Trutharchivist

All right, then. It has only been a week, but I did warn you! So, let's start talking about Shavuot!

First thing first: Shavuot is the only Jewish holiday that doesn't really have a date. I mean, with the way the current Hebrew calendar works it always hits the same date - 6th of Sivan - but its time isn't defined that way. To explain that, I'll have to go back to something I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention while talking about Pesach.

During the second day of Pesach, while the Temple in Jerusalem stood, the first butch of harvested barley was sacrificed - it was called the Omer sacrifice. Until it was made it was forbidden for Jews to eat from the newly harvested grains - nowadays it's forbidden for the entirety of the day. Those grains are called Chadash (lit. New), and as odd as it may sound this term is going to become relevant in the future in my blog posts, so keep it in mind if you plan on reading those when they come! Anyway, from the day of the Omer, we are required to count seven weeks - forty nine days (including that very day), and by their end, the 50th day is Shavuot. The time of counting is called Sefirat HaOmer (lit. The Counting of the Omer. Omer means a sheaf of grains, but it sounds odd if you fully translate it and for some reason the word isn't commonly used in modern Hebrew), by the way, and I might've mentioned it had I written a post about Lag BaOmer (the 33rd day of the Omer) - but I cancelled this one, so hurrah for that.

Anyway, during this 50th day another sacrifice was made from the new harvest - this time made of wheat, and one of the rare occasions when leavened bread was brought to the Temple! Though, unlike the Omer, it was eaten by priests. There's a rule against sacrificing leavened bread on the altar in the Temple, I don't really want to go over it. In addition to this bread, there was a special sacrifice of two lambs - which was different from regular holiday sacrifices due to it being eaten by priests, basically. It'll take too long to really explain all that. This sacrifice allowed to make sacrifices from the new grain (eating was allowed since the Omer, sacrificing wasn't), and was the starting shot of bringing the firsts of one's agricultural products to the Temple! Only from certain fruits which were considered ones that "the land of Israel is praised for": grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. As you may notice, most of those give fruit during the summer - mostly at the time between Shavuot and Sukkot (in about 4.5 months), with the latest being harvested at least by Chanukah (2 months after Sukkot). And that's the timeframe people were required to bring their first harvest of those fruits - it's called Bikurim (lit. Firsts, I guess. Not sure there's a good translation for that), and that isn't a term you need to remember.

And that's all the Torah - I mean the Pentateuch - tells us about this holiday. Some people nowadays remember it as "the holiday of Bikurim", but people don't really think much about the bread sacrifice. The thing is, the Pesach sacrifice gives its name to the holiday, and has an entire evening dedicated (partly) to remind us of it. This sacrifice does neither, and thus is only remembered in books. So in the end, Shavuot is almost the standard Yom Tov. It's only one day, which is forbidden to work at, though doing things required for food is allowed, to some extent. Supposedly I could just explain about that.

Fine, fine! Stop scratching your faces, all the Jews in the audience! I'll get to it!

So, in the Written Torah it is true that not much more is said about this holiday. But unlike I implied so far, it wasn't considered by the Sages of the Oral Torah to be just an agricultural holiday. Instead, they found a historical event that it represents.

Now, a small tidbit: without the Sages' teachings, one would assume only one Jewish holiday actually commemorates past events (or maybe two, or three, or... I'll get to it) - that being Pesach. All holidays that appear in the Torah are to commemorate the Exodus, but Pesach is specifically on the date it originally was and is wholly centered around it. Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and, yes, Shavuot, all go with no mention of any event occuring in their date due to which they're placed there. The later holidays - first Purim, then Chanukah - do commemorate certain events, as do the fast days. But, considering the lack of specific events connected in the text to the holidays, you'd think there's no need to connect them ourselves. And you might be right, but the Sages did it anyway. And after this long and kind of boring exposition, we'll get to the heart of the topic: the Giving of the Torah on mount Sinai.

Now, there is a basis to this connection: the Mount Sinai event (can't believe I'm calling it that, "event" is the wring word) occured somewhere during the 3rd month from the Exodus, according to scripture. When you go 50 days forward from the middle of the 1st month you inevitably end up at the beginning of the 3rd. Tradition says the Israelites camped at Mount Sinai at the first day of this month, and has a more-or-less detailed chronology of how the Event itself happened at the 50th day from Pesach. Part of the idea is that the Israelites counted the days of the Omer to the Event in preparation for it, ridding themselves from ideas and thought from the time they were slaves in Egypt. And so, the holiday of Shavuot - literally meaning weeks, so named after the seven weeks we count toward it - became a day of celebrating the Reception of the Torah.

That, then, is what actually makes this day unique: we don't have to eat unleavened bread or sit in a hut during it, but we celebrate the essential heart of our religion: the scripture. One could discuss on what exactly Moshe - and through him, all the Israelites - received at this event, but be it just the Ten Commandments or the entirety of the Torah, we celebrate it all. But what does that entail?

Well, though there are no unique commandments relating to this day, there are certain traditions: through Shavuot's night, many people remain awake and study the Torah - be it the Written, Oral, or really any kind of religious text there is (which is actually covered under one of the two, but no matter that). Some people read a certain prepared text that includes the beginning and ending of every book in the Tanakh (the Old Testament, for the Christians among you), with a few portions of some of the books that are read between the beginning and end of said book - ones that are deemed relevant for the day. It also includes the beginning and ending of every Mishnah tractate, and some more stuff I don't really remember. The people who pulled an all-nighter usually pray the morning prayer - Shacharit - at the earliest time possible, and tend to fall asleep during the parts that don't require much talking of them. Some people only study for a portion of the night and do get some sleep, though - they are necessary for certain things according to the Halachah, which is really not something you'd want me to get into, there were too many tangents here as it is. 

Another tradition is to eat dairy products. Well, not only dairy products - meat isn't forbidden during that day, though you can't eat it at the same meal with dairy products - but at least one meal will be mostly those. There are multiple rationalizations for that: one claims the Torah was compared to milk in the Song of Songs (a bit dubious in a way - why not eat mostly honey, or water, or wine? All are things the Torah was compared to). Another is far more convoluted though - it says that when the people of Israel received the Torah, there were many rules for meat they didn't really keep until then, which meant they had a lot of work to prepare for it. So in the meantime, they ate dairy products, because the rules for those are much less elaborate besides the "not with meat" part. And the fact milk from non Kosher animals is forbidden.

During the morning prayer, we read the Ten Commandments from the Torah (a portion of the Torah is always read during holidays), the beginning of Ezekiel (a portion of the Nevi'im, Prophets, is also always read in holidays), and the book of Ruth. I'm not going to go over why the beginning of Ezekiel - it's mainly because it's a huge revelation of G-d, and the Mt. Sinai Event was a huge revelation too - and Ruth is read because it occured at around this time of year, deals with someone accepting the Torah on herself, and also a connection between king David (who was the great-grandson of Ruth) and the holiday, which I honestly don't have the willpower to explain right now.

Anyway, that has been my ramble on Shavuot! Next time is going to be in forty days (give or take), regarding the fast days and the destruction of the Temple. Thank you for reading, and have a good day!