Dairy Meals for Shavuot
Here are the few explanations I could find on why it has become customary to have a dairy meal for the holiday of Shavuot.
- Before they received the Torah, the Israelites were not obligated to follow its laws, which include shechita (ritual slaughter of animals) and kashrut . Since all their meat pots and dishes now had to be made kosher before use, they opted to eat dairy foods.
- The Torah is compared to milk by King Solomon.
- The gematria of the Hebrew word chalav (milk) is 40, corresponding to the 40 days and 40 nights that Moses spent on Mount Sinaï before bringing down the Torah.