Ruth in Boaz's Field
|Official name||Hebrew: שבועות or חג שבעות (Ḥag HaShavuot or Shavuot)|
|Also called||English: "Festival of Weeks"|
|Observed by||Judaism and Jews|
|Significance||One of the Three Pilgrim Festivals. Celebrates the revelation of the Five Books of the Torah (or Old Testament of the Christian Bible) by God to Moses and to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, 49 days (7 weeks) after the Exodus from Egypt. Commemorates the wheat harvesting in the Land of Israel. Culmination of the 49 days of the Counting of the Omer.|
|Begins||6th day of Sivan (or the Sunday following the 6th day of Sivan in the Karaite tradition)|
|Ends||7th (in Israel: 6th) day of Sivan|
|2013 date||Sunset, May 14
nightfall, May 16
|2014 date||Sunset, June 3
nightfall, June 5
|Celebrations||Festive meals. All-night Torah study. Recital of Akdamut liturgical poem in Ashkenazic synagogues. Reading of the Book of Ruth. Eating of dairy products. Decoration of homes and synagogues with greenery (Orach Chayim, 494).|
|Related to||Passover, which precedes Shavuot|
Shavuot is a holiday celebrated by Jewish people. They celebrate it to remember the day God gave the Torah to the entire nation of Israel assembled at Mount Sinai, the holiday association between the giving of the Torah (Matan Torah) and Shavuot is not explicit in the Biblical text.
References[change | change source]
- Goldberg, J.J. (12 May 2010). "Shavuot: The Zeppo Marx of Jewish Holidays". The Forward. http://forward.com/articles/127963/. Retrieved 17 February 2013.
- Wein, Rabbi Berel (21 May 2010). "Shavuot Thoughts". The Jerusalem Post. http://www.rabbiwein.com/Jerusalem-Post/2010/05/517.html.
- My Jewish Learning on Shavuot - see 7th paragraph