Why do we eat dairy products on Shavuot? - Rabbi Alon Anava

[Music] solution after Shabbat we're gonna celebrate the holiday of Shavuot and there's not much to know about the holiday in regards to Aloha it's not like pizza or Sukkot there's a lot of alcohol in it whenever the less is to a few things that we do need to know and later on we'll just talk a little bit about it's not a challah high it's more like a customer we do eat a lot of dairy products on Shabbat and really not a lot of people know why we do that where's it coming from so masala sham we'll go through it all now where we prepare the right way for the holiday the first thing we celebrated two days ago wash kodesh and from most holy sh t run until the twelfth day of savannah we don't say to her Nolan when we pray not not in Charlotte not even ha nor in Lake H milometer some congregations they have the customer to do it seven days some 11 days some 12 days but nevertheless the majority go by that we don't sit around for 12 days we go back to the Quran on the 13th day and the haneun is recited in Schokolade min hi and a beach in NH ma a la vita these are the three times when we say Aharon it's an addition to the pray and we had after 3-4 nicely and of course each one does a little bit different depending on the CDO that they use but for the first 12 days of Sivan we don't see Tejano and the reason for that is because the first day of c1 is all childish now there's not a hundred more foolish the second day of Sivan is when we were commanded by a Shem to be a Nations of priests and a light to the nation's something that unfortunately is not applied so well but nevertheless that's when we recommended on the second day of Sivan that's when a Shem told us I want you to be a light to the nation's and it should be a Nations of priests then the next three day the third the fourth and the fifth of C one is the three days that the men and the women they had to separate not to be with each other so one the time that's ready to get the Torah they weren't they were clean spiritually and physically and then of course the days of Shabbat it's a young table it's a festival there's no tunnel and seven days after Shabbat is the days that anybody who could make it to beta me - to offer a sacrifice then they gave another extra days because in Sukkot and in Pesa there's a Holloman and there's no Holloman ensue concha woods now what happens to the people who wanted to come to Bethany - and to give a sacrifice and they couldn't make it they were late there was traffic mister flight whatever it is so at the time of beta me - they gave another seven days to complete whoever missed the opportunity they still were able to do it so therefore since we don't have better me - yet today then we don't set the hon until the twelfth day till the thirteenth day for 12 days that we don't say - hang on now when it's customary that before a holiday we give extra charity so since this year chef what falls out on a Sunday which is attached to a Shabbat and it's important then on Friday before you write candles before you accept the Shabbat then you give a little bit of charity for the for the merit of Shabbat and then a little bit of charity for there will be designated for for the holiday of chevrons now this year of Shavuot falls on Mott say shabbat on on Sunday here in Israel we only celebrate one day outside of Israel in the Despero we celebrate two days momoko-chan we get it condensed in in one day and this year it starts on Saturday night now the way we're going to do it this year is that we're going to celebrate about regular we're going to have a short third meal so we can pray our wheat at the right time on Saturday night and in the prayer of a wheat a lot of people were asking how they're gonna do all the laughs so in the kaduche of yom tov that we say on Saturday night we add a paragraph that includes in it Abdullah of course when we pray a more nicely a prayer of Saturday night which will be the yom tov prayer there's another addition that we add there is called the kohonen tunnel is that different you have to look at the seed oil that you use what's the part that we add for both a Shabbat because it's the it's a festival prayer but it's Massimo Tasha but now it's a little bit different you have to look in the see do right before to make sure that you're saying the right prayer and they already motojima we're really praying the prayer for the fitnah festival right after that we're gonna go in there and have a young Tov meal a festive meal I'm going to talk about it at the end of the class some people they there's different customs some people only eat dairy meal that night and the no meat at all they meet the meats the next day and some people they do what they do is they eat dairy they take a break and then they switch the tablecloth and the plates and everything and then they do a meat meal so there's different customs well nevertheless it's a Yom Tov it's a festival that we do a festive meal and right after that we have a custom that we stay up all night and we learn and we learn to all night and I mean the custom its originated in the the teachings of the Zohar is all specifically in parashat amor was talking about it and then there some people would they do the certainty coolants a certain book that we read the entire night not so easy to long and I'm not too sure I mean there is a version I know of in English that it's a PDF but it's think one hundred and something one hundred plus pages but as I'm sure one can get to the translation but it's a it's a short version of the entire Tana so you read portions of each parish of the Torah