apparently created these foods to not be timtum causing, but the Rabbis forbade them due to various halachic concerns; 3. Foods that are forbidden because they are too holy for the eater (e.g., teruma, certain korbanot); 4. Foods that are forbidden only at certain times (e.g., food on Yom Kippur, chametz on Pesach); 5. Foods that are forbidden for a circumstantial moral reason (e.g., mother and child shechted on the same day, ever min hachay – see Moreh HaNevuchim III:48).

In the other direction, in the following cases, a prohibited food has entered the body, without moral culpability, so that A does not apply and B and C do: 1. The person eating followed halachic rules, which resulted in ingesting the forbidden food (e.g., animal had blemishes we are not required to check for, bitul made it permitted); 2. The eater is not forbidden to eat the food (non-Jew, small child, severely mentally disabled); 3) One needed to eat it to save his life; 4) The substance entered the body in a way other than eating.

We begin a small sampling of the many sources that provide different views of some of these matters before focusing on the most central. Chashukei Chemed (Megilla 13a) cites a machloket whether eating forbidden food based on an unavoidable mistake creates negative spiritual effects (Rav Pe’alim – no; Ramah M’panu – yes; see Pitchei Teshuva, Yoreh Deah 29:1). Besides saying that without fault there is no cause for timtum, it is also possible that Hashem intervenes to rectify the spirit of one who followed halacha (see Derashot Haran 11, who says similarly regarding a case in which Sanhedrin mistakenly permits something that should be forbidden).

The Netziv (Devarim 6:11) says that the reason it is better to shecht an animal on Shabbat for a dangerously sick person than to give him non-kosher meat is that the latter causes timtum. This assumes that timtum exists even without wrongdoing. However, the fact that all the Rishonim give other explanations (see Beit Yosef, Orach Chayim 328) demonstrates the opposite.

We will continue with further analysis next week.

Last time we saw sources and analyzed possible causes of timtum halev.

How much should timtum halev concern us? Many halachot assume that, even if timtum halev exists without wrongdoing, it is not a serious normative factor. One is not required to stop a child from eating non-kosher food (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 343:1). Certainly, if one sees a child ingesting poison, he would have to save him! (The claim that the above is “only” on a halachic level, but that one must save the child (see Pri Chadash, Yoreh Deah 81:26) is difficult).

If 49 pieces of treif meat get mixed up with 50 pieces of kosher meat, bitul (sometimes) enables the eating of all the pieces (Shulchan Aruch YD 109:1) (some have the stringency to remove some meat to avoid the appearance of impropriety – Rama ad loc.).  When treif gravy falls into a larger amount of kosher food and lower its quality of taste, it is permitted to eat the combination (ibid. 103:2). In neither case do poskim raise timtum halev. In fact, it is a machloket if it is permissible to refuse to eat food that is permitted based on bitul (see Pitchei Teshuva, YD 116:10 and a distinction in Mishneh Halachot VII:104). (Bnei Yisaschar (II, p. 95) views the circumstances as a divine mandate to bring tikkun of the issur). If Reuven sold non-kosher food to Shimon, who ate it, Shimon gets a full refund if the food was forbidden from the Torah and has to pay if it was only Rabbinically forbidden (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 234:2-3). The main reasons given (see S’ma, Shach ad loc.) ignore timtum halev as a factor. Thus, it seems clear that on a normative level, when the eater lacks guilt, there is either no timtum halev or it is halachically insignificant.

There is a normative halachic source that warns about timtum halev. The Rama (YD 81:7) says that one who has a choice should not have a baby nurse from a non-Jewish or not kashrut-observant wet nurse. This is apparently based on the Rashba (see Torat Chatat 65:11), who says that a non-Jewish woman’s milk is kosher, but it is pious to avoid due to concern for the baby’s future spiritual health. Also, the Chatam Sofer (Shut, OC 63), after justifying sending a shoteh child to a non-Jewish center at which he had the best chance at improved mental health, advised not to send him due to timtum halev (many argue or limit the ruling). Even if these are ‘extra-halachic’ advice, why do they come up where they do?

One cannot always reconcile exceptional rulings with the rules. However, these cases, especially the Rama’s, have unique factors. A baby’s basic sustenance on an ongoing basis is from nursing during a crucial point of development in which he lacks performance of mitzvot and has few other things that counteract timtum halev. (Yabia Omer VIII, CM 11 does not accept these distinctions, as he sees the Rama as reason to prefer, if possible, to have blood infusions from kosher-eating Jews. The Netziv (Devarim 6:11) and Torat Hayoledet (42:(2)) do raise the distinction between chance and ongoing exposure to problematic foods.)

Practical Recommendations: While some compare eating non-kosher food to poison (see Mesilat Yesharim 11, who addresses a case in which there was halachic concern). However, apparently one dose does not “kill.” Rather, the more one is exposed, the worse for the person. Several things cause timtum halev (see Mishheh Halachot ibid.) and other similar concepts (e.g., ruach ra’ah in food touched before netilat yadayim), and many things rectify problems of the spirit. The average person should trust halacha to factor in this element in a balanced manner and need not factor timtum halev into his halachic decisions (concern for possible sin is serious enough). One who strives for spiritual near-perfection might need to factor in even the finest points, but this response is not geared for such unique people.

If there are no other kashrut problems (proper use of utensils for milk and meat), it is permitted. This is because it is arguably not "fit to serve on a royal table" and it is certainly at least nominally edible raw (many people eat it that way).

