By Rabbi Yair Hoffman IT IS A PROBLEM THAT a number of Jewish students face. At home, they have been accustomed to wait six hours between meat and dairy. This is their family Minhag. When they go away to their various institutions of learning, some of these institutions have a different policy. These institutions are serving dairy suppers only 5 and ½ hours after they have served a meat lunch. In this author’s estimation, it is a problem that over five thousand young Jewish men face. Why is it so large a problem? Because the institutions happen to be two of the largest Yeshivos in the world, one in Eretz Yisroel and one in the United States. OTHER CUSTOMS This is not to suggest that other customs are, heaven forbid, incorrect. Customs among observant Jews range the gamut from one hour (Dutch Jews) to three hours (German and British Jews) to five hours to five and half hours. But a number of questions do arise: What should these students who wait six hours be doing? Should the students undo their family tradition and adopt that of their Yeshiva? Also from where did the customs of 6 hours and 5 and ½ arise? Before we answer these questions, let us first examine the source of the custom to wait six hours between meat meals and dairy meals in the first place, and then let us examine where 5 and ½ may fit in. The Talmud (Chullin 105a) states: “Rav Chisda said: One who eats meat may not eat cheese, [one who eats] cheese, may eat meat… Mar Ukvah said: Regarding this, I am like vinegar, the son of wine. My father, if he would consume meat today, would wait until tomorrow to eat cheese. I, however, will not consume them during the same meal, but at another meal I will eat cheese.” The Rif writes that by virtue of the fact that Mar Ukvah referred to himself as “vinegar the son of wine” – no authority permits a waiting period of less than six – from the morning meal to the evening meal. The Baalei HaTosfos disagree and understand the notion of another meal to refer even to a case where a second meal was started right away. [This is also the position of the Mordechai, the HaGaos Ashri, the Hagaos Maimonius and the Raavya.] Nonetheless, the spread of the idea of six hours has taken almost universal dimension. Now, although generally speaking the term “one meal to another” is understood as approximately six hours, there is a debate between Rabbeinu Tam and the Vilna Gaon as to how exactly we understand Mar Ukvah. Rabbeinu Tam writes that even Mar Ukvah’s position is not the halachic requirement, but rather a pious position. He thus allows for other customs. The Vilna Gaon, on the other hand, is of the opinion that Mar Ukvah held of the six hours as a full halachic requirement. He writes that the source is based on a passage in tractate Shabbos – where the Gemorah discusses the different eating times of cannibals, thieves, the rich, the workers, and the Torah scholars. The Gemorah tells us that Torah scholars would not eat before the sixth hour of the day, nor after this time. The Vilna Gaon extrapolates from […]