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

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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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    I'm trying very hard to find a source for #7. The source they bring there doesn't actually mention anything about Shavuos. Can anyone give a better source?
    – Eliyahu
    May 30, 2017 at 3:31
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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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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, 2011 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, 2011 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, 2011 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, 2011 at 20:28
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    @Curiouser: The Ramah says it is good to be stringent and wait after cheese (quoting a Maharam). The problem is that the Maharshal didn't like this, understanding the Maharam's situation to be special, not meant to be a general rule. The Shach brings the Maharshal and says this doesn't make what the Rama says problematic, since the Maharshal misunderstood the Maharam (the source for being stringent), and if you read the Maharam you'll see exactly the opposite of how the Maharshal understood it. Or in other words, the Ramah says be machmir, and we don't listen to the Maharshal who disgrees.
    – Menachem
    Jun 3, 2011 at 21:42
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See Sefer יומא דעצרתא which gives 32 reasons why we eat dairy on Shavuos in the section ייני אם חלבי. Among them are:

  • (reason 18) we try to minimize our Simcha since David Hamelech died then.
  • (reason 29) through the Torah we can conquer the Yetzer Hara and reach לבי חלל בקרבי which is Rashei Teivos חלב.
  • (reason 30) the flavor of milk changes based on the food the mother ate, so too our Torah is sweeter if we act with Kedusha.
  • (reason 11) the Baysusim wanted Shavuos to always be on Sunday because they read Miamacharas Hashabbos literally, if it was on Shabbos you couldn't have milk on Shavuos because they couldn't milk on Yom Tov or Erev Yom Tov since that would be Shabbos, and the milk from Friday would have been bad without refrigeration. We eat milk to show that we could milk on Erev Yom Tov to show that Shavuos doesn't have to be on Sunday.
  • (reason 3) Taanis 7a writes that milk only lasts in humble Keilim, so too Torah only lasts in a humble person.

See more there, every reason is fully explained and sourced.

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    Nice find! Do you happen to know of an English translation?
    – Monica Cellio
    Jun 2, 2017 at 23:38
  • I don't. Somebody really should make one.
    – Eliyahu
    Jun 4, 2017 at 2:13
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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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