Milky Food on Shavuot by Rabbi Anthony Manning

Good morning, everybody. Welcome. It's good to see you all. And I'd like to ask you, please, if you don't mind to turn off your cell phones. Also, I'd like to thank the sponsor for the sheer the sheer and for 2024 have been sponsored anonymously by by an anonymous donor, obviously. It was brought about branded and Zelig Ben Kalman and Brocha. We're very grateful for that. Now, one of the things that I don't know how good your memories are, but I think I promised you last year before Shavuot, which we never got round to, or maybe it was 2 years ago, is we would have a sheer dealing with issues of dairy on Shavuot. We've never done this before. I don't think it's the most important topic in the world, I agree, but it's one that's always interested me and the more when I looked into it, I think we'll find that what's going on below the surface is something even more interesting, which is not just the relationship with milky foods, dairy foods, but a relationship with the mitzvah of basar b'chalav. And there are sources that we're going to see which are quite surprising, which underpin what seems like a very innocuous mitzvah, and one that makes a lot of money for Tnuva, I suspect, which I don't begrudge them at all. I'm in good luck to them. But nevertheless, we'll see that it actually brings in the concepts of minhag as well. What is minhag? How does minhag work? And maybe we'll after Shavuot, we'll spend a little bit of time refocusing on that issue of minhag, which we haven't talked about for a long time, not this one specifically, but other ones. So, as you well know, there are widespread customs to eat milky on Shavuot. I'm not really part of this. I'm lactose intolerant, like most of the world is lactose intolerant, but we'll get back to that in a minute. Some people have a milky meal in the in the evening and and a meat in the morning. This I brought you was a minhag of many of the Russia Yeshiva, the Chazon Ish, the Steipler Gaon, Rav Aaron Kotler, and others, was to have milk at night, meat at lunch. Others do it the other way round. The minhag in the Yeshivas in Europe, in Volozhin, they used to have a milk kiddush on Shavuos morning at the Netziv's house. In Lomza in the yeshiva, they used to have a milk kiddush and they used to have meat meals. Um that's the minhag and many chassidim do that. Um as for the issue of eating meats on yom tov, this is not really the focus for today, but it's really not that complicated. Um everybody agrees that there is a mitzvah, specifically for men, I'd say, but maybe for everybody, um to eat um meats on yom tov, but there's not necessarily an obligation to eat meats on yom tov. And even though there is a mitzvah, we'll see that the minhag can often override the ideal performance of the mitzvah and make the less ideal one into a more l'chatchila option. We'll see that um uh that's uh system in work in a minute. So, okay, let's let's look at the earliest origins. Now, what's actually very interesting here is that this seems to be an Ashkenazi medieval minhag. There is no hints in the Torah, well, that's not true. There are hints. There is no explicit reference in the Torah for anything to do with milk on Shavuot. I mean, there's no explicit reference in the Torah that Shavuot, the festival of Shavuot, is the time that the Torah was given. It's not It's not called zman matan Torah seynu by the Torah, it's called that by Chazal. That's a different shiur and there's a lot to say about that. But and there's no reference in Chazal either. In the in the writings of the Talmud and the Midrashim, there's no reference to eating dairy foods on Shavuos. It really starts in the uh 11th, 12th centuries in Ashkenaz. There could be a few reasons for that. So, the the maybe the more prosaic reasons um are that they had a lot of cattle um and the the summer is the time when many of the calves are being weaned off the milk that they've been drinking. The calves are calving in March and April and by June, they're coming off the milk and therefore there's just a lot of milk around. A lot of cows, a lot of goats, a lot of milk around. That could be one of the opportunities to give thanks for that. Um but also, and I can't prove this in any way, the uh genetic mosaic mutation which enabled people to be lactose tolerant was in Europe, not in the Middle East. 99% of Chinese people are lactose intolerant because almost all people are meant to be lactose intolerant cuz all mammals are lactose intolerant. Once they have weaned off their mother's milk, they can't digest milk anymore. Why would they need to drink milk? It's a genetic mutation that human beings can drink milk, and Europe was the place where this mutation happened, not in the time of the Rashba, but before. So, it could be that one of the reasons that the Ashkenazim got into eating cheese and drinking milk on Shavuos is because they were the ones that were able to digest it. I cannot prove that. That could be nonsense, but it's uh but it's a thought that you may want to think about, and uh let me know if you feel that that's correct or not. But, the actual recorded minhag, let's look at number one. Some of these uh sources are quite obs- cure, and I wasn't able to actually find the Hebrew for them. Some of them um didn't appear Many of them didn't appear on my uh resources, but let's start with number one. My father saw This is from the Rokeach. The Rokeach is a uh German rishon from the uh 13th century, and he says as follows, "My father saw regarding his uncle." So, that's three generations back or two from him, Rabbeinu Menachem, that on the holiday of Atzeret, Shavuos, he would eat cheese before meat. That's the point. He would have cheese, and then he would have meat, and he would wipe out his mouth with bread dipped in wine that he ate, and he didn't wait between them. Now, that's really the key. That's what people don't realize. How much do you have to wait between milk and meat, or for that matter, between meat and milk? So, the first testimony we have here is he ate uh milchigs, he did a you know, brief wipe out of his mouth. It doesn't say whether he a brachah acharonah, and then he went on and he had his meat meal. So, we're going to go back to that idea of meat or cheese. He had cheese here, which is interesting because what kind of cheese was he eating? Was it hard cheese? Was it soft cheese? Um we're going to come back to that soon. But actually, one of the main minhagim that we see in the Rishonim is to eat honey on Shavuot. I don't know, do people still still eat honey on Shavuot? Or honey has been pushed to Rosh Hashanah. Because honey on Shavuot, we'll see, was one of the big things. And it comes from a pasuk number two, Shir Hashirim. Nofet titofnah That your lips, says Shir Hashirim, will drip honeycomb. And then here's the famous pasuk, dvash v'chalav tachas l'shonech. Dvash v'chalav. It's on Shavuot, it's not milk and honey, it's honey and milk. Dvash v'chalav tachas l'shonech. What's that got to do with Shavuot? So, look at the midrash. And this is already in the classic sources. Number three. Nofet Eimasai, when is this referring to? B'sha um she at oseketh b'Torah. When you're learning Torah, the Torah that's dripping from your lips is like honey and milk dripping from your lips. Davar acher, they quote