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The Early Stories :
The Israeli farmers bring their Spring harvests with the Barley crop at Passover. Harvest continues for seven weeks
as all other crops and fruits continue to ripen. Once ripe, the first of each crop would not be eaten. Instead, the farmer
would tie a ribbon around the branch holding the fruit. This ribbon signified that the fruit was "bikkurim", or first fruit.
The farmers would then gather their first fruits and take them to Jerusalem where they would be eaten. The crops brought were
dictated by the distances the farmers had to travel. those close to Jerusalem brought fresh fruits, while those further afar
brought dried raisins and figs. Musicians helped celebrate the event by the playing of fifes, timbres and drums. Pilgrims who
came to the event would be greeted by the citizens of Jerusalem. Sadly, this Bikkurim ritual is no longer practised.
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For seven weeks after leaving Egypt the Jews wandered in the desert. They were heading to Israel, where they would have their
own country. But before they could get there, they had to have their own laws. Even free people shouldn‘t go out and lie and
steal or forget their past. So, seven weeks after the Jews left Egypt, they gathered around Mount Sinai to receive the Torah,
the book of laws that would tell them how to live. After seven weeks (the word Shavuot means ‘weeks‘) the Jewish people stood
around Mount Sinai and God spoke to them: ‘You shall not worship idols. Remember the Sabbath. Honor your parents. Do not
kill. Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not become jealous of your neighbors.‘ When they heard these commandments, the Jews
promised to obey them. For seven weeks the Jews had been a free people. Now they had a constitution to prove it. |
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The holiday of Shavuot is observed on the sixth day of the third Hebrew month Sivan. For those living in the Diaspora,
Shavuot is also observed on the seventh day of Sivan. Shavuot takes place in the Spring, generally in late May or early June.
Shavuot is the holiday Jews universally accept as the day when G-d gave the Jewish people the Torah following Moses‘ descent
from Mount Sinai. However, nowhere in the Torah is the holiday of Shavuot actually linked to Matan Torah, the giving of the
Torah. Instead, the Torah refers to Shavuot as an agricultural festival. It marked the transition between the barley harvest,
which was brought to the priest in the Temple in Jerusalem on the sixteenth of Nisan and the start of the wheat-ripening
season, which began the first week of Sivan. The Torah refers to Shavuot as Hag ha-katzir, (Exodus 23:14-19) the feast of the
harvest, as Hag Hashavuot, the festival of weeks, and as Yom ha-bikurim, (Leviticus 23:9-22) the day of first fruits, when
farmers brought their produce to the Temple as an offering. Shavuot is the second of the shalosh regalim, the three annual
pilgrimage holidays of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, when Jews from all over Israel and beyond converged onto Jerusalem to
celebrate and bring temple offerings. |
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The Torah commands that Shavuot be celebrated exactly seven weeks after the second day of Pesach, the day of the first Omer,
the early barley harvest offering. This explains the name Shavuot ‘ Hebrew for weeks, or as it‘s known in Greek, Pentecost,
meaning fiftieth day. ‘You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to
the standing grain. Then you shall observe the Feast of Weeks for the Lord your G-d, offering your free will contribution
according as the Lord your G-d has blessed you‘. Kabbalists saw in the number seven the concept of the sefirot, the spiritual
spheres that surround the heavens and G-d. The number 49 is also symbolic of the 49 gates of impurity from which the ancient
Israelites were released as they left the land of Egypt. According to a very old tradition, the period between Pesach and
Shavuot is also a season of mourning. Marriages are not performed, hair is not cut and live music is not played or heard. The
reasons for this are not entirely clear. One tradition suggests that since this period was preparatory to receiving the
Torah, these days were set aside for serious reflection and study. Therefore, frivolous activities were put on hold. |
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The most widely accepted explanation is that a mysterious plague cost the lives of many of Rabbi Akiva‘s students during the
Roman period. On the thirty-third day of the Omer, the mysterious plague stopped. This is why Lag Ba‘Omer, the thirty-third
day of the Omer, is observed as a special, though minor Jewish holiday, when marriages, haircuts and live music are
permitted. In Israel, Lag Ba‘Omer is also observed as the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Kabbalistic
Book of Mysticism called the Zohar. A yahrzeit is the anniversary of a person‘s death. Large numbers of people visit his
grave in the city of Meron to commemorate the day each year. He is believed to have died on Lag Ba‘Omer in the middle of the
second century. It is interesting to note that Jews commemorate the Yahrzeit, rather than birthdays of its departed loved
ones and sages as a reminder that it is not as important to celebrate the birth of those who pass away as it is to reflect on
their life‘s accomplishments. |
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Observance of Shavuot in Temple Times :
The Jewish philosopher, Philo, (c.20 B.C.E.-c 50 C.E.) who lived in Alexandria, and Flavius Josephus, (c.38 C.E.-c.
100C.E.) the Roman Jewish historian, wrote about the Jewish pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Philo wrote that multitudes of Jews
from countless cities converged on the temple at each festival. Some came by land and others by sea, from east, west, north
and south. ‘We hear of pilgrims from many cities in Africa, Asia Minor and the Middle East amazed to hear their languages
spoken, through the miraculous gift of tongues when they gather in Jerusalem for Pentecost‘, wrote Philo in Acts (2:1-10).