parts of the prophets parts of the scripts parts of the Mishnah and so it's very very interesting because you go through like a everything well nevertheless we stay up all night and we learn and again some do reading from the tikkun some just attend the classes or retailing or whatever they can here of course we'll have classes from eleven o'clock at night and we're gonna have different teachers the classes will be short 15 minutes 20 minutes half an hour classes and we're going to go through the entire night and and it's a very powerful night to to focus on the Torah well first of all it determines what whoa what will be my connection to the Torah this year if I focus all night on the learning the Torah then it des will determine how much connection I will have 4 to the to an entire year and my connection will come in in a way that how much I understand what I learned and how much I get excited about it awhile how much excitement I have to follow the Torah and so forth it's a very important night to to learn Torah and not only that we know by the teachings of the result that he says that any person that stays up all night on Shabbat and learns to well first of all he's guaranteed to live the entire year of Tarshish limbs Natal which that in itself is a huge as a huge promise and not only that it says below yeah our local music he's not gonna have nothing he's not gonna be harmed and this is a very pretty powerful thing that you know that you can make guarantee to yourself by staying up all night and learning Torah then you will get a blessing for the rest of the year and again different customs some people read the tycoon's some people just read tea leaves some people read from the Torah itself and some people are just they attend the classes all night and that is just as good now very very early in the morning it's called a small table okay really before dawn then we go to the mikveh men go to the mikveh women listen they don't really have to but men we go to the mikveh very early in the morning and specifically there's accustomed to do only four dips this is brought by the result in the book called shower cover note that you do specifically for the dips and then after that right away we praise so here what are we going to do probably the same thing around 4 o'clock in the morning we're all going to go to the Midway it'll still be some classes going on and then we're going to pray we're going to have to calculate exactly when Dawn is and we're probably going to start praying already at quarter to 5:00 in the morning so when we reach to the point of of nets the dawn that's when we pray this one Isis so we're gonna have a very early minion here we also going to have an eleven o'clock in the morning another reading of the Torah so for the ladies the kids that they want to hear the Ten Commandments and they don't want to pray at five o'clock in the morning or they want to play pray by themselves later on at nine or ten so we're going to have here at 11 o'clock another reading of the Torah which we read from the Ten Commandments and there's different customs some shows what they do is they spread their like a grass on the floor some people put flowers on the floor different customs what people do because they're on the Mount Sinai when the Torah was given it started a lot of flowers started blooming during the 10th oh I know some people spread flowers on the floor different customs and you can see in different shows my nevertheless important to know that anyone who's was up all night then what and didn't sleep a long sleep which there's different opinions innallaha whether it's half an hour or a whole hour but nevertheless you still say the morning prayers they'll go to shahe cause other people what they they think that if they were apple night maybe they don't have to say that but nevertheless and then if you slept more than the challah has caused it 60 breaths so some opinion say 60 breath is referring to 60 minutes a whole hour and some people say no you know when you sleep how many breaths do you take so every couple seconds you take a breath like a four or five seconds somewhere and rabbis inna llaha say no the 60 breath is referring to half an hour but if you sleep more than that there's no question that you have to say the morning prayers but if you didn't sleep then you still have to say a morning prayers we do wash our hands but without a blessing we don't say our Nike like a dime and the rest of the blessings we do have to say now where there is one of the blessings that it's called in English I think it's the forgiving the rooster the knowledge of when dawn is not endless fvb now that can only be said of after dawn you can say that before dawn and then of course on during the prayer we do a prayer for the festival it's a little bit longer than usual we say hello we read out of the Torah we take two books of Torah out we read from two places in the Torah and needless to say the the peak of the reading of the Torah is the 10 commandments for the ones who unfortunately lost their loved ones then there there is a certain prayer that we say on festivals is called the memorial for the souls this is a we do that after after the reading of the Torah it's called a skeleton Shabbat and I'm sure you're familiar that at that point whoever their parents are alive they leave the room the ones that are not they say some prayer and after that we have a meal now here what are we going to do like I said we're going to pray very early in the morning and whoever does it can go home and rest unless they want to stay up and then we'll have an 11 another reading of the Torah and after