this pasuk, it's b'sha she amdu lifnei Har Sinai. When they stood at Har Sinai, v'amru kol asher dibber Hashem na'aseh v'nishmah. When they said those words na'aseh v'nishmah, b'oto sha'ah amar lahem Hakadosh Baruchu, that's the point in which Hashem, as it were, says to them, dvash v'chalav tachas l'shonech. Davar acher, alternatively, amar lahem Hakadosh Baruchu, "Kach chavavtem es haTorah?" You were so excited to get the Torah, na'aseh v'nishmah? Chayeichem, by your life, shehi netunah lachem b'matanah. It's free. Ah, the Jews are always in for a bargain. It's a free Torah. I'll take two. Torah sheb'ichtav and Torah sheb'al peh. Okay? So, this dvash v'chalav is connected with na'aseh v'nishmah. And I actually saw a a very interesting from a good friend of mine Alan Haber and he says he he suggests that is a different kind of sweet to milk honey is a very kind of immediate high it's a very striking sweetness is one kind of love it's the passionate love of between the lover and the Beloved and maybe that's Shavuot which is the the the this will do it we don't care what it is we'll do it we love you we're in we're committed and then the is maybe the milk which is more nourishing the sweetness is a different kind of sweetness it's more the love between Ruth and Boaz it's not a young people's passionate love it's two older people doing the right thing connecting with each other cuz they forget they are both people who are they're not young lovers they're older people and that's maybe the neshama which is that our relationship is not just going to be a passionate in the moment but it's going to be a long-term nourishing relationship it could be that's part of what's going on here and and I brought you a source in number four from from a safer which I really hadn't really come across called the hot medium which is I brought you in the in the footnotes here who this is of Jacob Anatoly from Provence in the 13th century and he says even the practices that were innovated after the Torah come to complete this intent he's talking about Minhag such as our practice on this holiday to eat honey and milk in that order to be mindful of the acceptance of the Torah which is compared to milk and honey because it is known that milk is the food of children due to that delicate nature and in parallel comes the Torah with active mitzvahs which is the food for the soul of the many and my wife said to me actually when I told her I was doing a share about honey and milk first she said you mean milk and honey and I said no honey and milk cuz she said well isn't milk and honey with in the Torah is maybe not even milk and honey at all color maybe white wine we had a whole share on milk a while ago could be the color of is talking about white wine cuz Israel is not so known for its milk. Actually, there weren't even any cows. Today it is because we have a, you know, Correct. And we have high-tech cows here as well. Um many years ago the Israeli or, you know, agriculture industry developed um machines that mold themselves to the exact shape of the cow's udders. Normally, when you stick a machine on a cow, so it is what it is and I'm sure it's not that pleasant. I've never been in that situation myself, but I imagine it's not that great and the cow does what the cow does. But in Israel now, many of the cows have a chip. They have a computer chip. As they approach the machine, it adjusts the contours of the milking machine to fit the exact udders of the cow. And when the cow starts to give milk, it's it's that kind of like wonderful feeling and therefore you get more milk, happier milk, happy cows, etc. Um but halav u dvash in the Torah could be white wine and date honey. The dvash is date honey. But this dvash is bee honey. It's honey honey. Go over the page to page two. The Kol Bo. And you know, some of these are a little bit repetitive, but you'll see they all have a slightly different angle. The Kol Bo and the Kol Bo is a is an selection, a collection of Ashkenazi minhagim put together by Rabbi Aaron ben Jacob of Narbonne in 14th century Spain. Also wrote the Orhot Tsaddikim as follows. Number five. Gam nagula ehol dvash v'halav b'hag Shavuot. We also eat milk honey and milk on Shavuot. Mipnei haTorah she nimshala dvash v'halav because of the Torah which is compared to honey and milk. K'moshe kasuv dvash v'halav tahat l'shana. So you see this is this is resonating through the through the Rishonim. I brought you in the footnote that the the Orhot Tsaddikim, which was the other safer written by the Kol Bo, actually makes another mention, which is that the women used to bake challahs with four heads. We'll see what that's about in a minute. What's a challah with four heads? Because of the lechem apanim. We'll see what the connection is, too, but we'll see what those challahs are coming quite soon. The Maram of Rothenburg, classic Ashkenazi Germany, 13th century, number six. Nagula achal b'chol minim achalim u'tzukim. We eat many sweet foods on Shavuot, not just honey, but k'gain chalav u'dvash mishum dvash v'chalav tachas l'shonech v'nidrash matan Torah. And even to the point where this was parodied, Kalonymus ben Kalonymus. Now, again, I I enjoyed researching this year because I got to meet lots of people that I didn't know very much. Who is Kalonymus ben Kalonymus? Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, I brought you in the footnote again, 13th-14th century Provence, put together an enormous poem called the Even Bochan. And in poetry, he sets out lots of the minhagim at the time, and he writes there the number seven, the Jewish people craved after milk and honey like bears and lions. He who doesn't have milk and honey pawns his utensils for slices of cheese and fine flour. People are so into their cheese. So, people say to me, "Oh, Tnuva made the whole thing up." Not true. It's not true. People used to be crazy about cheese. And by the way, they still are. My daughter found English cheddar cheese in Osher Ad in Petach Tikvah, cheaper than she could buy it in England. And you should have seen our family WhatsApp group. It was almost as if, you know, the mashiach was arriving. So, people still get excited about cheese. Until they bake strange bread. Now, this is also connected with the idea that if you bake milchik bread, you need to make it into a strange shape. That's a halacha. That's why the burekas in this country are square if they're potato and triangle if they're cheese because there's a halacha that you have to make cheese if you make milchik bread or pastries, they have to look different. Hence the four-headed challah we'll see, which was not just a challah, but was a challah baked with butter. It was a brioche. It was a meaning we we if you weren't hungry when you came into the share, you'll be hungry when you leave. And on the strange bread they have and upon them challahs of honey and cherries. Interesting. Cherry harvest in Israel right now as well. We had a lot of cherries last Shabbat. A ladder standing on the ground and its head reaching the heaven. And this is the four-headed challah. Like a ladder, they baked meaning I don't think there's any real source for shlissel challah after Pesach, but there's a good source for sulam challah challah. And they say that sulam, a ladder, sulam in gematria or 130 is equivalent to Sinai, which it is. You can check