Halacha forbids partaking of milk or dairy products within six hours of eating meat. But is it also forbidden to smell dairy foods within six hours of eating meat? For example, may a person go over to fresh pie of pizza to smell it, if he had eaten meat less than six hours earlier?
Rabbi Feivel Cohen (contemporary), in his work Badei Ha'shulchan (p. 50), rules that it is forbidden to smell dairy foods within six hours of eating meat, as a precaution lest one actually eat the dairy food after smelling it.
Chacham Yishak Yosef, however, as recorded in Yalkut Yosef (Yoreh Dei'a, vol. 3, p. 355), disagrees and allows one to smell dairy products within six hours of eating meat. He draws proof from the Halacha allowing a person who had recently eaten meat to eat parve foods at the same table with people eating dairy foods. (This Halacha was discussed in an earlier edition of Daily Halacha – "Sitting with People Eating Dairy Foods, or Preparing Dairy Foods, After One Has Eaten Meat," dated August 9, 2006.) Just as Halacha allows one who has eaten meat to sit at a table where dairy foods are served, and is not concerned lest he partake of the dairy foods, so should we allow a person to smell dairy foods after eating meat. It is therefore permissible to smell dairy foods within six hours of eating eat, and we are not concerned that one might then come to partake of the dairy food.
Summary: Although one may not eat milk or dairy products within six hours of eating met, it is permissible to smell dairy products within six hours of eating meat.
