Lead-up to Shavuot unit

On Shavuot, there's a custom to eat dairy foods. Why?

The midrash claims that the Jews ate dairy because they could not use their pots, which had absorbed the "flavor" of un-kosher foods, which until the time of Sinai were allowed.

At the core of this midrash is the issue of "kashering" our utensils to rid them of a particular "status" (meat or dairy; chametz vs. non-chametz). In class, we are studying the issue of kashering utensils, centered on the following essential questions:

• Why do we kasher our utensils?
• What happens to the pot when food of a particular flavor (meat or dairy) is cooked in that pot?
• What are the different methods of kashering? When do we use each one?
• Is there anything that can't be kashered? That we aren't sure that we must kasher?

Students began to answer some of these questions today and we'll wrap things up by mid-week.