Shavuot

Shavuot, Jewish holiday that is associated with agriculture, pilgrimage to the Temple of Jerusalem, and Moses’ reception of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Shavuot (Hebrew: “weeks”) occurs the day following the elapsing of 49 days (seven weeks) after the second day of Passover. It is celebrated for two days on the sixth and seventh days of the Hebrew month of Sivan (late May or early June on the Gregorian calendar) in the Jewish Diaspora, and one day (the sixth day of Sivan) in Israel.

History and meaning

Shavuot was originally an agricultural festival that marked the beginning of the wheat harvest. It is the second of the three Pilgrim Festivals—along with Passover and Sukkot—on the Jewish religious calendar. During the time of the Temple of Jerusalem, Shavuot pilgrims once offered the first fruits of the harvest and two loaves of bread made from the new wheat at the Temple. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce, the agricultural aspect of the holiday shifted from offerings to decorating the synagogue and home with fruits and flowers. The holiday’s alternate names relating to the harvest include Yom ha-Bikkurim (“Day of the First Fruits”) and Ḥag ha-Qatzir (“Harvest Feast”).

The association of the holiday with the reception of the Torah—both the five written books of the Hebrew Bible and the unwritten Oral Law passed down verbally—developed in the Rabbinic period of Judaism, which began about the 3rd century ce. The Book of Jubilees (c. 100 bce) mentions a “Festival of Weeks” as a commemoration of the covenant, although the reference is to God’s covenant with Noah, not the Sinai covenant with Moses. The earliest clear association of Shavuot with the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai comes in the Babylonian Talmud (Pesachim 68b) and is ascribed to the teaching of Eleazar ben Pedat, an amora (Palestinian Jewish scholar) who flourished about the 3rd century ce. In that source the scholar also calls the festival by the name Atzeret (“assembly”), and he describes it as a day of rejoicing and commemorating the giving of the Torah. Over the subsequent centuries rabbis further developed and emphasized the association of the holiday with God’s giving of the Torah to Moses.

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Celebration

During the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot, there is a traditional period of counting ʿomer (“barley sheaves”), which is a time of semimourning broken briefly by the intervening festive holiday of Lag BaOmer. Shavuot is a festive celebration marking the end of the semimourning period. It is considered a day of rest, like the Sabbath, and observers do not work on the holiday. In the absence of the Temple of Jerusalem and associated pilgrimage rituals, other celebrations focused on the Torah have evolved around Shavuot. The modern Rabbinic scholar Simcha Fishbane called Shavuot after the destruction of the Second Temple “an ‘orphan holiday’ without any specific practices, customs, or rituals associated with it,” in his book The Impact of Culture and Cultures Upon Jewish Customs and Rituals (2016).

A tradition that developed in Kabbalistic Judaism, particularly the Lurianic strain beginning in the 16th century, is to stay up all night studying the Torah on the first night of the holiday (Jewish days begin at nightfall), a practice known as Tikkun Leil Shavuot. It is also customary for Jews to attend synagogue and hear a recitation of the Ten Commandments, which were revealed on Mount Sinai as part of the revelation of the Torah. Other liturgical aspects include the Akdamut prayer, a praise poem extolling the virtues of God and the people Israel and introducing the Ten Commandments, and the Azharot prayers, which are recitations of the 613 commandments of Jewish law (Halakhah).

Ashkenazi Jewish communities also read from the Book of Ruth on Shavuot. Some rabbis interpret Ruth’s experience with hardship and famine in connection with the agricultural holiday, while others highlight her acceptance, as a Jew by choice, of Jewish law dictated in the Torah. Other rabbis note that the Jerusalem Talmud recounts that David, the ancient king of Israel, died on Shavuot and that his lineage is detailed in the Book of Ruth.

In some Sephardi Jewish communities on Shavuot, the covenant between God and the Jewish people established on Mount Sinai is figuratively described as a marriage. Before the Torah reading on the first day of Shavuot, a special ketubah (marriage contract), called a ketubah le-Shavuʿot, is read in the congregation. Jewish marriages traditionally include the groom’s signing of a ketubah document that, historically, details the groom’s obligations to the bride. In some Sephardi observances of Shavuot, God is likened to the groom and the Jewish people to the bride, while the Sinai covenant’s stipulations concerning Jewish law and God’s agreement to watch over the Jewish people symbolically constitute the marriage contract. In other analogies described in Sephardi ketubahs for Shavuot, the Jewish people are the groom and the Torah is the bride, while God is the bride’s father who gives a dowry of the commandments and other sacred texts. Other ketubahs imagine that the Torah itself is the dowry that God gives the Jewish people as his bride.

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During Shavuot, Jews eat special meals with an emphasis on dairy foods. The reason for consuming dairy is not entirely clear, but some commentators connect it to the importance in the Torah of following kashrut regulations that prohibit mixing meat with dairy. Others have noted the description of the Torah as a nourishing milk or the description of the land promised the Israelites as “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). Cheesecake, blintzes, and other dairy concoctions are popular on the holiday.

Other festive activities include lighting candles and decorating homes, as well as the synagogue, with aromatic flowers. Shavuot is also the occasion for confirmation ceremonies for children in some Jewish communities. Since the 19th century confirmation has been offered as an alternative or addition to bar and bat mitzvahs in Reform and some Conservative congregations. Since confirmation involves a child’s acceptance of Jewish law, and Shavuot commemorates the community’s reception of the law, the holiday was regarded by the rabbis who created the confirmation ritual to be a thematically fitting occasion. In Israel since the 20th century, many celebrants have emphasized the holiday’s agricultural roots with blossoms, produce, and pageantry in connection with Israeli concern for the fertility of the land.

Relation to Pentecost

The Shavuot festival is sometimes confused with Pentecost, a Christian celebration on the 50th day after Easter. Pentecost occurs about the same time as Shavuot, and the two holidays share commonalities, but they are not identical. Shavuot and Pentecost have a similar timing of a seven-week interval between major religious events and subsequent moments of divine revelation. For Shavuot the revelation of the Torah follows the exodus from Egypt. In Christianity, Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The term Pentecost (Greek: pentēkostē) is used for Shavuot in Greek-language translations of the Bible and in parts of the New Testament. It is likely that Shavuot was a model for the establishment of the Pentecost holiday. It is also possible that Christian confirmation ceremonies on Pentecost influenced the Jewish adoption of confirmations on Shavuot. Despite their historical connection and similarities, Pentecost and Shavuot are distinct holidays with meanings that are specific to their respective traditions.