Summary of the festival

Shavuot falls on 6 Sivan (and 7 Sivan too in the diaspora), fifty days after Pesach. It is the festival of the giving of the Torah, when the people stood before Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments. The Torah also calls it “the Festival of the Harvest” and “the Day of the First Fruits”. We read the Ten Commandments standing, and the Book of Ruth.

The mitzvot of the festival

• The Ten Commandments: hearing them standing, with great intention.
• Tikkun Leil Shavuot: studying Torah all night, a custom with its source in the Zohar, to repair the “sleep” of the Israelites on the morning of the giving of the Torah (Midrash Shir HaShirim Rabbah). In many communities the night ends with reading the whole Torah and praying at sunrise.
• Dairy foods: there are several explanations: the Torah is “milk and honey under your tongue”; some say that after receiving the laws of kashrut on the day of the giving of the Torah, they could not eat meat at once, because their vessels were not yet kosher.
• Reading Ruth and the Azharot (a poem listing the 613 commandments, in the Sephardic custom): in Moroccan and Yemenite communities, and others, the Ketubah of Shavuot, the reading of a “ketubah” between God and the people of Israel, like a wedding.
• Decorating with greenery and flowers, in memory of Sinai which bloomed, and of the first fruits.
• The blessing Shehecheyanu and Hallel.

Origin in history

Fifty days after the Exodus, on 6 Sivan, God revealed Himself on Mount Sinai with thunder, lightning and the sound of the shofar, and gave the people the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19-20). The people said “We will do and we will hear” (Exodus 24:7). In Temple times, Shavuot was the festival of first fruits: people brought the first of their produce to Jerusalem (Deuteronomy 26) and offered two loaves from the new wheat (Leviticus 23:17). According to tradition, King David, great-grandson of Ruth, was born and died on Shavuot.

The message for today

The Torah was given in the desert, with no ownership of land, to teach that it belongs to everyone. The Midrash says that God offered it to every nation, and only Israel said “we will do and we will hear”. But learning does not end: each year we receive it anew. The Book of Ruth, the convert who accepted the Torah of her own will, reminds us that acceptance is a choice. And after the counting of the Omer, the preparation reaches its peak: from leaving slavery to receiving Torah, from physical freedom to mission.