Dairy on Shavuot

(For an updated perspective on this topic, please also see my essay on Shavuot, dairy, and gratitude for food security.)

Some holiday customs are like difficult biblical texts. We've practiced them for centuries, but their origins and meaning remain obscure. We "read" them annually, even while we may not fully appreciate their significance. And, much like biblical exegesis, the effort to interpret customs (ta'ame ha-minhagim) utilizes the full range of exegetical methods, from peshat (literal exegesis) to mystical symbolism.

Eating dairy on Shavuot is an example of a near-universal practice whose meaning is very far from obvious. Indeed, when mentioned in the halakhic literature, what often follows is a strained attempt to offer at least one, but usually multiple interpretations of the custom. Given that dairy is absent from the traditional list of Shavuot themes -- first fruits, the wheat harvest, the offering of the two loaves, and the revelation on Mount Sinai -- this is not too surprising. Neither the Talmud nor the Geonim mention the custom. Compare this, for example, to the symbolic foods of Rosh Hashana, which has a Talmudic source and whose connection to the holiday is much easier to grasp.

In the words of Magen Avraham (Orah Hayyim 494:3, n. 6), "there are numerous reasons" for eating dairy on Shavuot. But few, if any, are satisfying. 

The Rema in the Shulhan Arukh provides the following explanation: 

:רמ"א או"ח תצ"ד:ג



ונוהגין בכמה מקומות לאכול מאכלי חלב ביום ראשון של שבועות ונ״ל הטעם שהוא כמו השני תבשילין שלוקחים בליל פסח זכר לפסח וזכר לחגיגה כן אוכלים מאכל חלב ואח״כ מאכל בשר וצריכין להביא עמהם ב׳ לחם על השלחן שהוא במקום המזבח ויש בזה זכרון לב׳ הלחם שהיו מקריבין ביום הבכורים

In this completely original "halakhic midrash," Rema ties the custom of eating dairy to minhat bikurim, the two loaves of wheat bread offered in the Temple on Shavuot.  When eating a dairy meal followed by a meat meal, one will presumably use two separate loaves of bread. Eating an additional dairy meal on Shavuot thus helps recall shetei ha-lehem.

If this explanation strikes you as far-fetched, you are in good company. R. Hezkiah da Silva, the seventeenth-century author of Peri Hadash on the Shulhan Arukh, dismisses it as "weak" and instead points to the Talmud's comparison of the Torah to three essential liquids -- water, wine, and milk:

פרי חדש הלכות פסח סימן תצד:

הטעם כו׳ (רמ״א): כמה טעם חלוש הוא זה !ויותר נראה לומר שאוכלים מאכל חלב משום שהוא יום שניתנה בו תורה והתורה נמשלה בו כדאמרינן בפ”ק דתענית למה נמשלו דברי תורה לג׳ משקין הללו במים וביין ובחלב כו׳ .ובכל בו בסימן נב מצאתי נהגו לאכול דבש וחלב מפני התורה שנמשלה בהם כמו שכתוב דבש וחלב החת לשונך.

The most familiar explanation, both in the minhagim literature and in the popular imagination, links the custom to the revelation at Sinai.  There are a few variations, but here is the gist: The kashrut laws received at Sinai required the Israelites to abandon their now-treif vessels and to practice vegetarianism (for a day) until their utensils could be kashered.  This explanation is cited and endorsed by R. Yisrael Meir Kagan, author of Mishnah Berurah. No doubt, a stamp of approval by the pious and widely revered sage is what made this reason so popular:

משנה ברורה הלכות פסח סימן תצד,סקי"ב:

עיין מ״א. ואני שמעתי עוד בשם גדול אחד שאמר טעם נכון לזה, כי בעת שעמדו על הר סיני וקבלו התורה [כי בעשרת הדברות נתגלה להם עי״ז כל חלקי התורה כמו שכתב רב סעדיה גאון שבעשרת הדברות כלולה כל התורה] וירדו מן ההר לביתם לא מצאו מה לאכול תיכף כ״א מאכלי חלב, כי לבשר צריך הכנה רבה לשחוט בסכין בדוק כאשר צוה ה׳ ולנקר חוטי החלב והדם ולהדיח ולמלוח ולבשל בכלים חדשים, כי הכלים שהיו להם מקודם שבישלו בהם באותו מעל״ע נאסרו להם ע״כ בחרו להם לפי שעה מאכלי חלב ואנו עושין זכר לזה 

In similar fashion to the Rema, this novel "midrash" links dairy with the revelation at Sinai, the most recognizable feature of Shavuot.  

This novel interpretation cited by Mishnah Berurah in the name of an anonymous "גדול אחד" (a certain sage) was apparently popular in early Hasidic circles.  It is recorded in Geulat Yisrael, an anthology of commentaries attributed to first and second-generation Hasidic masters, first published in 1821 (and cited in this context in Abraham Y. Sperling's Ta'ame Ha-Minhagim u-Mekore ha-Dinim, Jerusalem, 1957, p. 281).  After listing some of the prevalent reasons for eating dairy, and noting the flaws of each, the author of Geulat Yisrael offers the original interpretation later repeated by Mishnah Berurah (the relevant passage from Geulat Yisrael can be viewed here).