that we're going to have the meal we're gonna have here the meal it's going to be only a dairy meal and I can guarantee to you there's gonna be some very delicious things here so Roma already promised us seven-layer cheesecake and many other good things to stuff ourselves throughout the day now there is like I said the custom of eating dairy and many don't really know where it came from why we do it but nevertheless even though it's a custom it's not a rule it's not a holla ha but we take our customs pretty serious now there's many different reasons why we do that there is a one of them can be found in a book that is called colbaugh everything is in it and it says that we have a custom on a shovel to eat milk and honey and milk products and mixed with honey and the reason for that is is that the Torah is the compared to milk and honey like it says that when we were going to be brought into the land of Israel in the land of milk and honey now there is a verse in the the book of Sheila she named that we recite every Friday afternoon and the verse says dvash bacala Tophet lashonna the honey and milk is like under your tongue the Torah is constantly should be under our time that every word that we say has to to do the Torah I mean we should prevent from the talking any nonsense and the words of nothingness and I'm not talking right now lying and cheating in the Shannara but nevertheless it's a remedy that are everything that our mouth should talk will be like milk and honey just words of the Torah another interpretation another reason why we reach the dairy products and this can be found in a book that is called the Sifl I mean again the book of customs and he says there that the dairy products milk is hinting to the meanings of the Torah and where do we learn that there is a verse that says Minnehaha Dasha lay Hashem Bishu author him a new offering to Hashem in the time of Shavuot and the acronym of these three words of Hashanah shemesh water fame is that brings the world I love milk ha - ah la shemish wrote to him and therefore then this is a hint that we eat the dairy nevertheless in the same book he says yes we eat the dairy meal but one should not not eat meat because we do have a custom that on the festival's we do hit eat meat so like I said some people they they do the night the dairy the morning the the meat subdued the other around some people eat the dairy and wait an hour and then do a meets of different customs here now another interpretation another reason is that when they received the torah the day that they received the torah they had to do a kaduche because they received all that a hot just imagine what's going on the morning of Shabbat they don't have the Torah they don't know anything and a few Mitzvahed then they receive the Torah ok we got to do it right away what's the first thing they needed to do was Allah days they had to do Kadosh now they had a problem because all their wine they were considered non Jews at the time that Noah was given so which means that there is a Dean in the Torah that wine I was touched by a non Jew we can do kaduche on it there's many different reasons for that so the Kundu Kadosh on the wine so what did they have to do kaduche on so they took milk and the Kadosh on the milk and therefore then then that continued that on the day of Shabbat they were drinking drinking and eating milk that's why some people say they only do it in the morning you don't do it at the night another reason this can be found in the Shahana oh right it's the more like book that it's called the book of the reasons and it says in the show Kanawa that when you finish doing a mitzvah you have to do a meal I'm sure you ever seen that when somebody finishes attractive of the Talmud oh the mission of the door meal and when you finish Mitzvah you have to do a meal now the the shampoo the Doge award we're finishing a very big Mitzvah the Mitzvah of counting normal that's one wrong Mitzvah from peso to chef what we count the our meal and it's considered one Mitzvah so we're finishing a mitzvah that we really put our mind to it for the 49 days that we have to do a meal now since we can mix the two meals if we will do that meal with the meat then they will be like what so you're not doing a meal to to a Yom Tov meal so therefore we separate the two meals and we do one meal that is dairy and we're saying this is the meal to commemorate the ending of the Mitzvah the completion of the meter and allowed the meal with meat that's the meal for the Yom Tov and like I said some people what they do is they do the milk me the dairy meal at night and then the meat a meal and the day some do the other way there's different types of a customs now that's another reason why we eat the dairy and this is based on the teachings of the Zohar as all says that there are 365 days of the year we're not talking about now the calendar that you can with a February and the time of the the according to the Jewish calendar 365 days in the year and they correspond to the 600 and 300 sorry did I say 600 said 365 days of the year and they correspond to this 365 negative mitzvoth the precepts that we have in the Torah because in the Torah we have 613 meatwad's 248 a positive and 365 a negative not that means that it's negative to do rather their precepts don't all the don'ts as all says the 365 days of the year they correspond to the 365 presets meaning that every day of the year there's one precept that is connected to that day now what is the precept that we're not allowed to do that is connected to the Doge award it says in the Torah about the day of Shabbat the verse says the be couid motika the