It is not halachically necessary to kasher the pot first, as after it has not been used for 24 hours any taste absorbed in it will not affect the kli being kashered. Nevertheless, some do have a minhag to kasher the kashering pot first or to have a pot designated for kashering only.

The Shulchan Aruch (YD 107:2), based on the Mordechai, poskins that the tam of bugs is l'fgam, and therefore not tam shel issur.  Accordingly, one can remove the fly from the pan and use as normal.

Your question touches on several halachic issues, which we will mention only in passing as necessary background for the answer to your question.

As you know, meat must have its blood removed before it can be eaten. Not everyone is aware that the main halachic problem relates to blood that moved from its initial position (Kritot 21b; Beit Yosef, Yoreh Deah 67). Salting, following the regular process, which includes rinsing the meat, is usually sufficient to remove the blood (YD 69). However, due to the high concentration of blood in liver, salting is insufficient and the more powerful process of broiling is required, after slitting the meat to allow blood to flow out more easily (Shulchan Aruch, YD 73:1). (There are important halachot regarding this process that we assume you know or will learn).

One of the situations that makes it more difficult to remove blood from any meat is if it sat 72 hours in between the shechita and the salting (Shulchan Aruch, YD 69:12). The situation can be remedied only by removing the blood through broiling (ibid.). The classical poskim were unsure to what extent broiling is fully effective in that case. The Shulchan Aruch (ibid.) takes a middle approach. On the one hand, he is concerned that the broiling did not remove all the blood, so that if one cooked (or fried or sautéed) the meat afterward, some blood could come out and render the meat not kosher. Therefore, one should not cook such meat even after broiling. On the other hand, since it is not certain that further blood will be displaced in the process, if he did cook such meat after broiling, it is permissible to eat it.

Decades ago, there was a major halachic dispute regarding the aforementioned 72 hours. Important poskim (including Aruch Hashulchan, YD 69:79, Yabia Omer II, YD 4) reason that if one froze the meat solid (basar kafoo), so that chemical processes are suspended, the “72-hour clock” stops. Others argue that freezing cannot change the halacha. (Nowadays the salting process is almost always done at the slaughtering facility soon after the shechita.) If one takes the lenient approach there, then the liver as well, assuming (on technical grounds, a safe assumption) it was frozen well within 72 hours, the broiling should work as it normally does.

The question is if one were to be stringent in regard to salting frozen meat. Based on our introductory words, we should understand the following Pitchei Teshuva (YD 69:26). He cites the Chamudei Daniel as saying that although one should not let meat sit for 72 hours before salting because he might improperly cook it instead of broiling (Rama, YD 69:12), he may let liver sit that long, because in any case one always has to broil liver. He raises the issue that the broiling of the liver is not a full solution for liver that sat 72 hours (which is no better than such meat) since one is not allowed to cook it after broiling. However, he answers that since we said that if he did cook after a delayed broiling, he may eat it, the issue is not so serious and one may therefore allow liver to sit 72 hours.

The same approach of relative leniency regarding liver that is to be broiled as compared to meat that is to be salted will help answer your question as well. It is quite a stringency to keep the 72 hour clock ticking when meat is frozen. Therefore, it is certainly halachically safe to use liver freely after broiling after it was frozen for 72 hours (see HaKashrut (Fuchs) 9:(263)). It is also permitted to l’chatchila allow this situation of freezing the liver with this intention, as Rav Ovadia Yosef (Yechaveh Da’at VI:46) explains cogently.

There is disagreement on the topic of alternative medicine. Extreme opinions are rarely right. Some treatments under the umbrella of alternative medicine are helpful, and some are quackery and serve as a placebo at best. There is also a significant category of medicines and treatments (homeopathic or conventional) whose efficacy is unclear or varies from person to person. We are not in the position to take a stand on which treatments fall into which category. This general disclaimer has added significance in the case of ingesting something non-kosher as a medication. There is significant room for leniency when ingesting non-kosher items in a not classic manner of eating for the medicinal needs of the sick (Pesachim 25b; Shulchan Aruch and Rama, Yoreh Deah 155:3). Not only do many cases of allergy not qualify as sick, but the Rama (ibid.) requires that a medicine must be proven effective for leniency to apply; this is rarely if ever true of homeopathy. So let us look at the kashrut of the ingredient in question.

Bees are sheratzim and thus not kosher, even though their honey is (Rambam, Maachalot Assurot 3:3). It is permitted to eat honey into which taste from parts of bees enters, because the taste is assumed to be negative (Shulchan Aruch, YD 81:8). One could say that this is only true when bee parts fell in accidentally, but that if one purposely put them in, he thereby gives them importance, thus preventing bitul (nullification) due to its bad taste (achshevei – Chulin 120a). Many poskim (including Igrot Moshe, Orach Chayim II:92, Minchat Shlomo II:65) say that if the purpose of the non-kosher food is not related to its food qualities but just medicinal ones, achshevei does not apply.

In this case, we ostensibly have a simpler reason for permissibility - homeopathic solutions use trace quantities of the active ingredient, so that there is usually sixty times more kosher than non-kosher (see Shulchan Aruch, YD 98:1). On the other hand, bitul is supposed to come about by accident, whereas it is forbidden to add kosher material to arrive at criteria for bitul (Shulchan Aruch, YD 99:5). If this is done, the bitul is disqualified, and the food remains forbidden for the person who did the bitul and those for whom he did it (ibid.). Ostensibly, in this case, that is the consumers of the apis mellifica.

