What is Shavuot?

June 11 - 13, 2024 • 6-7 Sivan, 5784

Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, is celebrated exactly seven weeks after the first full day of Passover. Although not as well-known as other holidays, it is one of the three most important holidays on the Jewish calendar. Along with Passover and Sukkot, Shavuot is one of the Shlosha Regalim - Three Pilgrimage Festivals, when Jews living all over the Land of Israel made pilgrimages up to Jerusalem. These holidays correspond to times of harvest in Israel when Jews brought offerings of thanksgiving to the priests in the Temple.

The Pilgrimage Festivals have religious significance as well. On Passover, we recall the Jews leaving Egypt; on Sukkot,
we recall traveling through the desert and living in temporary huts. On Shavuot, we focus on reaching Mount Sinai and receiving the Ten Commandments. We count 49 days of the Omer (7 days x & weeks) after the Exodus, and on the 50th day, the Children of Israel received the Torah from God. 

On Shavuot, it is customary to

• eat cheesecake, blintzes, and other dairy food to recall the line from the Song of Songs that describes the sweetest of the Torah "like honey and milk under your tongue."
• decorate our synagogue and houses with greenery and flowers to celebrate the joy of receiving the Torah. 
• stay up all night on the eve of Shavuot to study Torah or other Jewish texts, reminiscent of the Children on Israel waiting at Mt. Sinai for Moses to come down with the Ten Commandments. 
• read The Book of Ruth, which tells a beautiful, romantic story that occurs at the beginning of the wheat harvest. 

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