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Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, is a Jewish festival celebrating the giving of the Torah and the wheat harvest, held seven weeks after Passover.

History

Shavuot completes the seven-week count from Passover known as the Omer, and its name means 'weeks'. In the Hebrew Bible it is one of the three pilgrimage festivals and marks the wheat harvest, when the first fruits were brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo and Josephus also knew the festival by its Greek name, Pentecost, meaning 'the fiftieth day', because it falls fifty days after Passover — the same Greek word later attached to a distinct Christian feast. Over time the festival came to be associated above all with the giving of the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, regarded in Jewish tradition as the foundational moment of Jewish law and covenant. Unlike many festivals, Shavuot has few prescribed rituals, and communities developed their own beloved customs over the centuries. Chief among them is the all-night study session, Tikkun Leil Shavuot, in which people stay awake learning sacred texts. Synagogues are decorated with greenery and flowers to recall both the harvest and the tradition that Mount Sinai bloomed at the moment of revelation. The Torah fixes Shavuot not by a calendar date but by counting fifty days from the Omer offering of Passover, which is why it is the only major Jewish festival with no date of its own in scripture. In the synagogue the morning service centres on the reading of the Ten Commandments, for which the congregation stands, and on the Book of Ruth, a harvest-time story of a Moabite woman's acceptance of the Israelite faith; tradition also holds that King David, Ruth's descendant, was born and died on Shavuot. Ashkenazi congregations chant the Aramaic poem Akdamut before the Torah reading, while Sephardi communities recite the Azharot, poems enumerating the commandments. Dairy foods — cheesecake, blintzes, cheese-filled kreplach and Sephardi cheese pastries — have several traditional explanations, among them the Song of Songs' description of the Torah as 'honey and milk'. In Israel, where the festival is a one-day public holiday, kibbutzim and schools revived the bikkurim (first fruits) procession, with children in white carrying baskets of produce, and after the night of study crowds walk to the Western Wall in Jerusalem for dawn prayers. Reform congregations often hold confirmation ceremonies for teenagers on Shavuot.

Meaning

Shavuot celebrates learning, gratitude and covenant. The commemoration of the Torah's giving makes it a festival of study and reflection, honouring wisdom passed down through generations. As a harvest festival it also expresses thanksgiving for the earth's provision. The greenery, the dairy foods and the all-night learning together give the day a gentle, contemplative warmth.