Can You Eat Fish with Cheese?

Introduction:  Let’s start with some background on eating Fish with Meat.

We know the Torah forbids us to cook and/or eat meat and milk together. What exactly is the definition of meat? From what animals? That is a is too broad to cover briefly, but for the purposes of fish, the Talmud in Chulin (103b) tells us that the “meat” of a fish is NOT considered meat for בשר בחלב purposes. Accordingly there should be no issue eating fish with meat. 

However….

The Torah tells us we need to be careful with our health. Hashem gave us our physical bodies and it is our responsibility to take care of it; we cannot say it is our body and we can take whatever risks we want. With this in mind, the Gemara lists a number of things that we need to avoid because they are dangerous, a סכנה.

One example of this is the prohibition of cooking and/or eating fish with meat. The Talmud in Pesachim (76b) says that if fish is cooked together with meat it cannot be eaten because it will cause “Davar Acher,” which Rashi translates as Tzara’at. So it is a sakana, dangerous to eat meat with fish that was cooked together. The Shulchan Aruch says you cannot even eat them together, regardless of whether or not they were cooked together. Thus, the halacha is that we may not eat meat and fish together. (There is more to discuss in terms of what scientific research today says about any potential danger, but we will leave that for another essay.)

Question: Is it permissible to eat fish with milk, cheese or butter?

Answer: As mentioned above, this clearly is no issue of “meat and milk” as fish is not considered meat and is parve. 

בית יוסף - יורה דעה סימן פז׳ - דגים מותר לאכול בחלב. מכל מקום אין לאכול דגים בחלב מפני הסכנה.

Maran Beit Yosef (Yoreh De’ah Siman 87) says that although there is no “meat and milk” issue, one should NOT eat milk and fish together because it is a sakana. The Rema in his commentary Darchei Moshe argues with this and comments that he never observed anyone avoiding milk and fish.

The Shach asks a few questions on the opinion of Maran Beit Yosef:

1. When the Talmud above mentions sakana it was discussing meat and fish, not milk and fish? The Talmud makes no reference to such a prohibition? In fact, the Talmud in Chulin 111b seems to say explicitly that you can eat milk and fish. 

2. He also says that we always see people cooking fish and milk?

How do we explain the opinion of the Beit Yosef?

1. Taz and others claim that the Beit Yosef never said this and it was a publishers typo and should have said you can’t eat fish and meat due to the danger; this is a different halacha and is agreed upon by virtually all poskim.

The Chida (Sefardic Posek) also says this was a misprint. Rav Ovadia quotes Ner Mitzvah that we follow the Chida who many sefardic poskim treat with same reverence as Maran Beit Yosef. As a result, some sefardic poskim do not follow this stringency.

2. The Shaylot U’teshuvot Beit Yehudah and some others argue there was no misprint here;  doctors did the research and found that there is a sakana to eat fish with milk, but to fry fish in butter would be permissible.

3. The שו׳׳ת בית דוד also says there was no misprint. Rather the logic is that meat comes from animals on land and fish comes from the water; the two don’t mix and create a sakana. Similarly, milk comes from animals so it has the same concern of sakana.

4. The Kaf Hachaim adds that even though ashkinazim do not find sakana with this, different locations have different susceptibilities to different diseases. So it could have been sakana in middle eastern, sefardic countries.

Rav Ovadia quotes a lengthy discussion about butter and fish. He quotes a litany of poskim who agree in general we should be strict and not eat fish and milk together, but we can be lenient and eat butter with fish. While some disagree, it seems there is room for leniency here.

What do we make of all of this?

Many poskim assume that Sefardim are stringent like the Maran Beit Yosef because they always follow him. However, as mentioned above, Sefardic posek Chida argues and felt this was all a typo. His best proof was the Maran Beit Yosef never brought this halacha down to Shulchan Aruch.

Summary: Rav Ovadia concludes by stating that the practice of Sefardim should be strict and not to eat or cook fish with milk or cheese, but that there is room for leniency to have butter with fish. He also states that the practice amongst all ashkinzaim is NOT to be concerned with this at all and that it is permissible to eat and cook milk, cheese and butter with fish.

Two follow-up points:

If your practice is to be strict like Maran Beit Yosef:

1. It would seem appropriate to also wash your hands and wash out your mouth between the eating of fish to milk or vice versa. However, some are lenient and do not require this washing.

2. What is the halacha if you accidentally cooked fish and milk together? Can the food be eaten?

Rav Ovadia does not clarify this point for certain, but he does quote the שו׳׳ת אדני פז who says the food should NOT be eaten. His logic is  חמירא סכנתא מאיסורא, that danger to our lives is more strict than actual issurim. In other words, we cannot be lenient with our health. With that said, Rav Ovadia says that we need not be that strict. In addition, I heard that Rav Ovadia’s son Chacham Rav Yitzhak Yosef writes in his sefer Yalkut Yosef that the food can be eaten, seamingly because most Poskim do not really see a sakana here at all.

(Summary based on יחוה דעת חלק ו׳ סימן מח׳)