It doesn’t seem to matter who I ask. The only thing anyone wants to tell me about Shavuot is cheesecake.
Shavuot is one of the most important festivals of the year.
But Cheesecake is all anyone knows.
So this year, I’m just going to embrace it.
We are going to take one minute to turn to our neighbour, and tell them why we eat cheesecake on Shavuot.
Go.
[The congregation managed to identify 50% of the following explanations]
There are lots of explanations for why we eat dairy on Shavuot. These are just a few:
- Agriculturally this would be a time of calving and abundance – you wouldn’t want to kill an animal at this time of year unless you had to, and so dairy would be something to celebrate.
- The gematria (numerical value) of the Hebrew word for milk-chalav, is 40, corresponding to the 40 days that Moses spent on Mount Sinai receiving Torah.
- Some say Mount Sinai is Har Gav’nunim, the mountain of majestic peaks. The Hebrew for cheese is gevina, etymologically related to Gav’nunim.
- Plus the gematria of gevina (cheese) is 70, corresponding to the “70 faces of Torah.”
- Some suggest a land flowing with milk and honey is the source.
- And if that isn’t random enough: Midrash says that when the Jewish people received the Torah at Mount Sinai, they also received the oral law, and so wanted to separate milk and meat. Rather than carry two sets of dishes around the desert, they opted to eat only dairy.
Perhaps Cheesecake is about the fact that we can rarely agree on anything in Judaism, and everything can be explained in a multitude of ways because we are all different and will read it in different ways. We might be baked cheesecake folk or lemon and lime fridge cheesecake people, or like my Michah – Biscoff lovers. Whichever our cheesecake of choice, we can join together around the same table to enjoy and debate the various benefits and boons of our winning cheesecake, without yucking every one elses yum.
So yes, Shavuot can be all about cheesecake, but let’s make sure we are stretching the metaphor and the learning as far as we can!
Chag Sameach!