first of the crops of your land Taavi better similar Kepha you should bring it to the house of God this is the Mitzvah we had to bring a certain offering on the day of chef world and it would have been from the crops but the verse says the first of all your crops should go to the house of God and the how does the verse ends whatever shall be before every more you cannot cook lamb in the mother's milk this is the precepts of not mixing meat and dairy since the day of Shabbat the the is corresponding to the negative mitzvah of not mixing meat and dairy which is a rule from the Torah therefore then we can't mix the meat in the dairy so we only eat the the dairy and this is the the equivalent so to say for the day of the Shabbat and like the sauce says every day there is one precept that will match to that day and unfortunately the law doesn't say every day which precept it is that way we will be able to have a little bit more connection to the days and the meats world nevertheless it says that specifically the day Oshawott corresponds to the precept of not eating meat and dairy not makes mixing meat and dairy so we are cautious not to mix the two of them and therefore we do one meal that is the meat but we still eat one meal that is dairy another reason is brought in the book called benissa Hollow this is a book of Kabbalah it's not a book it's that like ago a lot of a lot of books but it's called the Benes AHA and it says there that we eat meat dairy products because dairy products come from milk and milk is white and there is a concept we learned that actually dissolve about a month and a half ago if you remember that the spirit in the world above may correspond to colors and every Sevilla has a certain color and the sphere of his head is white you remember Goya is ready fair that was green and then there's the mixtures of the Scots whenever the last hazard is white and the color of the white is corresponding to the Mitzvah precedent of a lot of charity and needless to say that on Shabbat there what shines in the world is the middle facet of the collage boho and therefore we commemorate that with the the color white and what is how much food do we have that is white not a lot of food is white so what is why it is milk so eat the dairy products to connect specifically to the lovin to the whiteness of philosophy say the child's in the world not only that there is a verse in Tehillim you know it's David America's birthday at King's Davis birthdays Shevat and he wrote the book of tell him there is a verse until in specifically in chapter 92 that it says let her give Babu Curtis defe that we say in the morning your acts of kindness and charity again we mentioned that the test is the color white and let her give the Bible Curtis VESA we we say in the early in the morning all the great charitable acts that you do referring to the master of the universe so again these three words that get Babu Curtis defies the acronym of halawet has Allah made bit in hit Holub Halawa is milk so we therefore one other reason why we eat the dairy products another interesting interpretation is that the word milk in Hebrew is Halawa and the numerical value of the word holla is 40 it is 8 lamb it is 30 and betty's do so it brings us to a numerical value of 40 and this is corresponding to the 40 days that motional Boehner was on the mountain right after Matano emotional Boehner went up Antonio yesterday we we already learned that in the zone that he didn't actually climb on the mountain like we think rather he ascended to our higher worlds and when it says that motional bender went into the cloud he didn't go into like a misty cloud rather he removed the garment of his body he removed his body and wore different garments that garment is called a cloud that's the garment is the angel Miriam and it's called a cloud Moshe Rabbeinu just removed one garment he took his body off and for a different garment that allowed him to ascend to the world above and he was able to relate and to see the Sheena so nevertheless Moshe lebanner was 40 days on the mountain the numerical value of the word milk in Hebrew Hollow is 40 so that's a 1 what one more reason not only that there are 40 generations from the time that Moshe Rabbeinu went up to the mountain till the the Torah was brought down into writing the oral torah and we know that Moshe Rabbeinu brought the he got they received the written Torah and then he brought us to the oral torah 40 generations after that the Oral Torah was written down and that's the Talmud that they all read there the Oral Torah was written by two rabbis v9r owashi these are two sages that they took all the oral torah and they wrote it down that's the Talmud that we learn now so they're sects exactly forty generations after Moshe of Albania went up into the mountain and not only that forty corresponds to the letter mem and the numerical value of the word of the letter mem is 40 and the the Talmud the oral torah starts with the letter mem and not only that also ends with the letter men so the entire oral torah which is the talmud starts with a letter mem and ends with the letter mem so another hint why we why we eat the milk again the kalau is 40 mem is 40 and so forth another explanation this is brought down by the the famous rabbi for me his name is Abbot sadaqa Cohen from Lublin the Xhosa from Lublin and he says that the custom to eat milk products on Shabbat he says that the same way that they received their food on the Mount Sinai that's how we receive it how how do how does a baby receive his food from the mother he breastfeeds and he gets the milk from the fat from the mother the same