However, bitul is disqualified as a penalty for the sin of nullifying the forbidden food. If the food was put into a mixture in which it is batel by a non-Jew, who is obviously not forbidden to make that mixture, there is no reason to penalize him, and it is permitted, according to most opinions, for a Jew to buy the product (see Badei Hashulchan 99:38).

If the company is owned by Jews but the act of nullification was done by non-Jews, the matter is not simple. On the one hand, the Beit Yosef (YD 99) says that if a Jew asked a non-Jew to do bitul, the Jew cannot eat it (or sell it to profit from the bitul – Rama ibid.). On the other hand, even if a Jew did bitul, the Taz (99:9) says that if he did not realize it is forbidden for him to do so, the mixture is permitted. 

Apparently, the product in question has an edible base (including alcohol), whose kashrut we cannot confirm, and thus ingesting may be forbidden due to the inactive ingredient. This leads us to an interesting question. Would it be permitted to give a hasgacha to this product? The Badei Hashulchan (to 99:5) says that this is forbidden because the rabbi becomes a partner in the nullification process through his instructions. However, this is logical only in a case where the rabbi has them do the process according to his instruction. If, though, the regular process renders the mixture kosher by bitul, formal halacha should allow him to inform the public of this fact. However, formal hechsherim are not generally given in such cases (see Igrot Moshe, YD II:41).

There are sources and traditions about boiling at least three eggs together. While at first glance the practice flies in the face of halachic logic, the laws of blood spots in eggs are unique, as we will see.

 A blood spot in an egg can be the beginning of an embryo, in which case the egg is forbidden, while there is a machloket if it is based on Torah law or Rabbinic law (see Tosafot, Chulin 64b; Beit Yosef, Yoreh Deah 66). If the blood comes from the hen, the blood is forbidden (Rabbinically), but the egg is permitted and can be eaten after the blood is removed (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 66:2-3). Poskim provide physical signs of when it is more likely that the blood belongs to one category or the other, but after the egg is handled, it can be difficult to recognize these signs.

We assume that in a case where only the blood is forbidden, there will be 60:1 ratio of permitted material to forbidden to nullify (bitul) the blood (see Darchei Teshuva 66:40). However, if the whole egg is forbidden, bitul requires 60 times more permitted material in the pot against the volume of the egg, and three eggs will not help too much.

There are times that bitul takes place by means of a simple majority. When the minority forbidden food and the majority permitted food are of the same type (min b’mino) and they are “combined” yavesh b’yavesh (separate solid items that are intermingled only in that the identity of the forbidden food is not known), all the pieces are permitted (Shulchan Aruch, YD 109:1). However, this will not help for two kosher and one non-kosher eggs being boiled together because boiling causes their tastes to mix, making a ratio of 60:1 necessary for bitul (ibid. 2).

Rather, the logic of having three eggs is based on the following Rama (YD 66:4).  The Shulchan Aruch (ad loc.) discusses cases of opened raw eggs that have been mixed together and blood was found, and he rules how much has to be thrown out in each case. The Rama adds that this is only when the signs of the blood indicate that the entire egg is forbidden. However, if there is a doubt whether the whole egg is forbidden, we “permit the mixture, since in any case, one [forbidden egg] is batel in two [permitted eggs].” The Taz (ad loc. 5) explains that even though in lach b’lach (physical mixtures, like the contents of eggs mixed together) a 60:1 ratio is needed for bitul, the Rama is more lenient for an egg with a blood spot. The reason is that he holds that the egg is at worst forbidden Rabbinically, and when the type of blood spot is questionable, we do not forbid the mixture when a majority of it is permitted. This leans on the fact that the requirement of 60:1 for lach b’lach of min b’mino is itself only a Rabbinic law (a majority suffices by Torah law).

The Yad Yehuda (66:7) explains the practice in question as follows. With two eggs boiling, there is not a permitted majority for bitul if one has a blood spot, and the taste coming from the forbidden egg would render the other egg not kosher. The water in the pot does not help because it is of a different food type. Therefore, three eggs will help you if you find a blood spot after peeling the boiled eggs. The more eggs, the better the chance of a majority, and odd numbers help slightly statistically. The number of eggs is thus not required but suggested.

Almost all egg producers separate roosters and hens, rendering the chances of a blood spot coming from an embryo and forbidding the entire egg very small. Igrot Moshe (Yoreh Deah 1:36) says that since eggs are cheap, we should, as a chumra, throw out the egg for any blood spot. However, he says that we need not throw out another egg cooked with it or require hagala for the pot in which a blood-spotted egg was boiled. While some continue the old practice of using three eggs (see Teshuvot V’hanhagot II:384), this is not halachically called for.

It is a form of stone, which can be kashered.

A proper job of double wrapping solves virtually any issue of heating things up in ovens. Sometimes, less is needed, and sometimes double wrapping is only a stringency. We will summarize the issue but will not be able to cover every circumstance.

The classic and surest way for a non-kosher food to transfer ta’am (a sufficient amount of particles to give off taste), and thereby make a kosher food forbidden is for them to make direct contact when they are hot. Yet, two other possible ways are discussed in the sources: 1. They are heated up in close proximity so that reicha (vapor) from one is liable to reach the other. When the vapor is strong/wet enough, it is called zeiah, and the chance of significant transfer is greater. Which factors must be present for this to actually forbid the food, l’chatchila or b’dieved, is detailed, complicated, and includes machlokot, so it is beyond our scope (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 108:1). We will relate to scenarios in which the transfer is significant. 2. Heat and/or other factors cause particles to go from the food into utensils, from which they may go and “contaminate” other food that comes in contact with that utensil.

