While Shavuot inspires some Jews to stay up all night studying Torah, the holiday can also serve as an excuse to indulge in dairy-rich treats, from blintzes to kugels.
Of all foods, though, it seems that cheesecake defines the holiday — at least according to what’s been written in our pages over the decades. (This year it falls on June 11.)
Cheesecake could seem like an inadequate way to honor the giving of the Torah, if you agree with San Francisco’s Rabbi David Stolper, who wrote in 1940 that Shavuot “commemorates the greatest event not only in Jewish history, but also in the history of humanity.”
However, only an ascetic would deny the delights of this creamy, rich dessert.
So why is cheesecake associated with Shavuot, a festival that is both agricultural and deeply spiritual?
In 1990, food columnist Betty Newman attributed it to the long tradition of metaphors about Israel as the land of milk and honey, including one in Song of Songs 4:11: “Honey and milk are under your tongue.” A dozen years earlier, we’d noted: “Jews celebrate Shavuot with joy and with milk foods as a symbol of the Torah, according to the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. ‘Just as milk is pure, so the words of the Torah are true.’”
Ironically, Ashkenazi Jews are highly intolerant to lactose. According to research, lactose intolerance occurs in 50% to 80% of Ashkenazi Jews, compared with around 25% for non-Jewish Europeans and nearly 100% for East Asians.
But that doesn’t stop us from eating cheesecake or reporting on it.
Take, for example, the 2004 news out of Haifa about an effort to bake the world’s largest cheesecake for Shavuot: “The cake measured more than three yards in diameter and more than one yard high.” There is also the 2005 item about the provision of shelf-stable cheesecake for Shavuot for U.S. Jewish soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. (There were no details on what was required to make cheesecake this resilient.)
In 1994, we profiled Stan Goldberg of Stan’s Cheesecakes, who left tech to become a cheesecake mogul (and frequent advertiser in our publication). Lisa Fernandez interviewed Goldberg, who said of his cheesecakes, “Some people say that they’re the best they’ve had in their entire lives.”
It’s a courageous claim to make, and may have been disputed by Elliot Hoffman, profiled in 1978 in an advertorial. For Hoffman, cheesecake led to a new career and a thriving chain of coffee shops.
Hoffman, a self-described “hippie” and “cheesecake freak,” started baking cheesecakes and selling them to restaurants. With the help of Hebrew Free Loan, he opened Just Desserts on Church Street in San Francisco. The wholesale business still exists.
In 1987, the Orthodox Jewish inventor of the Tofutti nondairy ice cream substitute came to town to discuss expansion. Peggy Isaak Gluck talked to David Mintz about his ideas for future products, including a “cheeseless cheesecake.”
Food columnist Alix Wall likewise focused on a vegan cheesecake demonstration in 2012.
“In Berkeley, there are so many vegans, raw people or gluten free,” said Miriam Ferris, rebbetzin of Chabad of Berkeley, who was hosting raw foods pastry cook Chaya-Ryvka Diehl.
We have, of course, run many a recipe for cheesecake in our pages. Most of them were traditional, but not all. In 1993, we published an adventurous recipe from Joan Nathan for a savory salmon and dill version.
Of course, you can enjoy cheesecake any time. But it doesn’t hurt to have an excuse to indulge.
In his 1940 article, Stolper said he had himself done a cursory survey of a “large number” of Jewish children and found that, while everyone knew about Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Yom Kippur, only 20% knew about Shavuot.
“Many believe that Shavuoth does not arouse the imagination of our youth as do other holidays because it has no particularly fascinating ceremonies such as Passover, with its magical Seder Night, or Chanukah, with its Lighting of the Candles,” he said. “If this be the case, such ceremonies must be created.”
Problem solved, rabbi!
We couldn’t agree more and assert that the ritual enjoyment of cheesecake has become the staple of the Shavuot experience that we all deserve.