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  • From: "Richard" <aaa AT endlyss.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Shavuoth, Cheese, and Humus
  • Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 18:46:17 +0300

Yes, had pita dipped humus for lunch. Again for the Jewish Shavuot in a few minutes.

Richard Conaway



----- Original Message ----- From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 6:14 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Shavuoth, Cheese, and Humus


2010/5/18 Yigal Levin wrote:
The festival of Shavu'ot begins tonight at sundown and ends in Israel
tomorrow night. The custom of many Jewish communities outside of Israel is
to add an extra day. Besides the usual holiday prayers and meals, many
communities hold all-night Torah study sessions, "Torah" in the wider
meaning of the study of any Jewish texts, from the Bible to modern. One
traditional reason for these all-night sessions is that according to one
legend, on the morning of the original Sinai event the Israelites were all
asleep in their tents and Moses had to go from tent to tent pulling them out
of bed. So we don't want to miss out this time around. In many communities
it is also customary to read and to study the book of Ruth, the main action
of which occurred during the harvest-time. Since Ruth is the
great-grandmother of David (and thus also the ancestress of the Messiah),
Shavu'ot is also considered the anniversary of David's birth and of his
death. I'll actually be giving a talk on Joab at our synagogue. Also, since
the Torah is likened to milk and honey, Shavu'ot is also a festival of
cheesecakes and other milk dishes. There's a cheesecake in the oven as I
write.

In addition to cheese, you might want to consider Humus as well. Ruth 2:14
is taken -- at least by various Humus afficionados on the web -- to relate to
the Humus dip:
http://humus101.com/EN/2006/10/10/6/ (English)
http://humus101.com/?p=99 (Hebrew)

What Meir Shalev and the Humus blog haven't noticed is that Homets is
used as a name for a plant alongside sumac and coriander in Damai 1:1.
I personally think that "chickpea" is much better suited than vinegar in
such a context. (Note, the Aruch of the 11th century comments on this
Mishnah that it is the small hard sour grapes - ענבים קטנים הקשים החמוצים,
so it too chooses to read here a plant rather than vinegar, and perhaps
he is even trying to describe chickpeas).

Vayyiqra Rabba also quotes R' Simon as saying that this is the way of the
reapers -- to dip the bread in Homets. Again, IMO, more likely that humus
is at stake. (http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/tanach/raba3/34.htm - Hebrew)

But then, you probably have your Humus already prepared.

Happy Shavuot.

Yitzhak Sapir
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