Now let’s analyze what can possibly happen in a treif oven. If one heats up kosher food at the same time with treif food, the vapor from the treif food can enter the kosher food. Here, there is a clear requirement for double wrapping for the following reason. With a single wrap, the treif food will make the wrapping treif. The hot kosher food on the inside of the single wrapping would then extract the ta’am from the wrapping and make the food forbidden. When working properly, the double wrapping ensures that there is nothing in between the two wrappings. Under those conditions, we say that ta’am is not transferred from one utensil directly into another one without the medium of a food or liquid (Rama, YD 92:8).

If the oven is “empty,” then even if is there is edible non-kosher residue on the walls and ta’am within the walls, it is unlikely that it will produce enough vapor to cause a problem. The problem is that the vapor of the kosher food could provide the medium to transfer the treif particles to the kosher food. However, to prevent this, it suffices to have a single cover to keep the vapor in (see Rama, YD 108:1).

Another problem can occur if the kosher utensil is placed directly on non-kosher residue. Then, the non-kosher ta’am can go straight into the utensil and from there into the kosher food. To prevent this one does not require a full wrapping, but a simple sheet of something to separate between the utensil and the possible residue suffices.

If milchig and fleishig foods are being cooked or heated at the same time, wrapping only one of them with a single wrapping is not enough. The vapors of each can reach the wrapping, thus making it at that moment, both a milchig and a fleishig utensil, which is a problem (see Rama, YD 95:3). If it is only a milchig food in an empty fleishig oven, then the situation is similar (and perhaps a little more lenient – beyond our scope) to the case of an empty treif oven.

In the case of pareve food in an oven that is also baking fleishig, it is questionable whether one covering is enough to keep the food pareve. It is no better than the level of pareve which people call “meat (or dairy) equipment,” which has certain halachot of pareve and certain halachot of fleishig. Some say it is worse because the fleishig and pareve interact within the medium of the utensil that separates them at one and the same time (Chavot Daat 95:1). If the meat oven were empty, then as mentioned before, a sufficiently effective single wrapping would certainly succeed in preventing the oven’s meat element from affecting the pareve food. Again, one must ensure that no meat residue comes in direct contact with the utensil/wrapping.   

Let us analyze your question. If a tea bag becomes fleishig in a fleishig cup, perhaps it makes the holder fleishig. Then, possibly, another tea bag could similarly become milchig, and treif up the holder and/or have the holder make the tea bag treif. It would then presumably be forbidden to reuse the tea bag. (We will skirt the issue of whether it is a problem of cooking basar b’chalav even if not reusing the tea bag, which should not be a problem here - see Pri Megadim, Siftei Da’at 87:19).

We start by analyzing the status of pareve tea that is used in a fleishig (or milchig) tea cup. In general, the tea can pick up fleishig taste on the level of nat bar nat (twice removed taste, e.g., from the chicken soup into the cup, then from the cup into the tea). The gemara (Chulin 111b) cites a machloket whether hot fish that was placed on a fleishig plate may be eaten with milchig sauce. While many “know” this to be a machloket between Ashkenazim (stringent) and Sephardim (lenient), this is inaccurate. All actually agree that in the gemara’s case, the fish may be eaten with milchig food (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 95:1). The stringency of the Rama (YD 95:2)/Ashkenazim is when the pareve food was cooked or roasted in a fleishig pot. In that case, a more powerful taste is transferred than when hot fish is put on a fleishig utensil, where no flame is present. Our case is equivalent to that of the gemara, as putting hot water into a fleishig cup will extract no more than nat bar nat taste, which all agree remains pareve.

However, the matter is not that simple. Many say that even according to the Shulchan Aruch, who says that pareve food with nat bar nat fleishig taste can be mixed with milk, that is only once the nat bar nat food exists. However, one should not purposely put hot pareve food in a fleishig utensil if he plans to eat it with milk, (see Pri Chadash 95:1; Kaf Hachayim, YD 95:1; Yalkut Yosef is lenient). The idea is that we do not rely on nat bar nat on a l’chatchila level. In your case, you are ostensibly asking whether you can use the holder l’chatchila in a way that the foods will remain kosher only because of nat bar nat, raising this problem.

One could claim this depends on the following machloket among Acharonim. Ashkenazim are allowed to put “meat-equipment” pareve food, which they may not eat with milk, into a milchig utensil (Rama, YD 95:2). If you know you in advance you want to put a pareve food into an empty milchig utensil, may you cook it first in a fleishig pot, or is that using nat bar nat l’chatchila? The Pri Megadim (MZ 95:4) and Badei Hashulchan (95:30) rule stringently, and the Bach and Igrot Moshe (YD III:10) are lenient. Your case sounds the same – you want to use nat bar nat to allow a hot food to be exposed both to fleishig  and milchig utensils.

Still, there is no problem for the following reason. The stringent poskim discussed cases where the milchig and fleishig utensils were truly that. In contrast, the holder always remains pareve because all tea bags put on it were previously nat bar nat. Therefore, all should agree that one can even set up the situation l’chatchila, by using the same holder.