Though widely cited, the non-kosher-dishes theory is a relatively late explanation for a much older custom.  It's also a forced, if creative, anachronism and the Mishnah Berurah hardly had the last word on the matter. Other great and God-fearing scholars of the twentieth century were openly skeptical about the theory: Issachar Jacobson called it "tenuous" (rofef), noting that the Israelites ate manna, rather than meat, before arriving at Mt. Sinai (Netiv Bina, vol. 4, Tel Aviv, 1978, p. 154; note that Jacobson quotes Sperling and Geulat Yisrael, rather than Mishnah Berurah). Yosef Kafih reported that the dairy custom -- as justified by this reason -- perplexed Yemenite Jewry, since they believed the Israelites observed kashrut since the days of the biblical patriarchs (Halikhot Teman, Jerusalem, 1982, p. 31).  

Dairy on Shavuot appears to be medieval in origin.  Avigdor Ha-Zarefati, a Tosafist of the early thirteenth century, is so far the earliest authority we know of to mention it (Perushim u-Pesakim al Ha-Torah, Jerusalem, 1996, p. 478.  Thanks go to Marc B. Shapiro for this reference). 

The anonymous Kol Bo, authored according to current consensus by Aharon ha-Kohen of Lunel in the early fourteenth century, is one of the oldest printed sources for the custom.  The author, who also wrote the Orhot Hayyim, was exiled from France in the expulsion of 1306 and emigrated to Majorca, off the coast of northern Spain.  Kol Bo records the custom of eating both milk and honey on Shavuot: 

:ספר כלבו סימן נב

גם נהגו לאכול דבש וחלב בחג שבועות מפני התורה שנמשלה לדבש וחלב כמו שכתוב (שיר השירים ד, יא) דבש וחלב תחת לשונך

In the rabbinic allegorical reading, the phrase דבש וחלב תחת לשונך (Song of Songs 4:11) is a metaphor -- either for Torah study, or for Israel's unconditional acceptance of the Torah at Sinai.  See, for example, the passage below from Tanhuma (ed. Buber, Ki Tisa, 9):  

דבש וחלב תחת לשונך, אימתי? בשעה שאת עסוקה בתורה. ד״א דבש וחלב תחת לשונך, בשעה שעמדו לפני הר סיני ואמרו כל אשר דבר ה׳ נעשה ונשמע (שמות כד ז), באותה שעה אמר להם הקב״ה דבש וחלב תחת לשונך

Another fourteenth-century work, Tzeda La-Derekh (Warsaw, 1880, p. 215), refers both to milk and honey, and it too cites the verse above from the Song of Songs.  The author, Menahem ben Zerah, was from a family of refugees from the French expulsion of 1306, and lived in various Spanish communities.  Note that Avigdor Ha-Zarefati mentions only dairy; although it is possible, I am not suggesting that the earliest custom necessarily included both milk and honey.  But there is enough evidence to say that milk-and-honey, as a unit, was popular in parts of France and Spain during the very early history of this custom.

Taking milk and honey together, here is my own explanation:

Bikurim (first fruits) were a central biblical feature of Shavuot.  The mikra bikurim at the beginning of Parashat Ki Tavo concludes with the following words (Deut. 26:9-10):

וַיְבִאֵנוּ אֶל-הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וַיִּתֶּן-לָנוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ: וְעַתָּה הִנֵּה הֵבֵאתִי אֶת-רֵאשִׁית פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר-נָתַתָּה לִּי ה’

I don't know of any source which cites this verse in the context of the Shavuot custom, but I believe it's a natural fit.  Shavuot was the beginning of the wheat harvest and was the first opportunity on the calendar to offer first fruits in the Temple.  Shavuot is therefore the appropriate time to praise God for the land and its produce.  It is certainly possible that the expression  אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ  -- a frequent biblical motto for the Land of Israel -- gave rise to a custom of eating both milk and honey to recall Shavuot as the holiday of the first fruits of Eretz Yisrael.

We could take this idea a bit further, though we would be entering the realm of midrash.  Recall that the verses above from mikra bikurim immediately follow the verses at the core of the maggid in the Passover Haggadah.  Taking Shavuot as the final phase of Passover, one could argue that on Shavuot we complete the maggid by symbolically "reciting" the very next verse in mikra bikurim, i.e., by eating milk and honey (the Sages called Shavuot עצרת and sometimes more explicitly עצרת של פסח, i.e., the conclusion of Passover, in parallel to עצרת של חג; see Shir Ha-Shirim Rabba 7:2; Nahmanides and Seforno on Lev. 23:36).  

Note as well that the words וַיְבִאֵנוּ אֶל-הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה recall the phrase וְהֵבֵאתִי אֶתְכֶם אֶל-הָאָרֶץ (Ex. 6:8), the “fifth expression of redemption.”  The settlement and cultivation of the Land of Israel and the offering of first fruits represent the completion of the exodus.