QUESTION: I baked bread in my oven at the same time as I was roasting meat. Can the bread be eaten at all? Can it be eaten with dairy?

ANSWER: The Gemara (Pesachim 30a) teaches us that one is not permitted to bake fleishig bread, out of concern that one might accidentally eat it with dairy. (For similar reasons of confusion, one may not bake dairy bread.) If one did bake fleishig bread, it may not be eaten even with pareve or meat foods but rather must be discarded. However, in the case of our original question, the bread did not touch the meat. The only issue is that the bread might have absorbed the meat’s aroma (reicha). We have seen in a previous Halacha Yomis that after the fact, we view this aroma as an intangible, and it is nullified in the bread. Therefore, the bread does not become forbidden and may be eaten. The Rema (YD 108:1) writes that nonetheless it is preferable not to eat this bread with dairy because it is preferable not to rely on the nullification of the meat aroma. However, if one has no other bread available, Rema writes that this bread may be served with dairy.

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