Rice Pudding with Dates

Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, commemorates the day the people of Israel were given the Torah at Mount Sinai after being expelled from Egypt. Sephardic Jews traditionally eat dishes with white rice on Shavuot as the color white symbolizes the purity of the Torah.

To Sephardim, the Festival of Weeks is also known as the Feast of the Roses. The faithful sprinkle rose blossoms on the Torah scrolls. According to Jewish legend, the king saved a garden overgrown with weeds because of a rose, and it is therefore believed that God will save the whole world for the sake of the Torah. This pudding contains not only rose water, but also milk and honey – an allusion to the "land where milk and honey flows."

Sephardic Jews, referring to Jews originating from Spain and Portugal and their decendants, who after their expulsion in 1492 and 1531 settled in the Osmanian Empire and North West Africa, as well as in the Netherlands and the Americas.