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10 Reasons Ice Cream Is Holy

or: Torah + sweet dairy, an investigation

10 Reasons Ice Cream Is Holy
Image of Charlton Heston Moses pointing authoritatively on two scoops of chocolate ice cream Mt. Sinai while holding two tablets that look suspiciously like blintzes

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Shavuot, the holiday about receiving the Torah on Sinai (and, biblically, offering the first ripe fruits of the year) is coming up beginning tonight, and it's customary to eat sweet dairy specifically on this day. Which, for those of us who believe in the inherent sacredness of ice cream, cheesecake and blintzes, is a-OK. (Oat milk etc. substitutions may of course be appropriate for some of y'all.)

But the question of why dairy on this holiday is the subject of much debate, and there are as many opinions as there are Jews. People often talk about the land flowing with (goat) milk and (date) honey, and that's possible, but there are a lot of other takes, too. I thought it might be fun to look at some of these sources and see which, if any, you find most compelling:

1) Mount Cheese:

A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; A mountain of peaks (גַּ֝בְנֻנִּ֗ים / gavnunim) is the mountain of Bashan. (G'vnina is cheese, so it's almost like the mountain is cheese) (Psalms 68:16)

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