There are further possible grounds for leniency, especially the fact that the heat sources that might transfer taste from cups to tea bag and between tea bag and holder are once or more removed from a flame. Water poured into the cup is iruy mikli rishon, the tea bag often enters at the point of kli sheni and the hot tea bag is removed from the kli sheni before going to the holder. There is much to discuss on these topics, but the matter is permitted fundamentally anyway. (If the holder lost its pareve status by direct contact with milchig or fleishig food, these issues could be relevant.)

If this is some sort of pill which is swallowed, there is no problem taking it directly after meat.

[This is a general, not detailed, answer.] When full testimony is required, i.e., for monetary matters, punishments of beit din, and matters of “family status,” two witnesses are required (see Gittin 2b), and they must not have a direct interest in the matter (Rambam Eidut 9:1). Formal testimony is not needed for matters of issurin, which is the reason that one witness suffices (Chulin 10b).

When one person is enough, a nogeiah b’eidut, one who is affected by the “testimony” can be used. One example is that a butcher is believed to say that all the steps needed to make meat kosher were done (Rambam, Maachalot Assurot 8:7). We do not suspect him of lying to make money by selling non-kosher food to kosher consumers. The person does need to be under the presumption of reliability on religious matters, which requires him to, first and foremost, be personally observant (ibid.). As a rule, one who eats kosher will not feed non-kosher food to others. Some mainly religious people have serious flaws in their observance of certain areas of Halacha. Then, one might be believed regarding certain areas of Halacha and not others. The rule is that one who violates “light” aveirot does not automatically lose credibility regarding “heavy” ones; some of the complicated details are found in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 119.

Fundamentally, there is no distinction between the reliability of men and women regarding issurin (see practical distinctions in Rama, Yoreh Deah 127:3). In fact, one source that people can rely on others regarding issurin is from the Torah’s description of a woman’s counting the days to end her nidda status, regarding which her husband is to trust her (Tosafot, Gittin 2b). Rashi (ad loc.) says that the source is the correct assumption that one can trust the kosher status of food prepared by others, and this applies to both men and to women.

Where did the idea of requiring hashgachot come from? The Rosh (Chulin 1:24) says that in his time the broad minhag was not to trust butchers for all of the checking needed but to appoint experts. Mahari Halevi (17) points out that it is not out of fear of purposeful deceit but that some elements may be too complicated for certain butchers who might not admit it.

In some communities, a proprietor who is known to be trustworthy is not required to obtain a formal hashgacha. However, most communities require some level of rabbinic supervision (the supervision is often looser when the proprietor is known to be trustworthy). Having a mashgiach is “healthy” for the following reasons. 1. Since, as above, even honest people make mistakes, it is worthwhile for someone with training to supervise. He should catch as many mistakes as possible and know how to deal with them after the fact. The mashgiach also has easier access to kashrut experts when needed. 2. One who is new in or passing through town and does not know who is and is not trustworthy can be guided by the certification of known rabbis or organizations. 3. Every once in a while, someone who was assumed to be trustworthy turns out to not be; while Halacha does not demand us to suspect this, extra prudence on matters affecting the public can be positive.

We will start with an overview of the halachic issues involved.

Regarding the possibility that Jews will buy a non-kosher product, you need not be concerned about it for a combination of reasons, including the following (see more in Living the Halachic Process, vol. II, C-20). There is no Torah-level prohibition of lifnei iver (facilitating sin) because people can get these products elsewhere. Only a small minority of the customers are Jews and your intention is not for them. Therefore, since those who buy non-kosher items are not interested in keeping kosher, it is not your problem. The question is about your selling not-kosher, which could be a problem even if it is to non-Jews.

The gemara Pesachim 23a learns from the pasuk, “Vesheketz yiheyu lachem,” that certain foods that are forbidden to eat are but are not forbidden in benefit, have certain limitations on benefit. The gemara states that if he did not seek to obtain the non-kosher food, he can sell them, but he may not purposely obtain the foods in order to gain from them. The prohibition applies only to food that is forbidden from the Torah (as opposed to Rabbinically) (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 117:1). This applies primarily to meat and fish products, as opposed to many other non-kosher foods (dairy products, pastries, etc.).

According to most Rishonim, this is a Torah prohibition (see Shut Chatam Sofer, Yoreh Deah 104-106, 108; Yabia Omer, vol. 8, YD 13). The Rashba (Shut III:223) says that the reason is to minimize the possibility of coming to eat forbidden foods, while others say it is a gezeirat hakatuv (heavenly decree without a known reason).

The consensus of poskim is that the prohibition applies when a Jew owns the food, even in cases where he is not expected to come in direct contact with it (Chatam Sofer, ibid 108, cited in Pitchei Teshuva, YD 117:6). Even if you are not considered to have contact with the food (we do not know to what extent you visit the warehouses), the prohibition applies because of your ownership (see ibid.). Thus, you should check (we can help) that the products are not forbidden by the Torah.

[After receiving labels of many products, we realized we need to discuss non-kosher ingredients – from animals or non-kosher fish – that are in capsules.]

There is no Torah-level prohibition in eating a not kosher food by swallowing it when it is encapsulated in a non-food (see Mishneh Lamelech, Ma’achalot Assurot 14:12; Aruch Hashulchan, YD 85:40). Thus, one can argue that non-kosher food in a capsule is not a problem. On the other hand, one can argue that the food inside is still forbidden food, and it could be taken out of the capsule and eaten. Furthermore, perhaps the only important question is if the food is forbidden, and whether or not it will be eaten in a halachic manner is not important (see above).

