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Why do we have a Minhag to eat Milchigs (dairy) on Shavuos?

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4 Answers

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Seven answers from Aish HaTorah:

  1. They just got the laws of kosher slaughter and weren't yet prepared.
  2. Torah is likened to milk.
  3. Gematria of Chalav is 40 and Moshe Rabbeinu was on Har Sinai for 40 days.
  4. Because bikkurim is joined to the command to not eat meat and milk together (so eat two meals, one meat and one dairy; I had not heard this before now).
  5. An alternate name for Har Sinai is Har Gav'nunim, which is linguistically related to milk. Also, gematria of "gevina" is 70, for the 70 faces of the torah.
  6. To comemorate Moshe being nursed by his mother under Paro's nose.
  7. This may have been the first time Jews ate dairy, since some say that until the Torah explicitly permitted it, milk was considered a limb of a living animal, and forbidden under the 7 Noahide laws.
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up vote 11 down vote

And another one (Rama OC 494): the special sacrifice on Shavuot were two loaves of bread. By eating two meals, one meat one dairy, you're forced to have two separate loaves of bread (total) for them.

I believe there's another one from the Zohar about how when blood runs through the mammary glands and is converted to milk, this represents the turning from G-d's wrath (blood) to mercy (milk), which happened as the Jews accepted the Torah. (This is also neat as the Talmud says the ratio of Divine strict justice to mercy is 1:500, (based on Exodus 20:5-6); well wouldn't you know it, but according to this anatomy lecture,

On avg. 400 - 500 units of blood passes through the udder for each unit of milk synthesized by a high producing dairy cow

An interesting distinction among these answers is that according to some of them, you're just as well-off (maybe even better) eating only dairy on Shavuot (assuming ice cream makes you just as happy as steak); according to the first answer above, Alex's, and Monica/Aish #4, you should purposely have meat one meal too.

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The one you recall from the Aruch Hashulchan I recall from the Rama, perhaps incorrectly; I don't have time to look for the location now. – msh210♦ May 27 '11 at 17:47
@msh210, no I think you're right. That seemed to be one of the older, more-authoritative (if less exciting) explanations. – Shalom May 27 '11 at 18:13
@msh210, you're correct, Rama OC 294 – Shalom Jun 3 '11 at 15:04
Woops I mean 494 – Shalom Jun 3 '11 at 15:14
up vote 9 down vote

Another one: eating milk, then waiting before eating a meat meal, shows that we are more scrupulous in the laws of kashrus than the angels (who ate both at Avraham's house), and therefore we deserve to receive the Torah (as against their argument that it should be kept in heaven).

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But there is no need to wait after milk -- in fact the Magen Avraham (OH 494:3) writes that we can eat the meat in the same (!) meal as the milk on Shavuos (with a change of tablecloth and bread). And the Shach (YD 89:2) quotes the Maharshal that it is heresy to wait after dairy before meat, because it denies the explicit permission of the gemara. – Curiouser May 30 '11 at 17:15
@Curiouser: there are those who do wait an hour after milk before eating meat (and six hours for hard cheese). Even Shach there writes that אין דבריו מוכרחים - what Maharshal is saying is not necessarily something we have to accept. Also, at the very least you have to eat something (such as bread) between the milk and the meat, and as Gevulas Binyamin (cited in Taamei Haminhagim, in the linked answer) points out, the angels didn't do so. – Alex May 31 '11 at 3:55
There is no need to eat something as long as your mouth is clean (Terumas haDeshen, Tosfos, etc). And since the basic halacha is not like the view which requires waiting after milk (that is clearly a stringency, albeit a heretical one according to the Maharshal), it's hard to say this is a reason for eating milk on Shavuos (which is far more widespread a custom). – Curiouser May 31 '11 at 15:06
@Curiouser The Shach on Yorah Deah 89:16 quotes a Zohar (Mishpotim Vol 2, p.125a) that says we should not eat milk and meat in the same hour. See chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1149824/jewish/… and kollel.net.au/2/post/2011/2/meat-and-milk.html – Menachem Jun 3 '11 at 20:28
@Menachem: see the Shach before that, which I cited above. Besides which, that interpretation of the Zohar is highly questionable -- presumably it means at one time, not "within one hour" -- unless you want to say that the Zohar is arguing on the gemara? – Curiouser Jun 3 '11 at 20:39
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Along the one-dairy-meal-then-one-meat-one referenced by others: The event that took place at Matan Torah was of dual significance. While we were given the "Torah Shel Mata" (Torah for down here) its counterpart, the "Torah Shel Ma'ala", stayed up there (just like the parallels between the world down here and the world up there described in the Zohar).

The Torah is the paradigm of things a person benefits from marginally in this world, with the primary benefit awaiting him in the world to come (משנה פאה א:א). We reflect this fact by eating the marginal animal product (milk) earlier in the chag and the primary animal product (meat) later.

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