Why do we eat dairy on Shavuos? This infographic explains some little-known facts about milk and cheese in the Torah.
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- The Torah is compared to milk, as the verse says, "Like honey and milk [the Torah] lies under your tongue" (Song of Songs 4:11). Just as a mother’s milk has enough nutrients to sustain her baby’s entire body, so too, the Torah provides all the spiritual nourishment to nourish the human soul.
- The prohibition of mixing meat and milk is mentioned 3 times in the Torah, to teach us 3 things that cannot be done with milk and meat: (1) Eat them together; (2) Cook them together; (3) Benefit from them together.
- When the Jews received the Torah on Mount Sinai, they learned complicated laws of Kosher including how to properly slaughter animals. Since they had no kosher meat already prepared, they ate dairy instead.
- The Hebrew word for cheese is Gevinah, whose numerical value is 70, corresponding to the “70 Faces of Torah” - the 70 ways to understand each part of the Torah.
- 40 is the numerical value of the Hebrew word Chalav (milk) - the same as the number of days Moshe spent on Mount Sinai to receive the Torah.
- Israel is known as the land of milk and honey (Deuteronomy 6:3 and 31:20).
- When the 3 angels came to tell Avraham he would have a son (Yitzchok) at the age of 100 - he served the angels milk and butter, among other things.