The halacha is that one is not allowed to go out of his way to get things that are forbidden to eat by the Torah and are slated to be eaten (Shulchan Aruch, YD 117:1). Such things are forbidden in commerce even if you are not likely to eat them. However, in this case, at the time you will obtain the capsules, they are not slated for eating in a forbidden manner, and it is therefore permitted to buy them in order to sell.

There is much discussion as to whether gelatin capsules themselves are permitted (beyond our scope). However, it is sufficient that there legitimate opinions permit it (at least from the Torah), as in such a case, it is permitted to sell it (Darchei Teshuva 117:63).

 These sources greatly resemble your question (it is difficult to argue that one must remove such food from the table but can use it in a future meal if he ascertains it is clean). However, we must notice nuances and explore distinctions. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igrot Moshe, YD I:38) notices that the Yerushalmi and Shulchan Aruch refer to “leftover” bread, which he takes to mean a piece of bread that was cut from the loaf and was eaten along with the fleishig food in his plate, or at least was intended to have been. Those pieces are more problematic than the rest of the loaf, which, even if it was sitting on the table, ready to be cut, still was separate from the food as it was being eaten. Therefore, Rav Moshe comes up with the following distinction – that which is cut off must not be eaten with the other type of food. Regarding the uncut remainder of the loaf, it is only a worthy stringency.

Rav Moshe does not address other foods that were on the table. There is halachic precedent to say that the stringency is only in regard to bread, as we find unique kashrut precautions in regard to bread. It is generally forbidden to bake a milchig loaf of bread because one must be concerned that he will eat it with meat; if he does bake milchig bread, it is forbidden to eat it at all (Shulchan Aruch, YD 97:1). The Siftei Da’at (ad loc. 1) posits that this halacha is just for bread because it is the foundation of classic meals. On the other hand, the Aruch Hashulchan (YD 89:15) extends the recommendation to remove all of the food from the milchig table and claims that this is the minhag. It makes sense that Rav Feinstein would agree, considering that the Beit Yosef/Hagahot Oshri, which is the basis of his distinction between required and recommended, refers to all foods on the table.

The Badei Hashulchan (89:(209)), while mentioning a dissenting view, accepts Rav Moshe’s leniency regarding the remaining loaf, to which we will now add support (not a full proof). One of the exceptions to the prohibition on milchig (or fleishig) bread is if the loaf is small enough to be expected to be finished in one meal because it is then less likely a mistake will occur (Shulchan Aruch, YD 97:1). This implies that in the standard Talmudic case, one loaf was used for more than one meal. Yet, in that standard case, if the bread is pareve, it is not considered a problem, even though often one meal will be milchig and one fleishig. Apparently, the only serious problem is when there is actual contact between the pareve bread and food of one type.  

In a place without a clear minhag to not reuse the salad at the different type meal, it is logical to be pragmatic and subjective, a direction the Badei Hashulchan (89:99) embraces. If at the table, every salad has a serving utensil, people do not reach in to the salad bowl with soiled hands or their personal flatware, and they do not let the serving utensil touch their plate, one can be lenient to reuse the salad. When people are not careful (facemasks are not necessary J), it makes more sense (although not a full halachic requirement) to follow the stringent opinion/minhag. 

In many areas of Halacha, such a question would be easier to decide conclusively, but for whatever reason, Klal Yisrael shies away from leniency regarding meat and milk. We start by telegraphically mentioning multiple ways that such a case is or may be distanced from the Torah-level prohibition. 1) If the meat is poultry, not beef; 2) Perhaps, if you are tasting only gravies and not the meat itself; 3) The meat and milk were not cooked together; 4) You are eating one after the other, not together. 

Different Rishonim give different reasons to wait six hours (or a different minhag’s time) between fleishig followed by milchig foods. Rashi (Chulin 105a) says that “meat exudes fat, and it sticks to the mouth and gives taste for a long time.” The Rambam (Ma’achalot Asurot 9:28) says that we are concerned that meat got stuck between the teeth in a manner that it is difficult to remove. The Tur (Yoreh Deah 89) brings nafka minot between the opinions: 1. If meat is found between the teeth after 6 hours, is the meat still fleishig? (Rambam- no; Rashi- yes); 2. If it was chewed but not swallowed (Rambam- must wait, as meat could be between teeth; Rashi – no wait, as swallowing is what makes the taste linger). The Tur and Shulchan Aruch (YD 89:1) rule like the stringencies of both positions, therefore even if one does not eat the fleishig food but chews and then spits out (e.g., to feed to one’s baby), he still has to wait before eating milchigs. The Pri Megadim (MZ 89:1) reasons that our being machmir for both opinions is logical either due to our carefulness about safek in all the relevant cases, or because the two reasons could both be true.  

The Pri Megadim continues that if one chewed pareve food that absorbed fleishig taste, but does not contain pieces of meat (e.g., chicken soup broth), neither reason indicates having to wait. However, he says that holy Jews do not distinguish (lo plug) between similar cases and always wait, and the Pitchei Teshuva (YD 89:1) accepts his opinion. How broad is this lo plug? While some rabbanim view it as applying to everything that is put in the mouth, the more accepted opinion is that tasting with the tongue (without chewing) and then spitting out the fleishig food does not make waiting necessary (Pri Chadash, YD 89:18; Aruch Hashulchan, YD 89:14; Darchei Teshuva 89:22). (There are discussions in other kashrut areas on the extent to which tasting with the tongue alone is an especially lenient case – see Pitchei Teshuva, YD 98:1). Among Sephardi poskim as well, the mainstream approach is to be lenient (Kaf Hachayim, YD 89:4; Yalkut Yosef, YD 89:13). (See also a similar discussion in Living the Halachic Process, III, E-1).

