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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

Milk, Symbol of Sivan

May 21, 2015 by Ketzirah

Milk 2 by Andrew Magill, used by CC-A permissions
Milk 2 by Andrew Magill, used by CC-A permissions

Cross-posted from www.peelapom.com

It’s traditional to eat dairy on Shavuot, which begins the first week of Sivan. Because of this, we’re going to explore dairy for the month of Sivan.

Let’s start with the separation of milk and meat in the Torah. What it actually says is “don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (לֹא-תְבַשֵּׁל גְּדִי, בַּחֲלֵב אִמּוֹ). This prohibition is found tthree times in the Torah: Ex 23:19, Ex 34: 26 and Deut 14:21, which means — seriously, don’t freaking do this we’re not kidding around!!! Most likely this was a prohibition on mixing life and death; milk being the source of life and death being meat, very literally in this case the meat of the kid goat. It was also, according to the Encyclopeida of Jewish Symbols, a common ancient pagan practice to give an offering of [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Judaism & Belief, Random (Feelin' Lucky?) Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, dairy, darshan yeshiva, food, kashrut, meat, milk, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, shavuot, sivan, traditions, wheel of the year

The Ultimate Shavuot Guide: Essays, Recipes, Rituals and More!

May 20, 2014 by Patrick Beaulier

UltimateShavuot5773

Imagine a mountainous buffet of ice cream, cookies, blintzes, cheesecake and pie. Imagine dozens of people sitting around, slamming coffee, cola and energy drinks, enthusiastically debating Jewish law, telling fantastical stories from the Torah and Talmud, breaking into discussions about contemporary issues like Israel and the state of Jews around the world. Imagine yourself there. Interested? Then keep reading. The Ultimate Shavuot guide is an epic collection of spiritual essays, easy to use rituals, and of course, delicious recipes (because what Jewish book DOESN’T have food???) In typical PunkTorah fashion, we wanted Shavuot to be accessible to everyone. Dairy recipes are the custom, but of course, we have plenty of vegan Shavuot recipes as well. Don’t know Hebrew? Don’t worry — the blessings are transliterated. Download your copy. And please, give a donation to PunkTorah to support all of our hard work, including these awesome books.

Filed Under: Jewish Media Reviews, Random (Feelin' Lucky?) Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, free jewish book, free jewish books, free jewish ebooks, online conversion, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, shavuot, shavuot book

Jessica Moore: Sensing God In Israel

July 20, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=warl0p3PQ6M

Jessica remembers being in Jerusalem for Shavuot, and the strong connection and presence of God she felt there.

Filmed at the Birthright Israel NEXT office, Atlanta, Georgia.

Filed Under: Podcasts & Videos, Random (Feelin' Lucky?), The G-d Project Videos Tagged With: G-d, God, god project, Irish, jerusalem, jessica moore, jew, jewish new media fund, jnmf, Judaism, punktorah, shavuot, the g-d project, the g-d project jewish, the god project, the god project jewish, Torah

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

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