To separate meat product from dairy products is the basis of  kosher nourishment. To fully provide for a proper separation of meat and dairy Jewish law imposes a period of time between diary and meat meals, and vice-versa.

What is more, there cannot be two people who at one table  simultaneously eat diary and meat products.

To make sure that meat and dairy have no contact with each other whatsoever, the meals are served in a sufficient amount of time between one another. For orthodox Jews the time is six hours in case of dairy products to be consumed after meat ones. There are other traditions too. For example one hour of a brake for Dutch Jews or three hours in case of  German Jews. One can come across various customs such as an interval of  four hours after poultry meals, and five hours after beef meals.  There are also many ways of counting the time of waiting. For some it begins just after the last bite of meat and  for others just after the blessing.

The intervals between diary and meat products is a minimal one.  In Chullin 105a we can find a question and answer for that: “How long should people wait between cheese and meat?   And he replied: Nothing at all.” It is common to have at least a bit of  bread (just for the sake of not going into halakhic disputes) or at the bare minimum, to rinse your mouth and wash the hands.  Zohar, the fundamentalist make by Kabbalah,  states that the meat should not be eaten with milk within the same hour. There is a custom within some Chassid groups which generates from this. The custom says that people should refrain from eating meat for up to an hour after having milk. A common and well settled custom is to have a break of  full six hours between consumption of some types of cheese (Swiss cheese, parmesan) and consumption of milk.

Do you need to put down what kind of a meal you have had and at what time you had it? And what if you’ve forgotten? Well – you’re not allowed to forget but, making  a life easier for yourself is not a problem.

In the AppStore you can find two applications which will help you in obeying the right time for meals. One of them is ParveOmeter (read here) the other, new one, is  Basar Vehalav, The Kosher Reminder.

Basar Vehalav – facilitates keeping the right amount of  time between meat and dairy meals.

And how it works?  At the end of your meat meal open the app and type in your name ( in English, Hebrew or any other language that you use on your iPhone), set the timer by tapping on Settings to 6 hours, 3 hours or 1 hour. You can set the timer for up to four people. Press one or more buttons and there you go! You can use your iPhone as normal. The Basar Vehalav works in the background. When you want to eat next meal containing dairy elements, simply check if you are allowed to do so.  Switch the app again and if  chalavi (in Hebrew) comes up on a green button, with a peace of mind you can enjoy your pizza,  ice cream or cheese cake.  If a red button comes up – sadly you still have to wait.

In it general concept, the app is to be helpful in the time control between meat and dairy meals.  If you normally have a break after dairy meals (which is what I personally do) you can go ahead and use the app in the very same way. The ‘chalavi’ sign can be a bit misleading in this particular case, but I hope that this kind of corrections will be taken into account in the next updates.

Simple application with handy Help, not very complicated interface,  in a case which is pleasant to an eye.

Robert Pass (Mati Szmidt contributed to this review)

Developer’s description,  screenshots and download here.