Why do we eat cheesecake on Shavuot?
The festival of Shavuot (AKA Pentecost), which falls on Monday and Tuesday for the Diaspora, marks the 49 days or seven weeks from Passover.
Jeremy Rosen
It is one of the three biblical harvest festivals. In Temple times, as many as possible were expected to come up to Jerusalem to celebrate a national holiday. However, in fact, Shavuot is the orphan of the biblical festivals. Pesach has its special foods, it’s important to document the Haggadah, and Sukot involves the construction of the tabernacles and getting four different kinds of vegetation to wave in our services. Beyond the agricultural and the historical aspects, it is rather modest and the shortest of our pilgrim festivals.
Some people claim that Shavuot, initially, was no more than the closing of the harvest cycle that started with the first barley crop and ended with a wheat harvest, which is why it was called Atzeret which means completion or conclusion. And why do we read the Book of Ruth, which takes place at the wheat harvest time of the year. The harvest was the opportunity for the poor and the needy to find free charitable grain to sustain themselves. So that we emphasise the humanitarian as well as the spiritual. But then you could argue that we should be doing that all year round.
Over the years, changing circumstances, and much later, traditions reflect the loss of the land and the Temple and the compensating emphasis on Torah and study. But it was not until the post-Talmudic era of the Gaonim of Babylonia around 1000 CE that Shavuot came to be called “Zman Matan Torateynu”, The Time of Giving the Torah, that we use today in our liturgy. And this is why Shavuot came to be associated with the anniversary of receiving the Torah and the two tablets of stone, even if the Torah does not actually say so. A wonderful example of how adaptability added a new layer to the Torah to meet new and different conditions.
Each festival had its association with foods. But beyond Judaism, the custom of eating milky products during harvest time was widespread in Europe. Perhaps that was why eating cheesecake on Shavuot came to be so popular. Today there are many reasons given. None of them is persuasive, but let me summarise.
The most amusing one is that once the Israelites received the Torah (which includes the laws of kashrut), they had to throw out all their crockery and cooking utensils, which must have been filling their pantries in Egypt, rather than violate the laws. So, they ate simple dairy meals until they could properly prepare kosher meat. Or they needed time to get two sets of cutlery, one for meat and one for milk and additional ones for Pesach.
The Torah describes the Promised Land as a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). Eating dairy foods like cheesecake symbolises the richness and sweetness of the land. But then that doesn’t explain why specifically on Shavuot only we have this custom. Those who love numerology (or gematria, as we call it ) like to point out that the Hebrew word for milk (chalav) has a numerical value of 40. And Moshe spent 40 days and nights on Mount Sinai receiving the Torah (on Shavuot). A mystical explanation is that dairy is associated with purity and simplicity. And in preparation for receiving the Torah on Shavuot, the whole of the Israelite community came together and purified themselves.
All religions, all cultures, have their special days and customs. That’s what differentiates one from the other. To try to find scientific or historical reasons is fun and speculative but beside the point. So Shavuot and Cheesecake go together regardless.
It seems that Jews are now universally blamed and hated regardless of whether they have a right to a refuge of their own. Even our right to a homeland is contested. There is no other way to combat irrational hatred other than to stand proud and strong in defence of our religion and our culture. All the more reason, therefore, for us to take every opportunity to show how different we are and to enjoy Life on Earth, while and when we can. Be grateful for the good and accepting of the not-so-good. If there are pathetic yahoos who don’t like that, that it is their problem!
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen lives in New York. He was born in Manchester. His writings are concerned with religion, culture, history and current affairs – anything he finds interesting or relevant. They are designed to entertain and to stimulate. Disagreement is always welcome.