that. And they also say that the number 613 hints at dvash chalav kimcha d'asmida, which is honey, milk, and fine flour, which in gematria is 614. They said except the gematria is off by one. Now, I did actually research this little bit because there is an idea I brought you in the footnotes of Bnei Yissachar that says the sources to one of the sources that you can have gematria off by one is because Yaakov says that Ephraim and Menashe will be to me the equivalent of Reuven and Shimon. And I must confess I didn't have time to check, but apparently Ephraim and Menashe are the same as Reuven and Shimon except they're just off by one. Ephraim and Menashe is to 726 and Reuven and Shimon is 725. Again, please check it. I didn't. And but that apparently that's where this idea comes from that if you're off by one or one of the reasons, maybe there are deeper reasons. What's actually under the surface, which is not for today specifically, but one of the other things that the Even Bochan Bochen is is famous, maybe infamous for, is in the middle of his massive poem he has a couple of stanzas about he how he wishes he'd been born a woman. And he writes that he says to God every day that he he's a man anatomically, but he wishes it could be taken away. And and every morning when he says shall I say he says it with a whisper because he feels that for him it's it's a which is fascinating. Is it is that parody on some kind is that true? Is that how he felt? You can go away and research that. If you Google that you'll get some interesting hits by the way, but I'm just saying that What's that? I don't believe he does. I brought you a reference. There's a beautiful book actually by a fellow called Peter Cole. I heard about him on a podcast who translated into English in very he's a literature person in very beautiful English many of the medieval poems that weren't translated. A lot of and he translates this one. It's a book called the dream of the poem. You can look at that and if you like reading nice poetry which is also medieval Hebrew poetry translated well. So that's an example. Okay, I'll let me leave that aside issue of whether he wanted or didn't want to be a woman. The idea of honey is still mentioned in the Mishna Berurah. He says some people still have honey. But I don't think they do anymore. But we might have some honey on Shavuot just just to say that we part of that minhag. However, what's even more interesting I think is number eight. Because there was another minhag which we'll see connects with Shavuot which we also don't do now which which I think is making a little bit of a comeback in Hasidic circles which is as follows. Look at number eight. And I brought this from the Machzor Vitry. The Machzor Vitry is a very old very authentic Ashkenazi record from a Simcha Vitry of minhagim of Ashkenaz from the 11th 12th centuries from the time of Rashi. Having said which there are different manuscripts of the Machzor Vitry and they don't all have the same nusach and we'll see you can still look at the footnotes for that. But look at number eight. When a bringing his son into learning Torah and the Talmud Torah they write They write aleph-bet for a small child we're talking about four, three, four on a on a on a tablet. They give him a proper wash and they dress him up in beautiful clothes, clean clothes. They cook him three challahs of fine flour and honey, honey challahs. And a young woman will see why in a minute has to make these challahs. They make him three eggs. We bring him apples. By the way, apples can be the word for any round fruit. That's why in Hebrew and by the way in many other languages apple pomme de terre apple apple zahav. There's no word for an orange it's just a golden apple. Apple zahav. Anyway, we bring him fine fruits. We find a we find a important he brings him wrapped up to the school. And they put him under his wing as it were. They carry him to wrapped up in the blankets to the we give him challahs they give him the beautiful challahs with honey. We feed him the eggs. It's always food. Jews have always connected to their kids with food. They make him read the letters. They make him read the letters. They cover the letters with honey. They tell him and they say to him lick. By the way, it's quite possible that the origin of the Yiddish word lekhach which when I was growing up lekhach was always honey cake is lekhach it's to lick. Okay? It could be that's the origin. They could be the same halacha. We must see the moisture in him after we wash him and wrap him up again and then send him back to his mother. So, when you initially start learning with a kid, you you you give him incentivizations. But then you have to give him a bit of a stick as well to get him to actually buckle down. We're getting into that now. You start him off with Vayikra. It's very interesting. You teach him how to shuckle. So interesting. You teach him how to shuckle. I just found this was I just wanted to read this piece out in full because it was And by the way, it's not full because a lot of it I took out. But then let's have a look at why. Why all these strange men hugging? Because basically it's as if we brought this child to Har Sinai. So, we wrap him up and we lift him up. This is but Moshe said that's what we saw with the Jewish people at Sinai. brings the people in the mountain and he covers them up with the mountain. They're kind of swaddled in the mountain. Why do we write the letters on a on a on a tablet, not just on a piece of paper? Cuz your heart is like a tablet. It says it says in Mishlei Write them on the tablets of your heart. They're fixed in your mind. Why do we wash him and dress him up so nicely? at Sinai when they gave the Torah. They have to dress up beautifully for Matan Torah. Why three challahs? Three challahs, three eggs. Okay? Who my healing with all wine? They can actually do this and do the behind me so they got these three beautiful gifts in the in the back desert the these are there these are the ones the bear the man and the slave. The llama lotion the color with wash and why do we make the colors with milk again milk colors? They make the colors with milk. We can wash we they they suckled honey from the rock. We make sure we have a fight. Why do we give it to a young girl? This is actually fascinating to to need the color. The when the tower was given they were particular. They didn't want anybody to be Tommy. From having had a sexual relationship so we give it to a young girl who has never been married. These are all residents of the of the men of Sinai. She hit a horror. Maybe even a girl before puberty who is not even a Nita. Make colors for the little boy. By the way it was quite common in some circles up until the Middle Ages that people ate their regular food as if it was to hold like trauma or coaching meaning they wouldn't have anyone who was not to hold in a locker touch the food. That's just an interesting side side issue. And then he says the color color llama. She can do this and we want everybody to do this to to learn to etc. The llama llama to take us enough why does the lift him up? Because we want to give him in a way which is a new way. That's why he's wrapped up. The Derek and and humble. She can do this and the tower. What do we find when the Torah was given? I love this Torah especially since I just wrote