There are some provisos, though. First, just as between milk followed by meat, we require washing the mouth by first eating liquid and solid pareve food (Shulchan Aruch ibid. 2), so too this is needed to remove the tasted meat residue (see the aforementioned lenient opinions). Since there is no minimum amount for how much one needs to eat to become fleishig (Badei Hashulchan 89:2), one would have to determine that the tasting included no swallowing.

These rules can be burdensome to follow. Consider also that on a day of substantial fleishig cooking, some people tend to eat samples of their food without giving it much thought and forget thereafter that they are fleishig. Therefore, it might be prudent for many home Shabbat chefs who want to eat milchig food around the time of their major cooking, to eat the real milchig food prior to tasting fleishig food and spending a long time around them.

However, this suggestion is no more than practical advice where it applies. As far as a halachic ruling is concerned, if one just tasted fleishig food with his tongue, spat it out, and washed his mouth, he does not need to wait six hours before eating milchig food.

There are several potential (complicated) grounds for leniency, whose cumulative effect will power our recommendation. One should not reach conclusions about each one based on our short presentation.

After a utensil (kli) has not been used for hot food for 24 hours (eino ben yomo), the taste it gives off is assumed to be pagum (spoiled), and, for the most part, the kli does not prohibit other hot food that is put into it (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 122:1-2). It is rabbinically forbidden to use the kli out of concern that people will not wait sufficiently (ibid.). However, Rabbi Akiva Eiger (Nidda 27a), discussing your case, reasons that if we are not sure about kosher keilim whether they are meat or dairy and 24 hours have passed, one can use the keilim based on a safek d’rabbanan (a doubt whose worst-case scenario is a Rabbinic prohibition).

It is difficult to rely on this source alone. For one, it is unclear that this leniency is accepted. Also, it is possible that one should not use such keilim in a way that sharp foods (e.g., onions) can absorb taste from them (see Shulchan Aruch, YD 96:1; Badei Hashulchan, YD 93:18). Also, R. Akiva Eiger relates to earthenware, which we normally assume cannot be kashered. If they can (see below, opinions, including of R. Akiva Eiger), it is possible we would not employ halachic leniencies without kashering (see Shulchan Aruch, YD 102:3 with commentaries).

In this case, another grounds for leniency is that the dishes have not been used for 12 months (yishun). Some sources raise this as a leniency in various contexts based on the assumption that absorbed particles have “dried up” (see Shulchan Aruch, YD 135:16). Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igrot Moshe, YD I:43) joins that leniency with another that applies here – the kli has not absorbed treif but kosher meat or dairy particles, whose issue is that they can become treif if mixed improperly with the opposite type. Therefore, he reasons that after yishun, we should not halachically have to worry about the absorbed particles causing problems. Another lenient factor is that considering you ask about dishes, not pots, the potential absorption is mainly from food that is hot on the level of kli sheini (not in the kli it was cooked in), which lowers the chance/intensity of absorption (see Shulchan Aruch, YD 105:2; Shach ad loc. 8; Igrot Moshe ibid.).

The approach that Igrot Moshe (ibid.) practically recommends in a case of need for one who wants to sell dishes to another to use for the opposite type, is to try to kasher the dishes. Although earthenware cannot be kashered (Pesachim 30b), in regard to keilim that have undergone yishun, we can rely on doing hagala three times to kasher even china in case of significant loss (Igrot Moshe ibid. and YD II:46; Bemareh Habazak II, p. 68). (A whole set of china qualifies for most people as such a loss). Also, not all agree that glazed keilim are like earthenware, for which kashering does not work (Igrot Moshe ibid.). The possibility of kashering, though, makes it more difficult to rely on the aforementioned R. Akiva Eiger, without kashering. Actually, in a responsum (I:49, cited by Pitchei Teshuva, YD 110:19), R. Akiva Eiger is lenient only after hagala three times.

There is a minhag (see Magen Avraham 509:11) not to kasher keilim from meat to dairy use and vice versa. However, because this case contains a few indications for leniency in the matter (yishun, it is the only way to use the keilim, hagala is needed only based on safek, it is not being done by the person who used it for the other type), this minhag should not prevent kashering here (see Living the Halachic Process I, E-3).

In summary, doing hagala on the dishes (in a pot of the type for which you want to use it) three times is called for and sufficient, based on a preponderance of grounds for leniency.

As is often appropriate in complex kashrut questions, we will first explain why there could be a problem, introduce indications for leniency, and see if they suffice.

The rule is that there is no transfer between a solid and a liquid that are sitting in/alongside each other unless the contact is for 24 hours, in which case we say kavush k’mevushal (soaking is like cooking) (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 105:1). However, if the liquid is sharp, there is assumed to be full transfer of taste in “k’dei sheyartiach,” the amount of time it takes to put a liquid on the fire and have it heat up to a boil. (There is a transfer of a “k’dei klipa” (a peel’s worth) in less time (ibid.).) This is assumed to be around 18 minutes or possibly less than that (see Darchei Teshuva 105:42). The Shulchan Aruch (ibid.) lists vinegar as such a sharp liquid.

