Posted by: Joe Yudin | May 20, 2010

This week is a terrific week to be touring Israel. It’s Shavuot. The holiday of Shavuot is one of the oldest holidays on the Hebrew calendar. There are many “reasons” that we celebrate Shavuot (which means “Weeks” in English). The religious reason is that God gave the ancient Israelites the Torah, or His law on this day 3,200 years ago in the wilderness of the Sinai. It also marks the end of the 49 days since the Passover sacrifice and the miracles God wrought against the Egyptians freeing the Hebrew slaves. The counting of the days represents the 49 days the children of Israel wandered in the desert before receiving God’s Word by the hand of Moses. Shavuot is also one of the “Three Pilgrimages” where the Jews would go up to Jerusalem, ritually purify themselves, pay a half shekel tax to the Levites and then climb the stairs of the Temple Mount and offer up a sacrifice to the Lord Almighty.

The Hebrew Bible also calls this holiday the “Festival of Reaping” and the “Day of the First Fruits”. Even though this is mentioned in the Bible, these names reveal Shavuot’s more traditional roots. Here in the land of Israel early May brings with it a warming of the cool spring air and a ripening of the first fruits, wheat and barley. The blackberries turn from a bright red to a dark black, the apples go from green to red and the greenish wheat to a golden brown. The tractors come into the fields and the Kibbutznicks and Moshavnicks, often accompanied these days by Thai workers, head into the fields to pick the fruit and reap the grain. As the hay bales line the freshly harvested fields of the Jezreel Valley and the Arab farmers come to glean the edges of the fields, the sunflowers begin to sprout their bright orange faces turning towards the heavens as all the children of Israel don white clothes, crowns of flowers and take to the fields to sing and dance in the glory of God’s creation. Then we do what we Jews do on every other holiday: Stuff our faces silly, this time with milk and cheese.