a book about Sneasel. Okay, shall I say we don't want to do things too publicly. So everyone can see them. Shall I we don't want on things. I'll show we don't want people to damage them. She came to official we showed us this very famous word. The original we know we given in great pomp and circumstance. Pomp and God of broken horns blowing lights flashing Lumia. The angels became jealous and we'll come back to the angels soon. And then there was a Satan. It's interesting linking these two ideas. The verses of the nation of Lucas and he caused everybody to go off and the Lucas were destroyed. Have a Lucas you need to but the second Lucas was given very quietly. They are the ones that lasted forever. Here's a nice thing at the end. You can remember this as to what to say to a young boy when he starts learning. The name of the Dawson and if you go to that meal. For that little boy who's licking off the honey. You have you have to give him a special brocha. The what do you say? God may light up your eyes in his Torah. Just like we say when he gets his Mila. Now, if you want by the way to see a very beautiful. Rendition production of that go to Rabbi Wine's Rashi movie. Do you remember do you remember Rabbi Wine's Rashi movie? No. 1990s experience. In the 1990s Rabbi Berel Wein wrote made a beautiful animated movie about the life of Rashi. And it won awards like real awards, not like Jewish awards, but like animation, best animation, best original soundtrack. Uh, it was very very was beautifully done. They used period instruments from the from the High Middle Ages. They wrote an original soundtrack, and they even took uh the face of Rashi, they morphed it from three descendants of Rashi. Uh, I think it was Rabbi Cherebi, um Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky, and one other, I can't remember who it was. Um, anyway, you should definitely watch the movie. Uh, it's on YouTube. You can just just Google it. Uh, it's called Rashi, A Light After the Dark Ages. It's about 45 minutes. You'll have a better day if you watch that movie, and you'll have a nicer Mincha afterwards. And I brought you at minute 36:33, he has a 5-minute or four or 5-minute rendition of this ceremony, which he reproduces A Light A- It's in the It's in the footnotes. A Light After the Dark Ages. Anyway, I just thought I'd bring you this. I remembered in my mind that I'd seen this somewhere. I remembered it was in the Rashi movie. I found the the the minute of the movie, and and that you should go and have a look at that. That Rashi movie, by the way, is very interesting because Rabbi Wine, as a Talmud Chacham, wrote the script and puts into Rashi's mouth lots of the things that he's thinking about and talking about. One of the scenes in that Rashi movie is where Rashi only had daughters, obviously. He had either two daughters or three daughters. He brings down the daughters there, and he's learning Gemara with the daughters. Now, we know that Rashi's daughters were talmidos chachamim. We know We know that we they didn't wear tzitzit. That's just fake news. But, he has them learning Gemara with their father, and they ask him in the middle of that scene, they said uh they say, "Dad," or "Abba," I can't remember what they used "Père, mon père." Um, uh, "if you'd had sons, would you still have taught us Torah on this level?" And Rashi looks at them and says, "You know, I don't know. That's a good question." That's Rabbi Wine's comment on women learning Gemara, uh, which is actually very interesting. So, whatever. So, I brought you that so you could see um that with there was the whole honey and milk and milk and challah. What's that got to do with us? Look in number nine, the Rokeach, very quickly, the Rokeach picks up this minhag and he says, number nine, "Minhag avoseinu she moshivin hatinokos leil moed be Shavuos." Which day did they do this with a little boy? They did it on Shavuos. "Lefishani ba'al Torah remez shem Hashem hanar shelo yani." He brings all the different minhagim that we saw, I cut them all, I didn't want to read them all again. He also brings another one there that they used to write, they used to take an egg, uh hard boil it, maybe these were the three eggs that the Maxovich was talking about, shell it, and then write on the egg, on the white of the egg, a pasuk. Used to write a pasuk on the egg. And they used to write the pasuk from Yechezkel, I brought you in the middle there, "Vayomer Elai ben Adam bitna'cha el umaya temalei." Eat up this Torah, eat up this megillah, "Et hamigillah hazos asher ani nosen alecha." Eat up the megillah, he says to Yechezkel. "Ve'ochalta hi pipi kvash umatok." And it'll be it'll be so much part of you, it'll be like honey coming out of your mouth. And they mamash got the little egg, they wrote on it the pasuk, they got the kid to eat the pasuk. It's like very very interesting. And where where exactly these minhagim went, that's that's a good question. In fact, there are some people that have tried to bring this back at the upsherin. Ach, there's some chasidim at the upsherin, they they do this with the kid, with the licking, etc. But the old Litvaks amongst us still are resistant to doing an upsherin bechlal because like, you know, that's it's funny, my uh my my own children, we all were from a Litvish background, we didn't do an upsherin for our son. So, um my son, who's very much part of that, you know, he hasn't had a little boy yet, so we'll have to see, but I don't think he's going to do an upsherin if he has one. Um but my daughter, who married an Israeli, also Litvish but Israeli, she didn't do an upsherin, but for some reason they never cut his hair until he was three. And she kept telling me, "He's not growing his hair for an upsherin day, he's not, he's not." He just happened to have a haircut when he was three. Okay, fine. But maybe they did. Now, enough of that. Now we have to go to fluden. Do you remember fluden? Fluden? Can you a fluden person? So, what's fluden? Fluden is a kind of cake. But it's a very special kind of cake. Now, I remember in I haven't had it since I made aliyah, but fluden we used to have was more like apple in the middle and chocolate on top. But for the Rishonim, fluden was highly resonant. It was resonant of milchigs and shvuos. Have a look here, number number 10. Says the uh here, to me anyway, one of the Perushim on the Torah and I put down in the in the footnotes here who he was, one of the Ba'alei Tosfos. He says as follows, number 10. The world asks why we eat bluden or bladen, a cheese pastry on shvuos, and it seems that there's a hint in the Torah. What's the hint in the Torah? Here's a pasuk about shvuos. "U ve yom habikurim behakrivchem mincha chadasha laHashem beshvuoseichem." Chet, lamed, bet, shvuos. Chalav, shvuos. This is an abbreviation of milk and shvuos. But why fluden? I don't know, he says. What's it got to do with fluden? But now you'll see. Rabbi Yaakov Merlin, again very the real very important for Ashkenazim, in number 11. It is if it's on the yom tov for shvuos, for them this the custom that they make a large fladen, which is fluden, and they call it Sinai. An enormous cake that they used to bring in, a big fluden cake, which they used to call Sinai. Again, a milchig cake. Number 12. "Beshvuos ochlin chalav." This is already this is the the the Sefer Minhagim, again one of the less known Rishonim. "Beshvuos ochlin chalav, vezacher ramaz letamei she'ne'emar." And he brings this pasuk, "Mincha chadasha laHashem beshvuoseichem." Roshei teivos chalav. "Vetzarich le'echol gam basar." But you have to remember to have fleishigs, "ki ein simcha belo basar." Because you have to have fleishigs on Yontiff, but people didn't want to give up on their fluden and I'll tell you why in a minute. Number 13, the the Lekach Yosha, he brings as follows. 