Sunday, June 8, 2008

Why Milk Foods are Eaten on Shavuot


SHAVUOT
Links to eternity;: Jewish holidays and festivals; homiletical essays by Harris L Selig


Various reasons are given for eating milk foods on Shavuot. "Ramo" (Rabbi Moses Isserles) said (494) It is everywhere the custom to eat milk foods the first day of Shavuot. "Shalah" added that it is customary to eat milk foods along with baked food made with honey, for the Torah is likened to milk and honey in the verse: Honey and Milk are beneath your tongue.

"Mishnah Berurah" says, in the name of a great sage, that the custom originated when the Jews descended from Mount Sinai after receiving the Torah and returned home, where only milk food was readily available, since meat food required too much preparation according to the law.

According to "Siftei Zaddikim", when the angels argued that the Jews were not worthy to received the Torah, God replied that they were even less worthy, for when they visited Abraham on earth, they mixed meat and milk. At this, the angels fell silent. Thanks to the question of milk and meat, therefore, the angels were refuted and the Torah was given to the Jews. Therefore, we eat milk foods on Shavuot, to show that we keep the law of milk and meat.

It is also the custom to eat three-cornered kreplach on Shavuot, because of the three-fold nature of the day, as the Talmud says: The Galilean preached before Rabbi Hisda: Blessed be the Almighty who gave a threefold Torah (Torah, Prophets, Ketuvim), to a threefold people(Priests, Levites, Israelites) to the third child Moses (Afted Aaron and Miriam) on the third day (of abstinence) in the third month (Sivan).

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