Shavuot (05/06)

Shavuot — is a holiday of the granting of the Torah, that is, the moral law, to the free Jewish people. It is celebrated on the 6th of the Jewish month of Siwan and is a day off in Israel.

In Hebrew, the word «shavuot» means «week» — seven weeks, the countdown of which begins on the second day of Passover. According to legend, on this day Moses received the tablets of the Covenant with the ten commandments on Mount Sinai. The commandments contain the foundations of all human morality, which no people and no person can do without. In addition, Moses received oral commandments, some of which he wrote down (the result was a scroll of the Pentateuch — Written Torah), and part — of the Oral Torah — were recorded only 1500 years later, after the destruction of the Second Temple. The recording of the Oral Torah is a multi-volume work of the — Talmud, as well as many other books, in turn united by the general title Midrash.

Like many other Jewish holidays, Shavuot celebrates not only a certain historical event, but also the onset of the new season of the year, the end of the next agricultural cycle. Shavuot was celebrated at the beginning of the wheat harvest season. This is the last of three pilgrimage holidays. In ancient times, on this day, a second offering of wheat of a new harvest was made in the Temple. Two loaves were baked from freshly ground wheat and carried to the Temple. Another victim was the best first fruits, the first fruits.

These days, in Shavuot, a Torah scroll is carried out in synagogues and a story is read about how it was given, the text of the Ten Commandments and a fragment telling about the laws of Shavuot celebration in the Temple. There is also a tradition of reading the Torah all night on the eve of the holiday.

Festive meals in Shavuot necessarily include dairy and flour foods: cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, thin pancakes, pies, cakes, rugs of honey, dumplings, pies or pancakes with cheese. This custom dates back to the day the Torah was awarded. Returning to the camp from Mount Sinai, the Jews were content with dairy food. Since then, paying tribute to the past, something dairy is eaten on Shavuot before lunch and only then festive meat dishes are served in separate dishes.

In agricultural settlements and kibbutzim, Shavuot — is a fun harvest festival, when grains and the first fruits ripen, including the seven species mentioned in the Torah: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Children go to school or kindergarten with wreaths on their heads and with baskets full of fresh fruit. Synagogues and houses are decorated with green branches and garlands of flowers and fruits, house windows — with paper applications. Therefore, on the eve of the holiday, both children and adults are busy carving. Some achieve such perfection in this art that their appliqués look like real paintings.

Graduates of Jewish religious schools, as well as higher educational institutions, complete their classes and receive certificates and diplomas on the eve of the Shavuot holiday. This holiday symbolizes the introduction to the true Covenant not only of Jews, but also of representatives of other peoples. On this day, the book of the Bible Megillat Ruth is also read in the synagogue. Ruth was a Moabite who converted to Jewry and became the great-grandmother of King David, so there is a custom on the feast of Shavuot to visit the graves of kings from the house of David.

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