Transcript
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there's another custom i wanted to talk
about it may seem like a little
irrelevant custom but i actually find it
sort of beautiful and i wanted to share
it with you and by the way i always find
it remarkable how many lactose
intolerant ashkenazic people
take seriously the custom to eat dairy
on shavuot have you heard of this
i mean there's a lot of programs
throughout synagogues throughout the
world and there's not one program you're
going to go to where there's not a
cheesecake there it's the greatest
cheesecake sales day of the year
and i've heard the reason given that we
eat dairy to commemorate receiving the
tour because upon receiving the tour we
learned that our preparation for the
meat was wrong
which you know which rendered the meat
that we had not kosher and inedible so
we were relegated to eating dairy
okay maybe maybe that's it but a
teaching brought down by rabbi moss
spoke to me on such a deep level and i
wanted to share with you so he points
out the scientific fact that in all
mammals right humans included
the milk that the mother produces is
made from her own blood
right her mammary glands transform her
transform her own blood into
pure white mother's milk
which i mean he points out is quite an
awe-inspiring miraculous process when
you consider how radically different
blood and milk actually are
but but rabbi moss took it a step
further in a way that really spoke to me
he explains
that blood
as we know what does blood represent are
our basest desires
and our instinct it's it's this
animalistic
um
you know something primal about it
something instinctive and
self-satisfying
it's an instinct fulfilling our
instincts but mother's milk on the other
hand represents refinement
and purity of character of giving
of selflessness right of of nurturing i
see it 50 times a day and how my wife
shayna is just selflessly and lovingly
nursing our little baby sheila it's just
the very opposite of base selfish
pursuit of satisfaction and pleasure and
that's what the torah is supposed to do
for us
right it's supposed to refine our base
animalistic selfish instincts and
elevate them to
selflessness and loving and nurturing
and giving
that's what the torah is for and that is
fundamental to our mission in the world
right to transform our blood into milk
and that my friends is why we eat
cheesecake it has nothing to do with the
fact that cheesecake is just really
really really good
it's because of all that stuff anyways
it's both true they're both true
but um but it's also one of the core
reasons about why we offer the two
loaves of bread in the temple
on shavuot as well right so open your
tanakhs to leviticus 13 we'll be looking
inside soon but we discussed this before
right when we talked about passover the
passover is the barley harvest
barley being the food that is more
associated with animal feed than human
food whereas wheat
is considered the more refined food for
human consumption
and hence when the children of israel
left egypt we were like babies in some
ways like little instinctive animals and
then we started counting the 50 days
each day rising and raising ourselves
further and refining our character
further until we arrived at the level
just sort of angels at the giving of the
torah
right so from
the blood to the milk from the barley to
the wheat the 50-day count of the omer
the whole thing it's really all about a
time of growth
and refinement and this highlight was
taken from the land of israel fellowship
every week hundreds of families from
literally around the world come together
on our live zoom sessions to strengthen
each other to inspire each other and to
learn torah from the land of israel in
which we connect the dots between the
bible the hebrew language and the
confusing events of our times go to
www.thelandofisral.com
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