15th century Bavaria, "Beyond Rishon Shavuos on the first day of Shavuos, oichel fluden, you have to eat fluden, v'dagim hametuganim b'cheima." And you have to have fried fish fried in butter. I don't recall whether my grandmother ever fried anything in butter. She seemed to make everything with schmaltz, obviously not milk eggs, but everything with schmaltz. There was schmaltz coming out of the walls, it seems. "Dagim fried with butter, the acher kach haya oseh hadacha, but then you give it wash up your yad, if you wash up your mouth, you wash your hands or a piv or or meisim etzba'osav letach piv." And you put your fingers in your mouth kedei lahadicha yafa to give your mouth a good wipe out. I'm not recommending this necessarily for hygiene purposes. "The acher kach oseh kinuch acher basar tli." And then you have you know, a bit of bread or something and then you have to have your meat. But very interesting, what didn't happen? They didn't wait. There's no bracha and there's no waiting. They just had this beautiful fluden and they had the fried fish in butter, then they gave their mouth out of a wash and they gave it a little they flossed a little bit with their finger, if that's what you do, and then they immediately had basar. And what actually where that comes into the Shulchan Aruch is in a minag that we once did in our house, but it was a bit of a balagan and therefore we didn't do it again, which is the minag that the Remah brings down. Why are we doing all this milky kanyon tiff? And he says really what it's for is to engineer a situation of shtei halechem. The shtei halechem is the special korban on Shavuos. Look at number 14. "Usfartem lachem mimacharas hashabbat." Some people think that verse ends "Hinei ne'im u'machon umzuman." But it doesn't, okay? "Usfartem lachem mimacharas hashabbat miyom haviachem et omer hatnufa." You count from bringing the omer which is barley on Pesach. "Sheva shabbatot t'mimot tihiyenah." Seven complete weeks. "Ad bimacharas hashabbat" until the day the shabbat the seventh week. This week you can 50 days they can you bring a new you must have the end of the you have to bring it from Israel to new for like him to new for you have to it's waved offering Stein there's two loaves of bread Schnee select you have to bake them as because and they called become him and therefore the the the resonance on Shavuot is the stay home again. What are we doing on Shavuot to put this stay home again into our minds and the answer is eating milk cakes. Why? Here's the number 15. The night game becomes the minute the in many places is beyond the we eat milk cakes on the first day of Shavuot. The nearly had time and I want to suggest a reason is she will come snake the way you can pass it's like the two cooked dishes on the plate. On say the night say and say we have these two bones or whatever we have a roast egg and a bone say can so do we eat milk cakes the other so and then we eat flesh cakes but we have to therefore we have to bring a new color. I'll we have to bring a new color to the table so you become a bear the table is the and now that we've had we've made a motzi with two colors for the milk cakes side and now what we do is we eat flesh cakes we have to bring a new color. Why do we have to bring a new color? Because the first color is milk cake. Why is the first color milk cake? Because you either cuz you ate the slices with milk and the cut if you have sliced bread you can't go from one make a the other way around or we'll see in the mission of Berurah, this color is milk cake because they baked the challah milkig. That's the whole point. They baked it milkig, and therefore now you bring a fresh challah, a new challah, for the for the fleishigs. The Yesh Besa Zikaron HaBayis HaLechem Shai Makrivin B'Yom HaKippurim. And below become Yom HaBikurim, excuse me. And I brought a few selected Mishnah Berurahs here. And if you look in number 16, let me pick out the one I wanted to to read with you. Um ba ba ba bam. Look look at Tzaddik Vav, Bais Lechem, it says. Or the chain in the third fourth line of number 16. Or the chain nagoo la'afos lechem echad im chema. And dafke we have to bake the challah with with with butter. It's like patisserie. The Az B'Vadai it's tzarech l'havi lechem acher l'echol im ha'basar. What about benching? Do you bench in between them? And here he says something interesting. Uh Al Shulchan Aruch Tzaddik Zayin here, he says, "V'Zalicha mapa acheres." You have to change the cloth. K'she'hu rotzeh l'echol basar, when you move on to the fleishigs. "V'ein lo tzarech l'hafsek Birkas Hamazon." But you don't actually have to bench. And that is quite strange. Im ein lo achlich g'vina, that's as long as you didn't eat g'vina kasha. If you ate hard cheese, "Al y'dei kinuach peh v'yadaim." If you ate hard cheese, then you might have to wait, obviously, depending on how long you wait for meat. But he says as long as you didn't eat cheese, you have milkigs, clean your mouth, change the table cloth, wash your hands, bring out a new challah. Obviously, you don't need to make hamotzi again. And and and then you have fleishigs. But what you've basically just done is had milkigs and fleishigs in one meal. Which is something that we just don't do. But because it's Shavuos, it seems that we do. And you'll see here there is a series of unusual leniencies that crept into Shavuos for an interesting reason that we'll find out about. And in fact, the Mishnah Berurah is so worried about this, he says in the last bit of the Mishnah Berurah, he says, "Zikaron HaBayis HaLechem." V'ein kein yesh l'chitin, you should make sure you have wheat bread on Shavuos by the way if you if you happen to like uh spelt or oat bread, Shavuos is maybe a day to go for the wheat bread. But then he brings the Prima Ganim Yesh Lish Inyan Machalei Basar V'Chalav B'Chol Mash'chin B'Chol Hashanah. But don't start taking liberties. Don't start being lenient in a way that you're not during the meal even though he said not to binge. U'Sh'lo Latzes S'charam B'Hefsedam because then you lose more than you gain because you'll end up being fast and loose with milchigs and fleishigs. Now, where else do we find this? So, we don't really have these shailos today because we don't milk our cows on Yom Tov. I actually asked my great grandmother who grew up in a shtetl in Lithuania what her first memory was when she was a small child. And she said her first memory was uh when she asked her mother for some milk and she took her outside and they milked the cow into a cup and she gave her the milk from the cow which is very interesting. Of course, it wasn't pasteurized but she still made made it to 97 years old baruch Hashem. Um but uh it's interesting. I also asked her, you know, what other memories she has. She says, "I remember my father died when I was a uh young and I went to shul to say kaddish." Drops