Kashrut

Hello,I accidentally dished up hot meat in a pita and placed it in a cold ceramic milk bowl. That bowl may have been used for eating hot oats out of it earlier in the day as well...I cannot tell if it is one of the bowls that were used at breakfast, then washed and put away. There was no other food in the bowl when this happened. Does that meal and the bowl now become unkosher? My understanding is that ceramic cannot be kashered again and needs to be thrown away.

Shalom, Thank you for your question. It would seem that all you need to do is wash out the bowl and then all will be kosher, including the hot meat food and the bowl. (The bowl should be washed in cold water until totally clean, after which it is kosher and may be treated as a normal milk bowl). The reasoning for this is as follows – the halachic working assumption about a vessel is that it has not been used in the last 24 hours. That is, when we are unsure as to when a vessel was used, as you are in this case with the milk bowl, then the law is that we treat it as though it had not been used in the last 24 hours. This means that no milk taste will have transferred from the bowl into your food, meaning that the food is still kosher. The bowl, on the other hand, perhaps absorbed meat taste from your food. However, in your case, it sounds as if this did not happen, for the following reason. Only food that is hotter than “yad soledet bo”, that is to hot to touch, can transfer into the bowl. In your case it sounds as if the hot food was placed inside a pita bread, which was not to hot to touch. Additionally, if the food was dished up from the cooking pot via a spoon, then into the pita, then onto the plate, it would be considered as a second (or perhaps third) vessel, which, after the fact, also does not transfer taste into the bowl. I hope this is of some help – if the situation was not as I imagined it, please get back to us. Blessings.