Vinegar being a davar charif also ostensibly knocks out two broad leniencies. Fleishig (or milchig) taste that enters a utensil and then is expelled and absorbed into a pareve food (called nat bar nat) is too weak to be the building block of a forbidden mixture of basar b’chalav (Shulchan Aruch, YD 95:2). (Whether this applies here seems to be a machloket between the Shulchan Aruch and Rama, ibid.3). Forbidden (or fleishig and milchig) particles that sat in the walls of a utensil for 24 hours deteriorate to the point that whatever taste it adds to another food is negative and therefore not halachically significant (ibid. 103:5). Neither of these leniencies apply when the food absorbing the taste is a davar charif, as it tends to give prominence to weak and/or negative tastes (ibid. 96:1).

On the other hand, the Shach (ad loc. 2) says that vinegar does not cause quick transfer of taste. There is an apparent contradiction in the Mishna Berura on whether he agrees with the Shulchan Aruch that vinegar speeds up transfer (Mishna Berura 648:54) or the Shach (Mishna Berura 447:71). He hints at the following way to reconcile the approaches (in Sha’ar Hatziyun 648:60, based on Magen Avraham 447:28). Strong vinegar causes quick absorption; vinegar that is not strong is treated like regular liquid (i.e., 24-hour cutoff).

Our case has a further level of leniency in that the solid object is not a food but a utensil, which is less absorbent. While most poskim say that a utensil in contact with a liquid davar charif is treated the same as a solid food, some are more lenient regarding transfer of taste between a liquid davar charif and a utensil (see Mishbetzot Zahav, YD 105:1; Chochmat Adam 57:10; The Laws of Kashrus (Forst) p. 329-330).

An additional, strong, reason for leniency is that after several minutes of spicing cucumber salad, a significant amount of liquid (mainly water) starts oozing out of the cucumbers, into the pool of vinegar (can you confirm it happened in your case?). As we have seen, the level of sharpness can be impactful, so dilution is significant. We also find that water specifically can counteract a davar charif’s effect (see similar idea in Mishna Berura 447:43).

Other points of leniency relate to the fact that some of assumptions of the initial indication of a problem are not unanimous. There are some opinions that only that which appears in the gemara as a davar charif has that status (see Beit Yosef, YD 96). There is also an opinion that the halacha that a davar charif makes a negative taste impactful does not apply to a liquid davar charif (see Misbetzot Zahav, YD 96:1).

We have not found discussion of your interesting case, but an answer apparently emerges by analyzing the underlying principles and “listening to the silence.”

The topic begins with mishnayot (Chulin 103b & 104b) that rule that one must not eat meat at a table that has cheese on it, but may have these foods side-by-side on a table at which food is being prepared. The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 88:1, based on Rambam, Ma’achalot Assurot 9:20) explains that the concern is that one might end up eating the two foods together. (Rashi ad loc. speaks about eating one after it is soiled by the other.) Another mishna (ibid. 107b, according to the gemara ibid.) says that two people who do not know each other may eat milchig and fleishig at the same table (implying that if they know each other, it is forbidden – Shulchan Aruch ibid. 2). The logic is that we do not suspect that one will eat the other’s food.

Your case falls between those of the mishnayot, as follows. 1. On the one hand, you are eating and not merely working with food, but on the other hand, the second food is not being eaten. 2. While in your case, there is no one else eating who may interest you in the other type of food, there is also no one eating the other food who may stop you from eating it.

According to the Shulchan Aruch’s reasoning (he may eat the other food), if he is eating and there is available food, the fact that the second food is not being eaten now (#1) does not seem to take away the temptation of eating it. Regarding the absence of a second person (#2), we find in poskim, including the Chochmat Adam (40:11), that the problem is at least as bad when one is eating alone.

Does intention take away the concern that he might eat anyway? Lack of explicit sources for such a distinction is a strong indicator that we cannot create one. Furthermore, in the regular forbidden case, a kashrut-observant person who is eating meat is not planning to eat milchig food for hours, and still Halacha forbids it to be on his table. The argument to reject this leniency is also strengthened by the gemara (ibid. 107b), which explicitly applies to this prohibition the concept of lo plug (we apply the Halacha broadly even to specific cases where the logic does not fully apply).

There are, though, acceptable leniencies found in the gemara and poskim regarding this halacha. The gemara (Chulin 107b) says that the prohibition is only when the two people are eating in one “tefisa.” Most Rishonim (see Tosafot ad loc.; Beit Yosef, Orach Chayim 173) say that this means that if there is a noticeable separator (heker) between the two foods, it is permitted (we assume it applies even when a person is eating alone (see Chochmat Adam ibid.). This includes having one eating on a different surface (e.g., via a tablecloth or place mat) than the other (Rama, YD 88:2). Placing objects with some height that are not usually on the table also helps (see ibid., Taz ad loc. 4). Also, the Pitchei Teshuva (ad loc. 3) rules that it is permitted when the other food is far enough away that one cannot reach it without getting up.

There may be further leniency in a case where the other food is still packaged, as Rashi’s reason about food getting soiled would not apply. While Badei Hashulchan (88:6) is stringent, there is an opinion (Rashash, Chulin 103b) that it is permitted to eat one type of food when the other one is in a utensil (i.e., it is unlikely the foods will touch). If the food is on the table in a way that it is clear to all that it is not to be eaten now (e.g., it is in a supermarket bag along with other foods), then arguably the situation serves as a heker. However, since these are conjectures and the accepted solutions are easily accomplished, one should avail himself of the standard solutions.