his cup in amazement. I was like, "Whoa, whoa." Like like whoa. I didn't need to spend that reaction. So, I said to her she was already very old and I said, "You mean you mean Yiska?" She said to me, "No, I mean kaddish." And I looked at my wife and I said, "Oh, she's already like a bit forgetful." She was in her mid-90s. And later I found I spoke to one of my uh colleagues Rabbi Yitzchak Shurin whose father came from the same um village Rittova in Lithuania and he said it was well known that the women said kaddish. That was a thing that was known in Rittova the women said kaddish. If they need to say kaddish, so I guess my great grandmother had uh you know, more lucidity than I than I gave her at the time. So, what else did they do? So, look at number 17. What if you need milk on Yom Tov? Can you milk the cow on Yom Tov? The answer is no. You can't milk a the on Yom Tov. Can you get the non-Jewish maid or servant or whatever to milk the cow on Yom Tov? Look in number 17. The Aina Yehudi, a non-Jew, a life behima be Yom Tov, who milk the cow on Yom Tov, the Yisrael Aihu, and it's kind of Yisrael because you're supervising the milk. Yesh la hakel, there are lenient opinions, ach naguba isa, but we we we don't follow them, the ain lishanais, and don't change that. We don't drink milk on first day Yom Tov if the non-Jew milk it on Yom Tov. You could drink it on second day Yom Tov. But you can't drink it on first day Yom Tov. And you certainly can't drink it if it was milked on Shabbos. So, comes along the Maharshal of Luria, who, you know, in my limited experience, tends to be quite a machmir on many things, even on milk and meat. For example, the Remah brings down, how long do Ashkenazim wait between milk and meat? And he says, "Originally, we didn't used to wait at all. We just used to have it in a different meal. Then we used to wait 1 hour. And now it's good to be machmir to wait 6 hours." And the Maharshal said, "Everybody has to wait 6 hours. If you don't wait 6 hours, this is one of the reasons why Ashkenazim are always down on people like me who wait 3 hours, and they, you know, they kind of give me grief, and they say there's no source." And the Maharshal, Luria, says, "If you don't wait 6 hours, you don't have any rayach of Torah, etc." I've got I've taken a lot of heat for keeping 3 hours, okay? I'm a Western European, I keep 3 hours. And but here the Maharshal has a very interesting shaila. Number 18. We're I'm not going to read the whole thing, but look at that the way he phrases it. Shaila. Shaila. Here's the question. Chalav shechalva agoya be Shabbos. Chalav which was milked by the milkmaid on Shabbos or be Yom Tov or on Yom Tov. Ee shari lasois mimeno fluden. I've got to have my fluden. That's what he says. Be chag hashvuos olo. And just the way he It's not like if if if they happen to make you don't take a Jew away from his fluden on Sha- on Shavuos. It's a big thing. And he goes through back and forth and back and forth. And eventually, you know, he says, "You know something? Shabbat's definitely not. But yontif, you can be makel. You got to have your fluden. You can be makel. You can the non-Jew can milk the cow and you can eat the fluden. Very interesting. Of course, they baked it on yontif because you can bake on yontif. That's not a shaila. But he brings that down. You can read the shaila in your own time. Um and this this caused something of a stir. Um we'll see in a minute where that comes from. But let's look at a couple of other sources before we get into I want to tell you 16 different reasons why 17, excuse me, why maybe we actually eat milkigs on Shavuot other than what we've seen. But let's have a look for other shla. The shla Shnei Luchos Habris. He was living in Eretz Yisrael. He was originally, I think, Ashkenazi. Uh the Shnei Luchos Habris, I think he was in Prague originally. Um but uh he's buried in Eretz Yisrael. Looking How oilam nogeil achol b'chag Shavuot machalei chalav. People eats um chalav um milkigs on Shavuot. But then they eat um then they eat meat. L'chayem v'simachtah v'chagecha because they've got to they've got to uh fulfill the mitzvah simchas yontif. V'ein simcha b'lo basar. As tzarich l'dakteik l'hitkadesh. Hitkadesh. He says a push there's a pushback. Now comes the pushback. You've got to be kadosh. B'frat b'yom kadosh k'zeh, especially on a day like Shavuot. Shehu matan Toraseinu. Shavuot is the day that you're going to play fast and loose with the mitzvah in the Torah. L'asot kinuch. You have to wipe out your mouth. L'hadacha. You have to wipe your hands. You have to wipe your mouth. Clean it out. Eat something between. U'l'hafsik b'virchas hamazon. He says you have to bench. Interestingly, the Mishna Berurah said you didn't. He says, "No, you have to bench." U'l'hamtin sha'ah. And you have to wait an hour. That's going to make for something somewhat lengthened meal. Meaning you'll have your milkigs. And then you'll sit and drink drink you know, a bit of whiskey, a bit of cognac, and you'll schmooze. And you'll I suppose back in the day maybe they smoked a cigar as well on Yuntif whatever I smoked a pipe and and and then then only an hour later you can you can eat your fleishigs. The and you have to have a new tablecloth and then you can have your fleishigs. And he brings a nice remez. Here's a new one we haven't seen. The remez ledaven where's the hint? Reshis bikurei ad matzah tavi. You must bring your bikurim. Here he's talking about first fruits but Shavuos is Yom Habikurim. Basar b'chalav lo t'vashel g'di b'chalev imo. In the same pasuk. Bring your bikurim but don't eat milk and meat. She'ain is assur lo ya'arvevem. U'mishi mitkadesh b'zeh b'yotzei kodesh The more kodesh you are on this that's great. He brings the the the leniency of the of the Maharshal to the non-Jewish milkmaid can milk the milk but he says okay you know that's a leniency but we try whenever we can. Um this wasn't really accepted. If you look in number 20 the Be'er Heitev. The Be'er Heitev appears on the page of the Shulchan Aruch. It actually on the Mishna Berurah as well. It's a collection of different poskim in Ashkenaz from the from the 17th through to the 19th century and he brings down they bring down this halacha in number 20. So Ein Le'eil go and see this other siman the chalav she'nechalav b'Yom Tov al y'dei akum yesh lin'hog bo issur. We don't drink milk that's been milked by a milkmaid on Yom Tov. The Ein l'shanot and we don't change that minhag ela b'Yom Tov sheini. On Yom Tov sheini we will yesh l'hatir. The Chein has Kama Taz that's the answer of the Taz. The Magen Avraham I mistakenly wrote the Shach in the in the English it's the Magen Avraham. Okay. The Loch Maharshal and we don't pasken like the Maharshal. She'heiteir hu la'hu allows it the milk on Yom Tov for the fluden. The Chein Kasa b'Tshuvos Chasam Sofer and he brings a teshuvah also the Nachalah Shiva. And he brings the Nachalah Shiva which is a very famous posek. But he says v'sayan but the Nachalah Shiva ends mikol makom im hayisi b'makom she'nohegim heter but if I went for Yancey to a place where they did milk the cow to make the fluid in I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't say anything. I'd eat the cake because I don't want to be Muhammad on people in that way. Um and then I brought you finally in number 21 he basically says