Why dairy on shavuot

His explanation is a bit abstruse, but it goes something like this: You eat a dairy meal, then mid-way through the Shavuot feast, the table is cleared to make way for a meat meal under the laws of kashrut, dairy can be eaten before meat, but not meat before dairy.

The meal switch requires a new loaf of bread to be put on the table. Later rabbis commented that the meal switch would not in fact necessitate a new loaf of bread, and Rabbi Isserles' explanation did not catch on in any case. Over the centuries other rabbis offered other, more plausible explanations, or if not plausible, at least interesting. Rabbi Kagan suggests that the tradition stems from Mount Sinai: when the Israelites received the Torah from Moses which according to tradition happened on Shavuot , they were instantly subject to all its laws, including those regulating ritual slaughter.

Since there was no time to prepare kosher meat before the feast, the Israelites ate a dairy meal. Confusingly, the paragraph does not mention milk.

According to one commentator, that day at Sinai was the first time the Jews ate dairy products. There is a general prohibition of "eating a limb from a live animal" ever min hachai , which logically should also include milk, the product of a live animal.

Ever min hachai is actually one of the Seven Noahide Laws which the Jews observed prior to Sinai and which has applied to all humanity since the days of Noah.

However, upon receiving the Torah, which refers to the Land of Israel as "flowing with milk and honey" Exodus , dairy products became permitted to the Jews. In other words, at the same moment that their meat became prohibited, dairy became permitted. They ate dairy on that original Shavuot, as we do today. If the Jews ate dairy for the first time at Mount Sinai, this raises the question how Abraham could have fed dairy products to his three guests Genesis The answer requires a technical understanding of the prohibition of ever min hachai , "limb from a live animal.

It is this type of ever min hachai which has always been forbidden to non-Jews. This prohibition does not include milk, which comes from a live animal but does not contain bones or sinews. Hence, Abraham was permitted to feed milk to his non-Jewish guests. There is a second, expanded definition of ever min hachai , which encompasses all products from a live animal -- including milk. It is this definition which is prohibited to Jews. Thus it was not until the giving of the Torah, with its reference to "land of milk and honey," that dairy products became permitted to Jews.

I am a vegetarian.. However my Mom lived on the lower East Side and as a young person I saw and made contact with restaurants that were Diary and though I knew little I followed well.. Learning is life long so I appreciate? We are from Sri lanka. I have learned many things through Aish. I have started to learn Hebrew.

Thank you again. Greenfield , June 6, PM. My brother moshe flam gave me the best explanation I have seen yet: On Shavuot one would begin the bikurim as is written: "that you should take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you shall bring in from thy land that hashem thy God gives you and you shalt put it in a basket and go to the place which hashem thy God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there, And you shall come to the priest that will be in those days, and say to him: 'I proclamate this day unto the hashem thy God, that I came to the land which hashem swore unto our fathers to give us.

And the priest will take the basket out of your hand, and set it down before the altar of the hashem thy God, and you will recite the following: "A wandering Aramean was my father The recipes are great. Aish's articles give reference where questions and answers can be easily foung a. I find reason 7 difficult to believe for the following reasons: 1 The bracha Yaakov gives to Yehuda is that "His eyes are red from wine and that his teeth are white from milk," indicating that he drank milk.

Unless you translate "Chachlili Einaim me'yayin u'liven shinayim me'chalav" as meaning "Eyes redder than wine and teeth whiter than milk," which is also a possible translation. One is not allowed to collect milk from an animal on Shabbos because of the issur of s'chitah.

So if the Jews only just found out on Shabbos that they were allowed to drink milk, they couldn't have drunk milk on Shavuos-- they would have had to wait until motzei Shavuos. Unless you want to say that they went and drank directly from the animal's udder-- but that seems a bit uncouth.

A simpler, yet satisfying, answer would be tradition. It is explained that when the Jewish people received the Torah at Mt. This is because there had been no prohibition against mixing milk and meat before this time nor was there any requirement to perform shechita , ritual slaughter, in order to permit eating meat.

So too, the procedure for preparing kosher meat is quite lengthy and it would have taken many hours for the Jewish people to prepare their first ever fully kosher meat meal. As such, they were left with little choice but to eat dairy meals that day. Another view is that eating both a meat and dairy meal on Shavuot serves to remind us of the shtei halechem , the two special breads that were offered in the Beit Hamikdash on Shavuot.

The Torah, once revealed, teaches us [7] that it is indeed permitted to consume dairy products. There are several reasons to follow this custom custom, not law! If you don't eat dairy, don't worry. These are a few given reasons for dairy consumption on this Yom Tov:. With the giving of the Torah, all of a sudden the laws of keeping kosher were in effect, especially separating milk and meat. However, the Torah was given on Shabbat, when it would be impossible to Kasher make kosher all the pots and pans, or cook kosher food, so they ate what was available- dairy.

Dairy is often ready to eat, and a fast way to fill up just like grabbing a yogurt out of the fridge when you're hungry, right? The Torah is the spiritual nourishment of the Jews, just like a mother gives milk to nourish a newborn baby. It Torah is necessary to grow and thrive! When the angels visited Abraham in his tent, they ate milk with meat, but in contrast, the Jews, after receiving the Torah, were strict about separating milk and meat.

What is man that You should remember him, and the son of man that You should be mindful of him?