Eating Dairy Foods

It is customary to eat dairy foods on Shavuot. There are many reasons given for this. Among them:

1. After the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the Jewish people did not have kosher vessels or kosher meat, so instead of taking the time to slaughter and salt the meat etc., they ate a dairy meal.
2. The two breads that one has with the two meals (the original custom was to eat dairy and meat meal within a meal of bread, see note 66) is reminiscent of the two loaves that were part of the Shavuot sacrifice.
3. Milk represents purity. Milk is produced by the body from blood, and blood is associated with the impurity of Niddah (the blood of the menstrual cycle). Thus, consuming dairy represents the Jewish people being purified from the tuma (impurities) of Egypt.
4. The whiteness of milk represents G-d’s pure loving kindness. The Torah was given to us out of G-d’s boundless kindness.
5. One of the six names of the Mount Sinai is Gavnunim which is similar to the word gevinah (cheese).
6. Since milk comes from a living animal, it was actually not kosher until the giving of the Torah as it was considered eiver min hachai (part of a living animal). Since the laws of eiver min hachai are part of the Noahide code, the Jewish people were not allowed to consume milk at that time. It was permitted by the Torah which praises the land of Israel as the land of milk and honey. We commemorate this by eating dairy on this day.