the the the the Joseph I don't really like it. He was in my head game in Frankfurt. He said some people eat milk and then meat, but he says I don't like it. Why? Because he holds you have to wait 6 hours between milk and meat. Okay, 6 hours. Now 6 hours you can't interesting between milk and meat, not between meat and milk, between milk and meat. So he says basically we don't do this anymore because we're knowing and now I've never I mean the people wait 6 hours between milk and meat. I've never seen anyone sit but apparently he says they did and therefore they they either had milk cakes pure and simple or flesh cakes. Hard cheese, correct, but not for milk. He said either we just have a pair of dish cooked in a milk cake pot to be yeah, which is not really milk cake or we just have a milk cake meal or we just have a flesh cake meal, but we don't do any of this kind of switcheroo. Fine. So you see already lots of different in my head game, but he does talk about the minute to make a color like a ladder with seven rungs. Just look at the end here but I'll call upon in three lines from the bottom. We have a game with a sauce mulita. We wait we make something called a mulita. What's a mulita? I've never heard of a mulita other than here. Um milk color or butter side. You either made it from milk or with from meat or or the most salami it's like a ladder with seven slivers. Okay, it's a ladder with seven rungs etc. It's like a sliver of cream as a sliver of the seven heavens. You got a cottage by the pool. The shots mountain tower. Okay, so does anyone have ladder color on Shavuot? All sorts of new things you can do this Shavuot. You can have some honey. You can have brioche. You can have fish cooked in butter. You can have a ladder color etc. Fine. Already by the 18th century everybody's catching on and everybody's having milkigs, even the Sefardim, assuming they could digest it, they're having milkigs on Shavuot and that became a widespread minhag. Interestingly, I didn't mention this, but the Samaritans also have milkigs on Shavuot. Now, why do the Samaritans have milkigs on Shavuot? They're for sure not Ashkenazi and they didn't have anything to do with the Ashkenazim. So, I'm not sure. It could be one of the reasons is that their Shavuot always falls on Sunday by definition because they always had That's one of the things that the the Khazars talk about. They say "Mimaharath Shabbat is the day after Shabbat of the week, the Saturday, the Shabbos." So, because milkigs because they always had it on Shavuot and on Sunday and they can't cook the day before, so what's left? They can't probably can't have meat and they don't have I don't know what if that's the reason, but that could be one of the reasons. Or it could be they just once had an Ashkenazi visitor and they got very into it. I mentioned to you that I when I went to see the Samaritans, I mentioned this I think last week, I asked them, "Do you have separate dishes for milkigs and fleishigs?" And the guy looks at me, the Samaritan guy, Shamronie, and he says like, "What do you think I am, Reform?" So, he said, "Of course I do." And I said to him like, "Lama, you Why do you Why do you have milkigs and fleishigs? There's nothing in the written Torah about milkigs and fleishigs." So, I think quite a lot of the Samaritan minhagim have become merged and mixed in different ways and they also buy Tnuva yogurts. So, um you I ask your local Orthodox Samaritan. He told me he'd have to ask the Cohen Gadol. So, ask the Cohen Gadol. Okay, quick fire. Quick fire, 10 minutes. 16, 17 reasons why we eat milkigs on Shavuot. So, number one, honey and milk in Shir Hashirim, we saw that before, connection to Matan Torah. Number two, the hint in Bamidbar of chalav, as it were, in the uh in the pesukim there to do with Shavuot. Number three, the gematria gematria of 613 or 614, one off, etc. Number four, to bring bikurim together with the prohibition of meat and milk, uh etc. Number five, here's a new one. David Hamelech died on Shavuot. I remember when I was a kid, I used to have a story about David Hamelech and how he died, you know, uh with the Malach Hamaves got to distract him on Shavuos. So, when the king dies, there's a halacha the country has to be onenim. Because we're all in mourning. And an onen is not allowed to eat meat. So, we eat milchigs as a as a as a a uh uh in in avelus, as it were, for for for David Hamelech. Okay, very interesting. Chalav is gematria 40. That really does work. And 40 days is the number of days that Moshe went up Har Sinai to get the Torah. Very good. Milk products are kept uh in simple clay glass vessels. If you put them in silver and gold, they go off. It's not better, it's worse. So, two Torah is better amongst Jews who are humble, who are modest. But, if you've got a lot of money and you've got a lot of gaiva and you've got a lot of arrogance, then you're not going to be a talmid chacham. Okay? Uh number eight. The brice at the end of avos, 48 ways to acquire Torah. One of them is, avoid self-indulgence. So, instead of eating meat, we eat 15 different kinds of cheese on Shavuos. So, maybe you shouldn't be self-indulgent. That's something I think things that people pull back on as well. Here's a reason brought in the Shach, in the Maginei Avraham, excuse me. Look in number nine. Number 22. Pay uh number 22 tell of page six. Chalav, says the Maginei Avraham, "Yesh harbei taamim." There are many reasons. "Matzati katuv and I've seen written a taam de itav be Zohar, a reason from the Zohar. She itan zayin shavuos, these seven weeks that we've counted from Pesach, ha ilui Israel shiv'a nekiim, are like a purification of shiv'a nekiim that a woman goes to before the mikvah. Dugma isha hamitaharah, who who becomes tahor, min nidah tahor from hanidah. Vi adua she dam eikav na sechalav. And we have this idea, says the Zohar, that the blood of Pesach has become the milk of Shavuos. V'hainu midin l'rachamim. And now, I actually think that this is the something real going on here. This is a real thing, not just like a gematria which is kind of cute, but there's a real idea that the the Gemara says that the when the mother is weaning is nursing the baby rather, the milk that the mother produce is made from the dam nidah that she's not menstruating and it's transformed into milk. Leaving aside the the biology of this which I'm not getting into right now, this idea of the transformation from the dam chayiv, remember Pesach is a very blood oriented Yom Tov which unfortunately was taken the blood libels etc. The blood of my chamei, the chayi, the dam milah, the dam Pesach and the Shavuos is the milk which is the other side of that purification process. I actually think that's a very beautiful idea and we need to think about that more. I brought you number 10, I said number 23 which is the famous one the Mishna Berurah brings that when they went to Har Sinai they came down so all their pots and pans were treif because they were now Jewish and they weren't Jewish before so they couldn't make fleishigs and they didn't have time because it takes time to have to shecht and all the meat they had before was treif so they had to eat milchigs. This is the the the Mishna Berurah brings this down in the name of Godol Echad. Why doesn't he give him a name? Well, maybe he didn't know who it was from but the