Joined: 9/5/2007(UTC) Posts: 641 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 2 post(s)
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I wasn't sure where to put this, as it is a small article talking about Shavout, but stresses the importance of the Torah, while pointing out how following tradition instead of the Torah is a mistake. This came from the Karaite newsletter, while they are wrong on some things, they do try to follow the Torah, and I thought some of you might like to read this two part article. Quote:Shavuot Customs
I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy Shavuot this coming Sunday June 15, the fiftieth day from the morrow after the Sabbath. (They reckon the time a bit different) As is well known, our Rabbanite brothers observed Shavuot six days early, at the beginning of this week. It so happens that I was invited to participate in a festive meal at the home of some Rabbanite friends observing the holiday on their day. A very interesting thing happened at the meal that I thought I would share.
Most Rabbanite festive meals consist of meat, which is usually beef, chicken, or turkey. However, on Shavuot there is a long-standing rabbinical custom of eating an all-dairy meal without any meat. Of course, Karaites interpret the commandment, "do not boil a kid in its mother's milk" to mean just that, and hence we do not separate meat and milk. As a Karaite, the concept of an all-dairy meal struck me as odd. As I was enjoying some cheese blintzes at the home of my Rabbanite hosts, I began to wonder where this custom came from and why specifically it was observed on Shavuot. I asked those present at the meal and one of the guests offered the following explanation:
"The Torah was given on Shabbat and this included the laws of slaughtering. As soon as the commandment was given, the Israelites needed to dispose of all their meat and slaughter new animals. Because it is forbidden to slaughter an animal on Shabbat, they were forced to eat dairy. Ever since, on the anniversary of this event – Shavuot - we commemorate it by eating dairy."
There are so many things wrong with this explanation I hardly know where to begin. Nowhere does it say that the Torah was given on Shavuot. We are told in Ex 19:1 that the Revelation at Sinai took place in the 3rd biblical month but we do not know when during this month. In the Tanach, Shavuot is the Feast of Harvest and the Day of First-fruits but nowhere is it connected to the giving of the Torah. Secondly, the only thing the Almighty revealed before the entire nation of Israel at Sinai was the Ten Commandments, not the entire Torah and certainly not the laws of slaughtering. The commandments of the Torah were gradually given over a period of forty years, not on a single day at Sinai. Every time we read in the Torah "And Yehovah (sic) spoke to Moses saying" this constituted a separate revelation at a separate time. As Moses received the commandments he taught them to the Israelites and only completed writing them down just before he died, as stated explicitly in Dt 31:24. Thirdly, whatever requirements there are for slaughtering, they must have been known before the Revelation at Sinai. In Ex 12 we are told that the Israelites slaughtered the first Passover lambs in Egypt and this was at least a month and a half before the Revelation at Sinai. Furthermore, Noah slaughtered sacrifices which were accepted by the Almighty and hence he must have known how to properly slaughter animals over a thousand years before Sinai. Finally, nowhere does it say that the Revelation at Sinai took place on a Shabbat. This is just wild speculation.
Before I could share this information with my Rabbanite friends, another guest pointed out that the above reason for eating dairy on Shavuot could not possibly be correct. Apparently the original Rabbanite custom was to eat a dairy dish immediately followed by a meat dish. Since the original custom entailed eating meat, the explanation that the Israelites ate dairy because they were forced to discard their meat on Shabbat could not be the source of the custom. So what is the real source of the custom? My host, a very learned Rabbi, admitted that he did not know and no one offered an alternative explanation. I was really amazed being surrounded by all these knowledgeable people who between them possessed more than a hundred years of formal rabbinical education. Yet no one knew the real reason for such a famous and popular custom. Finally my host went over to his bookshelf, pulled out a Shulchan Aruch, and began to look up the answer. The Shulchan Aruch is a definitive guide to modern rabbinical living and whatever answer it gives is reckoned as the gospel truth. The Shulchan Aruch explained that the custom is to "eat a dairy dish and afterwards to eat a meat dish" in commemoration of the two loaves of bread offered in the Temple from the first-fruits of the wheat harvest (Lev 23:17).
One of the commentators on the Shulchan Aruch added that another custom is to eat dairy and honey since the Torah is supposedly likened to dairy and honey in Song of Songs 4:11. I have to admit this last custom is a beautiful concept. Even if the Torah is not really likened to dairy and honey (the verse actually speaks about King Solomon's lover), these two foods represent the blessing of the Land of Israel which is called "a land flowing with milk and honey" (Ex 3:8). The Torah itself is likened to food and drink (Prov 9:5). I think this coming Shavuot I'll observe the custom of eating dairy and honey when I go to the Western Wall for my thrice-annual pilgrimage (Ex 23:14-17). After my long walk from the west-side of Jerusalem I'll sit in the shade of the remains of the Second Temple and pull out a cheeseburger (made from Kosher meat and Kosher cheese, of course) with a smear of honey and think about the blessing of the Torah and the Land of Israel.
More on Shavuot Customs
For those of you who asked, my Shavuot cheeseburger was very enjoyable and the honey really added a nice touch. In the previous newsletter I mentioned being among my Rabbanite friends who despite having over a hundred years of formal rabbinical education between them did not know the real reason for the custom of eating dairy on Shavuot. My purpose for mentioning this was not to cast aspersions on their achievements within the rabbinical educational system. On the contrary, they learned the system very well. When I pointed out that not one of them knew the real reason for such a well-known and prominent custom they unanimously agreed that the reason was unimportant. One of those present, the former gabbai (beadle) of a Jerusalem synagogue, remarked: "There are many customs that we live by on a daily basis but that we do not know the reason for nor is the reason important."
I do not think I fully realized the significance of this statement until yesterday when I was waiting in a doctor's office where I sat reading an ultra-Orthodox Jewish magazine. The magazine contained an article on Shavuot by a woman named Anne Gordon (no relation) who teaches at a seminary in the Old City of Jerusalem. In the article Ms. Gordon explained what she believed to be the true significance of Shavuot from a purely rabbinical perspective. She pointed out that there are many Torah commandments related to Passover but very few related to Shavuot. What Shavuot lacks in commandments it makes up for in minhag – man-made customs developed over the generations which have become obligatory over time. Eating dairy on Shavuot is a prime example of such a man-made custom. In the view of Ms. Gordon, Shavuot is all about "going beyond" the Torah by showing our loyalty to these man-made customs. Indeed, the very nature of Shavuot as understood by the rabbis is an example of this "going beyond" the Torah. In the Torah, Shavuot is a pilgrimage-festival thanking the Almighty for the bounty of the wheat harvest and the first-fruits of our crops. Anyone who thinks these things are no longer relevant in the modern world should consider all the food riots that have taken place around the world over the last year, and this due to nothing more than minor fluctuations in levels of rice and corn production. Apparently not satisfied with the agricultural character of Shavuot, the Rabbis have transformed it into a festival commemorating the giving of the Torah, something which has no basis in Scripture. How ironic that the giving of the Torah is celebrated by "going beyond" the Torah! I think it is time we shed the baggage of two thousand years of Exile and return to the true Torah! Rather than showing our loyalty to man-made customs we must show our loyalty to the word of the living God! The prophet Isaiah spoke well about this generation, which follows in the footsteps of its ancestors:
"that people has approached Me with its mouth and honored Me with its lips, but has kept its heart far from Me, and its worship of Me has been a commandment of men, learned by rote" (Isa 29:13)
Nehemia Gordon Jerusalem, Israel
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