Reply To: Milchig Meal on Shavuos

While many Chassidic communities make a big deal of seuda shlishis, many Yekkas (German Yidden that keep those unique minhagim) and many in Chabad Chassidus davka do not wash for bread at seuda shlishis.

Shabbat 117b derives from the thrice repeated word “hayom” — “today” — that three meals should be eaten on Shabbat. Nevertheless, halachically there is leniency regarding the need to eat bread at the third meal (see Orach Chaim 291). The reason is that the manna was described as “lechem” — “bread” (Shemot 16:15), and after the third “hayom” — “today” — the verse reads, “Lo timza’uhu basadeh” — “You shall not find it in the field.”

Hence, the phenomenon of not finding the bread is commemorated by not eating a meal with bread for the third meal.
(לבוש סימן רצ”ה ס”ה)

Bach (Tur, Orach Chaim 291) writes that the first meal of Shabbat corresponds to the first Shabbat of creation, the second to the Shabbat of the giving of the Torah, and the third to the Shabbat of the World to Come.

Berachot 17a says that in the World to Come there is no eating or drinking, a regular meal with bread is omitted.

The purpose of eating tasty food on Shabbat is strictly to experience “oneg” — “delight.” Hence, one who has reached the level at which he truly feels the exalted spiritual aura prevailing during the time of the third meal, that it is a period of rava deravin — most favorable Supernal Will — with a resemblance of the World to Come, where there will be no eating, but through hearing divrei Torah, he accomplishes his “delight” by “spiritual food and spiritual nourishment” of Torah.