WE HAD GUESTS during Shavuot — some Ashkenazi and some Sefardi/Mizrachi.
One question was “Why do Ashkenazim eat dairy food on Shavuot and Sefardim/Mizrachi eat meat?”
At our house it’s a moot question since we happily eat meat and dairy — albeit not at the same meal — during the holiday.
THE DAIRY, the Ashkenazi contingent surmised, is because Israel is called the “Land of milk and honey.”
Good enough, but why meat?
For Sefardim and Mizrachim, two things make a meal: meat and bread. Sans either and — well, it’s just not a complete meal. And a holiday is not a holiday without bread, meat, and wine.
On the second day of Shavuot we read (or at least hear)
And you shall buy whatever you desire, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever you desire. (Deuteronomy C14 V26)
Obviously oxen and sheep are meat, so from the Torah Sefardim and Mizrachim understand that makes a person happy includes meat. Since milk is not mentioned in the verse — and in any event can’t be consumed at the same meal — the Sefardi and Mizrachi families have meat on the table.
The same Torah portion makes it abundantly clear that if carrying the offering to the Temple from a distant location was “too difficult,” then the person making the trip could buy what was needed in Jerusalem . . . which is why there were money changers in the Temple area, just as there are money changers today at airports and sea ports.
One of the guests recalls seeing a Hasid — which sect was not specified — that would eat cheese cake wrapped in a cloth or baggie, rinse out his mouth, and immediately eat meat. Shades of Passover and gebrokts !
As with Moroccan Mimunah that — despite the raving of the rabbis — almost all Israelis celebrate, dairy on Shavuot has become a tradition for most Jews in Israel, even Sefardim and Mizrachim.
Here, we have a meat meal in the evening and a dairy lunch the following day.
The best of both worlds.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
