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#ThowbackThursday: Converts, Cheesecake, and Other Reasons To Like Shavuot

May 21, 2015 by Patrick Beaulier

My Letterman-style Top Ten Reason To Love Shavuot:

10. Cheesecake Brownies. It’s like shooting heroine and cocaine at the same time..only a lot healthier and legal. Dairy and Shavuot go hand-in-hand, and since I seldom eat meat this holiday glorifies everything I love that makes me fat.

9. You get to remember who Ruth is. Ruth is the national symbol of Jewish feminists. I kinda wish we read her megillah instead of Esther’s: instead of booing Hamen, we’d be applauding the Moabite.

8. Everyone stays up late studying Torah. Or just rockin’ the kiddush. If you’re an early to bed, early to rise type, just read our backlog of Shavuot articles.

7. Converts get some respect…for about six hours. On Shavuot, you’re the most Jewish person in the room…even if you were born with the name Christopher Jesusman. And converts are generally the only people who know what Shavuot is in liberal circles, so you get to feel like some kind of tzadik for your intense knowledge.

6. Work restriction. This year is the best because it falls middle of the week, then it’s over, then it’s Shabbat. It’s like taking a week off, since you mentally check out from work a day before any holiday anyway.

5. It has that kinda made-up feeling. Shavuot is a fairly minhag heavy holiday, in the sense that Ruth, studying and milchig is pretty much all there is to it and the rest is just customs to fill in the time. I like that because you never have to worry about doing the wrong thing on Shavuot. Hanukkah is like that, too.

4. Weird conversations. I like Shavuot chavrutah with eccentric people, because the combo of staying up late and heavy religious discussion always goes in strange directions: people passing out, talking in their sleep, stoner-like debates about whether or not Boaz’s foot was actually a foot or a euphemism for…ya know…the male part.

3. Energy drinks. When I was in the rockabilly punk band The Love Drunks, I used to slam energy drinks laced with vodka. I found the combination helped me stay up really late, and mellow out at the same time. I’m not into that kinda thing anymore, but Shavuot is my one time a year where I gorge myself on Red Bull.

2. The diversity of Jewish events. If you really want to pull an all day and all nighter, find a small child and force them to chaperone you to a Chabad family event. The ice cream sundaes are always incredible. In the afternoons you can generally find some JCC-type of place doing a late afternoon event catching after school/before dinner crowd, and then you can party with the grown ups all night.

1. The Torah!!!!!!!!!!! Come on, forget all that cultural junk. It’s all about the Torah, people.

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Random (Feelin' Lucky?), Shabbat & Holidays Tagged With: book of ruth, Chabad, cheesecake brownies, conversion to judaism, convert to judaism, darshan yeshiva, energy drinks, minhagim, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, shavuos, shavuot, ten commandments, the love drunks

Shavuot Banana Cream Cheesecake

June 6, 2011 by newkosher

Not a lot of people celebrate Shavuot, which is a shame because it’s such a great holiday for dairy food! When I think cheesecake, my mind immediately wanders to Cheesecake Factory. Although the restaurant itself is totally trief, this recipe isn’t!

The Pretty-Darn-Close Cheesecake Factory Banana Cream Cheesecake

20 vanilla sandwich cookies
¼ cup margarine, melted
24 oz cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 eggs (check for blood spots in the eggs – very important in kosher cooking!)
¾ cup very ripe, mashed bananas (about 2)
½ cup whipping cream
2 tspn vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place cookies in a blender; process with on/off pulse until finely crushed.

Add margarine; process with pulses until blended. Press crumb mixture onto bottom of 10″ springform pan; refrigerate.

Beat cream cheese in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add sugar and cornstarch; beat until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in bananas, whipping cream, and vanilla. Pour cream cheese mixture into prepared crust. Place pan on cookie sheet and bake 15 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 200°F (DO NOT forget to reduce temperature – very important) and continue baking 75 minutes or until center is almost setbsp Loosen edge of cheesecake; cool completely on wire rack before removing rim of pan. Refrigerate cheesecake, uncovered, 6 hours or overnight.

You can make a whipped cream topping by whipping cream, powdered sugar and a touch of vanilla together and piping over the top. Yum!

Recipe adapted from RecipeSecrets.net.

Filed Under: NewKosher (Recipes) Tagged With: banana cream, cheesecake factory recipe, cheesecake recipe, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, shavuos, shavuot, Shavuot Banana Cream Cheesecake

Humanist Shavuot Midrash

May 20, 2010 by Patrick Beaulier

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paMpEzj0ZMg

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Podcasts & Videos, Rants, Shabbat & Holidays Tagged With: atheism, atheist, bible, Counterculture, holiday, humanism, humanist, Jewish, Jews, Judaism, midrash, Punk, rebel, Religion, shavuos, shavuot, ten commandments, Torah

What Is Shavuot?

May 17, 2010 by Patrick Beaulier

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqrr-n_s2ug

Shavuot celebrates the revelation of Sinai and the giving of the Torah. It started as a harvest festival and has now morphed, as many holidays do, into something more cerebral and…of course…filled with glorious food.
This holiday is marked by a tribute to dairy. Why? Well, we’re not exactly sure. There’s mystical reasons, and historical reasons, but mainly it’s because the cultures of the time were producing cheese during this season, and so came the tradition of eating dairy on the holiday.
But Shavuot is more than just food. It’s a time when Jews engage in intense Torah debate all night long. Imagine tons of people, sitting around binge eating on cheesecake, drinking, reading and arguing. It’s rad.
The Book of Ruth is a big part of Shavuot as well. We read Ruth because Ruth’s coming to Israel took place around the time of Shavuot, and her conversion to Judaism is a great analogy for the Jewish people accepting the Torah. acceptance into the Jewish faith was analogous of the acceptance of the Jewish people of God’s Torah. It also helps that the Book of Ruth ends with the genealogy of David, and there’s a midrash (myth) that says that David died on Shavuot.
I hope you have an awesome Shavuot. I know I will!

Filed Under: Shabbat & Holidays Tagged With: bible, convert, Counterculture, food, ger, holiday, Holidays, Jewish, Jews, Judaism, laws, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, Religion, shavout, shavuos, ten commandments, Torah

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