person it's from is actually the Baal Shem Tov which is very interesting. It's Chassidish. So did the Mishna Berurah have a reluctance to name Chassidish sources? Well, no, he names the Shulchan Aruch HaRav who is the Baal HaTanya. That's a halachic source. Maybe he didn't want to bring this because it was not a halachic source but this is the reason that everybody's gunning for because there must be about 15 different reasons why this Medrashic idea doesn't really hold water. Number one, who says they weren't Jewish before Har Sinai? Maybe they were Jewish. Number two, who says they didn't eat meat at the time they had korbanos, you know, they had the zvachim from Har Sinai. Number three, according to many opinions they didn't eat meat b'chlall in the midbar, they only ate korbanos. So why why are they having a problem eating meat there? There's the and they brought other reasons as well. There's a lot of number 4 did they have all the details of shrita that comes in who said so whatever it's the reason the people give the Mr. brings it we have to give it some covered but that's that's the reason that's brought. Number 11. Milk might have been treif to everybody as in the sky. We actually had a sheer on milk if you remember that. We talked about all the weird forms of milk. Milk from men and milk from etc. Milk might be awesome as in the sky. A non-Jew is not allowed to eat something that comes from a live animal. So if we were indeed non-Jewish before Sinai maybe this was the first time we ever had milk. Okay, it's a nice idea. Now this is what I want to focus on for the last few minutes of the year. Abraham serves the milk and fish. Number 24. They have a lot of milk and fish and they have milk and fish. He takes butter, milk, and meat and he serves it to the what's going on here. So have a look here in number 25. It says the shamati I've heard a reason. She have a lot of milk and fish. We eat milk and then meat. The like my son because we're not like the him. It's all Abraham she bought some milk because they ate it together. But we're saying totally Israel and this all ties in with these remember the Russian that didn't want to give allow motion to take the Torah. And therefore motion had to argue and he says this is a to the and we say to him look we're not like you. You eat meat and milk. We're even better than that. We eat milk and then we're careful and we wash out our mouth and we change the cloth and we and then we eat meat. So who should have the Torah? You who don't even want to keep the Torah or us who are on the Torah? Interesting reason. And however it cuts in different directions. Number 26, just have a look here for a second. So, then he writes the Ber Heitiv, uh, "Katava Donai Zikeni." I think that's who he's talking about, his grandfather. "B'sheim Ha Kol Bo, d'beshvuos yeish nogeim l'achol g'vinah." There's a minhag on Shavuos to eat cheese b'seudas mincha, in the afternoon meal. Now, on Yom Tov, you don't have to have shales seudos, but they used to davka have a cheese meal on the afternoon of Shavuos, "af she'ein vav sha'os misudas shacharis." Even though it's less than 6 hours since you had your meat meal. Now, that's interesting. Who says that's okay? People who are keeping 6 hours between meat and milk, this is not milk to meat, this is meat to milk. They had fleishigs in the morning, and then they have cheese in the afternoon, and it's like, "Oh, what time is it? Oh, it's fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it." It'll be okay. On Shavuos, we can be a little bit little bit more lenient. Now, leaving aside whether you have to be a clock watcher generally for the 6 hours between meat and milk, that's a separate question. Of course, the Rambam says, "K'mo sheish sha'os," around six "k'sheish sha'os," excuse me. But, I brought you in number 27, the, um, a piece that I I recommend that you read over Shavuos from the Noam Elimelech. The Noam Elimelech is a chasidishe source of Elimelech of Lizhensk, and he says like this, he says exactly the opposite of what we just said. Normally speaking, a tzaddik can't eat meat and milk together. Why? Cuz meat represents gashmius, milk represents ruchnius, and when the tzaddik eats meat, by the tzaddik eating, he turns that physicality into spirituality on high. But, the meat, as it were, is down here, and the chalav, as it were, spirituality is up there, and never the twain shall meet. But, malachim, who are that combination already, and that's a very kabbalistic idea that malachim are kind of combined physical and spiritual. They don't have to be careful about that because they're already that combination. So, they can eat meat milk together. That's why they ate with our Rama Venu. And on Shavuot, where we're like Malachim, we can be lenient like Malachim and a little bit of fast and loose. God forbid we're not going to eat meat and milk together, but we're going to just not look at the clock and we're going to have our cheese. It's really interesting. It's exactly Pumpernickel. It's the opposite of what we just heard that he said, "You're more like a Malach on uh on Shavuot and therefore you can be a little bit more lenient." By the way, the other cabalists say that you have to wait 24 hours between meat and milk. 24 hours. And there were those that did. And if people were doing that, then you know, it's even more uh striking how they did this on Shavuot. Last uh three lines, um five other reasons why uh you may eat cheese on Shavuot. Har Sinai is also called in Tehillim Har Gavnunim and the word Gavnunim sounds like Gvina. Okay, fair enough. The land of uh Israel is praised as flowing with milk and honey and Yoma Bikurim is a a time when we remember Eretz Israel. Okay, on Shavuot, I like this one. On Shavuot, Moshe brought us the Torah, but Shavuot is Moshe Rabbeinu's due date. The Midrash says he was born 3 months premature. He was born on the 7th of Adar. He was meant to be born on Shavuot. So, Shavuot is the day that his mother put him in the Nile because that's when they were expecting him due. Shavuot is the day that Batya found him and he wouldn't milk from a non-Jewish nursemaid. So, because he wouldn't milk from a non- drink from a non-Jewish nursemaid, all these Midrashim all put together. So, Shavuot is the day when Moshe didn't drink the milk. So, today's the day we do drink the milk to remember Shavuot. Okay, to remember Moshe. 16 milk is known to increase the sexual appetites. Um that's one of the reasons they wouldn't eat like the Cohen Gadol have it before Yom Kippur. And when people separated before Matan Torah, they didn't eat milk. And now they can get together again after Matan Torah, so it's it's milk festival because we can we can celebrate our reunion. Uh I left you some other things you can read as you as you see the sheets later. So I I I hope you don't mind that I couldn't resist doing this. But Minhagim are very important and what I want to look at in more focus after Shavuot, please God, is exactly how these Minhagim work and play with Halacha. What is the interface between Minhag and Halacha? How does that work? When Minhagim are bad, when they're good, why they annoy some people, and why they're important. So let's leave it there. I wish you all a Chag Sameach. Enjoy all your culinary delights and uh and and we'll speak after Pesach after Shavuot.