Here’s a thread about the delicious & beloved dairy custom on #Shavuot & some #Torah-dairy connections. Some old tweets, some new (fitting as Torah is new & old at same time), some based on sources, others random insight. Lactose-intolerant? Messages will still work for you!
One of the best known reasons for dairy on #Shavuot is that the laws of #Kosher were brand new & there wasn’t time or ability (first Shavuot was on Shabbat) to Kosherize and properly prepare meat foods. So dairy it was then, and dairy it remains to celebrate the Shavuot holiday.
This dairy reason above makes me think of students & alum who have become more religiously observant (Kosher & otherwise) than their family homes, & to preserve family harmony & respect, they seek to find areas of least conflict, solutions with least amount of tension points.
Another reason dairy foods are customary on #Shavuot is because babies (human & animal) are nourished by their mother’s milk. At Sinai, we were all newbies, all starting fresh, we were infants in our Judaism. Drinking milk (& eating dairy) reminds us of that & keeps us young!
One lesser known Halachic reason for #Shavuot dairy works for those eating 2 separate meals, dairy and (then) meat, because having two meals, each with its own bread, would represent the unique offering of Shavuot known as “The 2 Breads” which wasn’t offered on any other holiday.
Milk has to be fresh and if left out too long it goes sour. This is an important #Torah metaphor. You can’t rely on old learning or prior achievements. We can’t rest on our laurels. We have to study anew each day, we must keep it fresh!
Milk teaches us that you don’t lose by giving, on the contrary you only gain! The more baby suckles, the more milk mother produces. Sharing Torah with others won’t diminish our knowledge, it only causes us to deepen and further our own studies, we will produce even more!
Some #Shavuot dairy foods have neat #Torah metaphors. Blintzes (aka crepes) are wrapped with the filling within, much like a Torah scroll. Lasagna has layers, like the many layers of meaning beneath each verse. And sauces? Sauce is “Lachluchis” flavoring connecting binder!
Into #Gematria? The Hebrew word for milk/dairy is חלב Chalav with the numerical value of 40. Forty is a significant #Shavuot number as it represents the days Moses spent up on #MtSinai to get the #Torah (more than once actually).
The latest science says that kids need whole milk, not skim milk. In education as well, don’t skimp or dilute, give them the whole creamy richness. Here’s a Shabbos House story about the whole/skim as a life lesson: https://shabboshouse.org/mendels-messages/whole-milk-skim-shabbos-house-approach/
And we once did a whole post-#Shavuot thread on using ice-cream-cones as a luscious tasty parable for “Seder Hishtalshelut” the Kabbalistical hierarchy and descent of spiritual worlds. See this tweet thread:
This #Shavuot I realized how the Kabbalistic sequence of spiritual worlds can be visualized in an #icecream cone. See thread below (itself a reference to “hishtalshelut” chain & sequence of spiritual worlds & levels).
A little more on pasta sauces (white or red) in a #Shavuot #Torah lens: The right viscosity is crucial for a good sauce. You want it to stick to the noodles & not slip off, but not too dense or intense to become the primary focus. Like #Rebbe’s #MtSinai balance of Har & Sinai.