Babylonia, which probably had the biggest Jewish population outside Israel, supplied the largest flow of pilgrims. Pilgrims
traveled in caravans, setting off from towns inside and out of Israel. Obviously, not every Jew was able to travel to
Jerusalem three times a year, so groups of district representatives known as the Ma‘amad were organized. |
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The Mishnah, in Tractate Bikkurim, paints a lively picture of what it was like to travel to the Temple for the holiday of
Shavuot. At the rise of morning an official says: ‘Rise and let us go up to Zion to the House of the Lord our G-d.‘ An ox
walked before them, its horns covered in gold, and with an olive crown in its head. The challil, (flute) was played before
them until they reached the vicinity of Jerusalem. Upon coming close to Jerusalem, they sent word ahead and decorated their
bikkurim (offering). The important officials went out to meet them‘ and all the tradesmen in Jerusalem stood before them and
greeted them: ‘Our brothers, the men of such and such a place, you have come in peace‘. The flute was played before them till
they reached the Temple Mount. Even King Agripas took the basket on his shoulders and carried it until he reached the
courtyard. |
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When the pilgrims reached the courtyard, the Levites sang: ‘I will exalt You, O G-d, for You have saved me and You have not
rejoiced my enemies before me‘. With the basket still on his shoulder, the Israelite read a Parsha, or chapter, from the
Torah: ‘I have told the Lord your G-d this day, that I have come to his land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.
My father was a wandering Aramean and he went down to Egypt and he sojourned there and he became there a great, mighty and
numerous people. And the Egyptians harmed us, and they afflicted us and they put hard labor upon us, and we cried out to the
Lord, the G-d of our fathers and the Lord heard our voice, and the Lord took us from Egypt with a strong hand‘ and G-d
brought us to this place, and G-d gave us this land, and a land flowing with milk an honey. And now, I bring the first fruits
of the land which you have given me, O G-d‘. After completing the entire parsha, the Jew placed the bikkurim basket by the
side of the altar, bows and departs. The High Priest then acts on behalf of the people as a whole, presenting before the
altar the special Shavuot wave-offering ‘ two loaves of bread made of wheat, the first products of the Spring wheat harvest
that begins just as the barley harvest comes to an end. Thus, Shavuot in the days of the Temple celebrated the bounty of the
spring harvest season. So, how did this primarily agricultural festival become so intrinsically linked to the revelation at
Mount Sinai? |
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Observance of Shavuot in Post Temple Times :
Our rabbis explain that the nature of Shavuot began to change following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.
Without the Temple, neither of the two agricultural rites of Shavuot could be observed. Instead, references to Shavuot
Temple offerings were limited to prayers made in the Synagogue‘s Shavuot services. With the Temple destroyed, Shavuot needed
a spiritual dimension. And, since the Jewish calendar is fixed, and Shavuot was already set aside as a holiday, the focus of
the holiday began to shift to Mattan Torah, the giving of the Torah, which, the Torah records, took place in Sivan, the month
of Shavuot. Unlike Pesach and Sukkot, Shavuot doesn‘t have obvious, visible symbols like a sukkah or a Passover seder.
However, there are several customs associated today with Shavuot. For instance some communities decorate synagogues and homes
with branches, plants and flowers, reminiscent of the flowering of Mt. Sinai before Matan Torah. (Exodus 34:3) |
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Families make it a point to serve dairy foods on the holiday, a symbol of the land of Israel flowing with milk and honey
(Exodus 3:8). Many adults and even children (who are old enough) stay up well into the night to study Torah, a kabalistic
custom known as tikkun leil Shavuot. In addition, two important religious scrolls are read on Shavuot: The Book of Ruth, the
story of Ruth, a Moabite woman, who voluntarily chose Judaism and because of her kindness, became the great-grandmother of
King David, who is said to have been born on and died on the day of Shavuot. Ruth‘s story is also read on Shavuot because it
takes place during the barley and wheat harvests of Judea, which ties in with the agricultural nature of Shavuot. From the
Book of Ruth we learn of the laws of pe‘ah, leaving the corners of a field unharvested, and leket, leaving behind individual
stalks that fall from the bundles that can be collected by the poor. |
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We also read from a book called Akdamot, written in Aramaic by Rabbi Meir ben Isaac of Worms, Germany of the eleventh
century, which describes what it will be like during the days of the Messiah. In some conservative and reform congregations
in the United States today, confirmation exercises are still held on Shavuot. This is consistent with the theme of accepting
G-d and the Torah into our lives. And finally, many Jewish schools throughout the Diaspora begin a child‘s Jewish education
on Shavuot. The custom is said to have its origins in medieval times, when a young child was brought to the classroom for the
first time. Letters of the Hebrew alphabet were covered with honey or candy, fulfilling the Hebrew verse, ‘How pleasing is
Your word to my palate, sweeter than honey‘. (Psalm 119:103).
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