Let me count the ways...
WHY DO WE EAT DAIRY
ON SHAVUOT?
Many
reasons are offered for the custom of eating dairy on Shavuot:
- The Ten Commandments encompass
all 613 commandments. Thus, when the Jews returned to their tents after
the giving of the Torah, they were bound for the first time by the Torah's
dietary laws. Therefore, they could not eat meat, for they first had to
prepare a proper slaughtering knife, remove the forbidden fats from the
slaughtered meat, salt it and procure kosher cooking utensils. All this
made it necessary for them to eat dairy, rather than meat, at that time.
As a commemoration of this, we eat dairy on Shavuot (Mishnah Berurah
494:12).
- Kol Bo writes that it is
customary to eat both milk and honey to which the Torah is likened, as it
is written, "Honey and milk are under your tongue" (Song of
Songs 4:11).
- Divrei Yedidyah understands
honey and milk as an allusion to the hidden facets of Torah, which are
tastier than honey and milk but which must remain "hidden under the
tongue," i.e. imparted only to select individuals (see Chagigah 13a).
- Why is Torah likened to honey
and milk? Honey comes from a bee, which is not kosher, and milk comes from
a live animal whose meat is forbidden until the animal is slaughtered.
Both honey and milk, therefore, allude to the power of Torah which can
transform a sullied soul into one of holiness and purity (from Chag
HaShavuot published by Yad L'Achim).
- In the writings of Kabbalah,
wine and blood symbolize judgment, while water and milk symbolize
compassion. Red is also associated with sin and white with atonement, as
it is written, "Though your errors will be like scarlet, they will
become white as snow; though they will be red as crimson, they will become
like wool" (Isaiah 1:18). It is through the purifying process of the
Sefirah period that the Jewish people merit Divine compassion on Shavuot,
symbolized by the eating of dairy (Magen Avraham 494:6 citing Zohar; see
there for further explanation of this concept).
- The Talmud (Makkot 23b) states
that the 365 negative commandments correspond to the 365 days of the solar
calendar. According to Zohar, each, day of the year corresponds to a
specific commandment. As mentioned above, in Temple times, the bringing of
Bikkurim the first fruits of the seven species with which the Land of
Israel:, is blessed, began on Shavuot, and this is one reason why the
Torah calls this Festival "Day of the First Fruits." The Torah
juxtaposes, "The first of your land's early produce you shall bring
to the Temple of the Lord, your God," with, "Do not cook a kid
in its mother's milk" (Exodus 34:26), indicating that the day of
Shavuot corresponds to the prohibition requiring the separation of meat
and milk. To symbolize this, we eat dairy and then meat on Shavuot
according to the laws prescribed by halachah (Chidushei HaRim).
- As mentioned above, Moses was
rescued from the Nile River on the sixth of Sivan, the day on which
Shavuot falls. The Talmud relates how Pharaoh's daughter first brought
Moses to Egyptian wet nurses, but he would not nurse, for God did not want
the mouth that would one day communicate with Him to nurse from a non-Jew
(Sotah 12b). Pharaoh's daughter then had Moses given over to Yocheved to
be nursed, unaware that this woman was the infant's own mother. The eating
of milk foods on the sixth of Sivan commemorates this hidden miracle
(Yalkut Yitzchak).
- Man cannot live on bread alone,
nor can he survive on just water. Yet, one of the miracles of childbirth
is that a mother's milk provides her newborn with all the nourishment it
needs. In this sense, Torah is like milk, for it encompasses within it all
the sustenance that man's soul needs for spiritual vitality and growth.
Thus, the milk foods of Shavuot allude to the Torah itself (Imrei Noam).
Source: R' Shimon
Finkelman of www.innernet.org, excerpted from "SHAVUOT"
Published by
ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications Ltd., Brooklyn, NY. www.artscroll.com.
See pdf here
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