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Shavuot, Shavuot

Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. It is one of the shalosh regalim , the three Biblical pilgrimage festivals.

The Torah mandates the seven-week Counting of the Omer, beginning on the second day of Passover and immediately followed by Shavuot. This counting of days and weeks is understood to express anticipation and desire for the Giving of the Torah. On Passover, the Jewish people were freed from their enslavement to Pharaoh; on Shavuot they were given the Torah and became a nation committed to serving God.

The Mishnah and Talmud refer to Shavuot as Atzeret (Hebrew: , a solemn assembly), as it provides closure for the festival activities during and following the holiday of Passover. Since Shavuot occurs 50 days after Passover, Christians gave it the name Pentecost (, "fiftieth day").

In ancient times, the grain harvest lasted seven weeks and was a season of gladness (; ; ). It began with the harvesting of the barley during Passover and ended with the harvesting of the wheat at Shavuot. Shavuot was thus the concluding festival of the grain harvest, just as the eighth day of Sukkot (Tabernacles) was the concluding festival of the fruit harvest. During the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, an offering of two loaves of bread from the wheat harvest was made on Shavuot.

Moreover, the lineage described at the end of the Book lists King David as Ruth's great-grandson. According to tradition, David was born and died on Shavuot (Sha'arei Teshuvah to Orach Hayyim, 494).

In many communities, men and women attend classes and lectures until the early hours of the morning. In Jerusalem, thousands of people finish off the nighttime study session by walking to the Kotel before dawn and joining the sunrise minyan there. The latter activity is reminiscent of Shavuot's status as one of the three Biblical pilgrimage festivals, when the Jews living in the Land of Israel journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate the holiday.

Jose holds that it was given on the seventh of that month. According to the classical timeline, the Israelites arrived at the wilderness of Sinai on the new moon () and the Ten Commandments were given on the following Shabbat (i.e., Saturday). The question of whether the new moon fell on Sunday or Monday is undecided (Talmud, tractate Shabbat 86b). In practice, Shavuot is observed on the sixth day of Sivan in Israel and a second day is added in the Jewish diaspora (in keeping with a separate rabbinical ruling that applies to all biblical holidays, called Yom Tov Sheini Shel Galiyot ).

Accordingly, Shavuot falls on the day after the weekly shabbat, counting from seven weeks since the day after the first shabbat during Pesach.

The covenant renewal feature of Shavuot is thus attributed to this first covenant. Subsequently, it was observed by Noah until his death but revived again by Abraham (Jub. 15:1), and after Abraham's death it was forgotten again until Moses restored it once more.

Source: Wikipedia > Shavuot