way that that we received the Torah it was like so to say breastfed to us we just received it on on a shovel what a baby doesn't have to do much he's born he's angry the mother feeds him right away and what does he feed him she feeds the milk the same exact way we were like breastfed by a sham on the night of Shabbat and the Torah was just giving to us so he says the same way so we also eat the dairy products another explanation this is brought by great Siddiq OB Shimshon maius tripoli and he says that the house tonight mount sinai has eight names one of the names of the mountain is called gov noonim hug of No Name the mountain of governor name you can find that in many scripts and gov known comes from the word in Hebrew guina green eyes cheese but we call cheese five thousand years ago didn't have cheese's but rather the world governing governor named in Hebrew it represents something very very clean usually cheese's are white you have some cheeses that are off white or yellow most cheese's are white and because the milk is color is white but nevertheless the word v.9 Hebrew is something there is very pure and clean and therefore we eat the cheese the white cheese's on there on Shabbat again so we received the Torah on the mountain that the mountains name is governor named one of the madmen that has eight names another reason is that when we received the Torah on the house in I again we weren't we didn't have the Torah now once we received the Torah we received the rules of that we have to slaughter the animals in a certain way before that within slaughter animals we just killed them and ate them once we got the Torah came all the rules of schita which animal you can slaughter how you have to slaughter it is also a time it can slaughter the calf in the first eight days there's different rules how you and where you cut the throat and stern animals that you can't say eat or not kosher but before that we didn't have those rules now what happened we got the taurah with the taurah came these rules so right on that spot all the pots that they had where were impure they weren't alive because the meat was uncultured only that they didn't have the knife they didn't didn't know all the rules yet so we can't eat the meat we can't eat animals because we don't know how to slaughter them that yet more should have been odd integers how to slaughter in english the rule okay listen you got a slaughtered animals but how I'll teach you and they didn't know yet how to do it nevertheless whatever meat they had was not kosher and whatever dishes that they had the pots and everything was also not kosher so they couldn't eat anything that has to do with meat therefore they're like oh great so what's whatever your knees let's eat say let's eat and they all the dairy and since then this is another one of the customs why we to dairy products of my the holiday of chef world and this is just a few of the reasons there's many other reasons very interesting the different books that were one can read maybe on chef ward will learn some of that or maybe tomorrow hey well more of the reasonable issues just to have an idea why we do it and nevertheless a lot of the customs that we maybe we explain it but there's more of a mystical reason behind it and when we do something physical in this world it allows us mystically to connect to a certain realm in the world above so sometimes we don't understand why we do it but our sages our teachers our rabbi still instruct us to do something we know that there's something mystical behind us that does affect us and there and they makes a connection between this world and the spiritual world so there's another ship shouldn't have a lot of cheesecakes and a lot of pastors or whatever it is I can tell you that the menu we're gonna have on Sunday afternoon is going to be a very delicious menu so it's not a shame we'll see you on Sunday and in the meantime should really focus on the greatness of the day there's not a day that we want to sleep in and a day that we just want to walk around or what they they say hang out with family and friends this is the day when we receive the Torah and even though we received the Torah physically 3400 years ago but spiritually receiving it again on that day and we just receive it the holiday is called hug Matan toga now holiday that the Torah is given I don't have to do anything it's just given to me but I have to be present there if I'm not gonna show up how I'm gonna get so now we all have to understand that we have seven weeks to prepare ourselves we only have three more days to prepare ourselves not more not a lot more but if I do everything there right when I prepare myself the right way comes this great day where I will just receive the Torah that a lot becomes part of me and it means what does it mean to me that it means that first of all whatever I learn from the Torah it sticks and I actually remember whatever I learned I understand that so many times you go to a class you don't understand what the purpose the ramp is talking about especially if he's talking about something a little bit more refined or mystical some people can sit in a class for a whole hour don't understand one word and some people they sit five hours and they they're not only swallow the words they absorb their words that table becomes part of them that's what I want I want my connection to the Torah to be very deep and profound most people they might be following the rules but they're doing it because they've been told or they were afraid or whatever and they're just following everybody I don't really understand what they're doing they'd only don't internalize