Dear Rabbi, We’ve recently celebrated Pesach, which has matzah and the Seder plate as its main symbols. And on Sukkot, we have the sukkah and the lulav and etrog as symbols. But what about Shavuot? I know there’s a custom to eat dairy foods, but I don’t really know why or how that’s a symbol for the holiday.
Sincerely, Udderly Confused

You’re right that Shavuot tends to get short shrift compared to the other major festivals. For instance, Passover and Sukkot are both a week long, whereas Shavuot is only two days, and just one day in Israel. That being said, there are some wonderful traditions associated with this
often-overlooked holiday.

Shavuot celebrates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. It also marks the early summer harvest, particularly that of wheat. And these two aspects play central roles in the various customs of the chag. But instead of expressing itself through one symbolic object, Shavuot offers a connection to the holiday through a cluster of practices.

In the Torah, just before we read about God giving the Ten Commandments at Sinai, we’re told that Moses had to lead the people from their encampment towards the Mount. The rabbis are surprised by this: how were the people not already gathered and waiting at the mountain? This was a major event and they had been advised to prepare themselves for it, so it’s odd that Moses had to get them moving.

The rabbis thought it would be best not to repeat the ill-preparedness of our ancestors, and so they decided we should stay up all night, readying ourselves to ‘receive the Torah’ at Shavuot morning services. This tradition came about in the 1600s, around the same time that coffee houses started appearing in the Ottoman Empire, and eventually England. These days, the study at night is known as a Tikkun Leil Shavuot. While there are plenty of communities that do indeed engage in learning throughout the night before holding services at dawn, at Belsize we simply go on until 10pm or so and then reconvene for services at our usual 10am start time.

Another custom that used to be more popular is decorating the synagogue, as well as our homes and businesses, with greenery in honour of the holiday. There are two primary ideas behind this practice. The first is that Shavuot is a harvest festival, and so we bring the flowers and trimmings of late Spring to the synagogue as a reminder of our ancestors bringing their first fruits to the Temple. The second reason behind this custom is likely found in the historical context of when it took root: also around 16th and 17th centuries. At that time, it was a common practice to spread fresh rushes on the floor, as when they were stepped upon, they gave off a pleasing fragrance. Not only did this act harken to the threshing of wheat, but it made the synagogue a more pleasant place to celebrate the festival. Sadly, the practice of decorating spaces with greenery largely fell out of practice in the 1800s, but at Belsize we still have a beautiful arrangement of flowers on the Bimah.

Finally, dairy on Shavuot. In my opinion, this is the most delicious and enjoyable holiday tradition. From cheesecake to blintzes, bourekas to bimuelos, Jewish communities around the world have a wide variety of dairy foods they enjoy on this festival. Some rabbis believe the origin for this practice is in the giving of the Torah: that the people had slaughtered animals in preparation for this monumental event, but once they received the Torah and the laws of Kashrut, they realised they hadn’t properly slaughtered the animals, so they simply ate what other foods they had on hand. This is a nice idea, but it struggles to be harmonised with the fact that Moses told the people to remain in a state of ritual purity for three days before receiving the Torah, and coming in contact with the blood and body of a dead animal would make people ritually impure.

There is another – more obscure – reason provided by our sages for the practice of eating dairy on Shavuot: it’s a pun. You see, rabbis love puns almost as much as they love food. And when they can’t come up with a good pun, they rely on the foods simply being symbolic. This is why we eat fried foods on Chanukah (to remind us of the miracle of the oil), bitter or salty foods on Pesach (to remind us of the bitterness of slavery), and apples with honey on Rosh Hashanah (for a sweet new year). In the case of Shavuot, we turn our attention to the place where we received the Torah: Mount Sinai.

This holy mountain actually goes by a number of different names in the Bible: Har HaElohim (the Mountain of God), Horev (desert), and Har Gavnunim (Mountain of Many Peaks). It’s this last name, Har Gavnunim, that provides the basis for the custom of eating dairy on Shavuot because Gavnunim (many peaks) sounds a lot like gavina (cheese). And so the rabbis decided it would make sense to eat dairy as a way of bringing to mind the place where we received the Torah.

And so, UC, we have three beautifully symbolic acts associated with Shavuot: learning Torah at night; decorating the synagogue with greenery; and eating dairy foods – all of which help us better connect to the main aspects of the holiday. So I invite you to join us at Belsize for Shavuot this year. Do come to our Tikkun Leil Shavuot on Thursday, 21 May, which will also include our annual ‘Great Belsize Bake-Off’, where you can bring in your own home- made cheesecake and see if it is deemed to be the community’s best!
Sincerely,
Rabbi Botnick