it I want my connection to the Torah to be deep I want to understand what I'm doing I want to have such a connection that I would love to do them it's what I run to do them it's what and this is the day where I may I build a connection with the Torah especially I want to make sure that taurah becomes part of me that you know we say there is a verse in the tomaszeski he's a new roll of Yamano that ties our life and our way of life so I want my life to be the dough out and and and I wired my way of life to be the Torah and I love math some people might say no it sounds too fanatic it has nothing to do with fanatic our our sustenance is the Torah it's not food or money and I I said that in the class before that I we are compared to fish because fish can only live in the water there's a famous story that when Rabbi Akiva was the Rebbe the leader of the generation there was a decree by the Roman government the Roman leader you know how to learn Torah was illegal to learn Torah and needless to say if you get caught learning to hire get killed so much more so of teaching Torah and little be a keeper would soon learn Torah and one time a soldier a Roman soldier if it was a regular soldier or maybe a general whatever it was he walked into the show and he sees a big evil learning he's like what are you doing you know it's illegal I know and you know we're gonna kill you he's like either way either way I can't live without the Doha and we akima answered the soldier you know what it means what it were you what are you telling me now to stop learning to love is that you going now to the ocean and telling a fish to go out of the water you're basically telling the fish kill yourself if hypothetically the fish will just leave the fish cannot live without the water this is I can live without the Torah so if I stop running Toa either way I will be dead so whoever did you kill me or spiritually I will be there because I don't know the same thing for me at least to say that they did murder him but we can't live without the Torah any person that lives without the Torah they have a meaningless life empty life yeah and that's why most people and and this both for Jews are not Jews by the way knowledge is also have to they have a portion in the Torah there's seven meets vote that they have to follow and it's seven titles it's more like seventy meets votes now a lot of it's not that they need to do it's not a question here if they want to or not the nations they have to participate in the Torah tomb and it's our responsibility to teach him by the way we're failing not to teach them three thousand four hundred years we are failing to teaching the the nations about the Torah but nevertheless also non Jews they obligated in and learning and performing the bits votes but a person that doesn't have the to the Torah is not very complete a essence this is an emptiness inside and then what's the result they're running after all sorts of very worldly pleasures to fill up the void a person that has an empty life as they need to fill up the void and there how would they do that they looking for all sorts of there all sorts of pleasures in this world because inside there's a sin or emptiness they don't understand where it's coming from but they think oh maybe I feel this emptiness this void because I don't have enough money I don't my clothes are not nice enough or I need to get the new the new iPhone that just came out or I need a vacation every three months or I need to be drugs and alcohol whatever it is it's coming from a deep place inside there's something's missing I don't know where it's missing but something is missing so I go and look for things so I get this moment moment aerial gratifications whether it's a meal or chocolate or a party or moving or but really it's because something deep inside is missing and that's the Torah so I'm the Torah to be part of my life if I don't have the toe up it's like a fish without being way outside of water so the night of Shabbat is the night that I can establish this connection and there's a lot of people say it sounds too extreme or to fanatic it's nothing to do with fine an extreme it's our existence our existence is the Torah and if I'm missing that then I'm not gonna be happy I might have a lot of money I might be very popular and have success doesn't matter I'm not gonna be happy the real happiness comes because mine is Shama my soul is happy and content and the only thing that makes the soul happy is Torah nothing else and that is the day that I build the connection with the Torah is the day that determines my connection with the Torah and needless to say it's not a day to sleep in and also hang out so this is the day that I want to focus on all that so my solution should have a beautiful beautiful meaningful holiday and we should all receive the divine very internal way that it becomes part of us and that our way of life is based on the Towanda mitzvahs and doesn't matter who you are where you are what your what's your gender or background Torah everybody has a portion in the Torah that's what we say every day when we pray we say let's not finish a meal or Kennywood I don't care what they know should be a wheel in front of you of the master of the universe that you should reveal the holy temple the temple K no matter whatever give me my portion in York Torah and all have a portion and we want to receive this portion because any person that doesn't hold the Torah is the emptiness and sadness is enough for fulfilled and complete the other chamber should really benefit from the holiday in the best way possible should have a happy and kosher young Tony [Music]