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Shavu'ot
Shavu'ot (the Festival of Weeks) is celebrated
seven weeks after the second day of Passover, which falls on
the sixth
and seventh day of Sivan, in late May and early June. It is
one of the
three holidays of pilgrimage (Shalosh regalim) named in the
Bible, in
addition to Passover and Sukkoth. During these holidays,
offerings from
the first crops harvested were to be laid at the Temple of
Jerusalem.
Although in the Bible this day is called the Hag
ha-Bikkurim (the
Festival of the First Fruits), religious tradition
associates this
holiday with the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on
Mount Sinai.
In synagogal liturgy, this holiday entails an all-night
vigil, along
with studying the Torah and a ban on listening to the Ten
Commandments
being read aloud while one is standing up. This custom has
its roots in a
story from the Midrash, which tells how after Moses came
down from
Sinai, he had to wake the Israelites, whom he found fast
asleep, so they
might listen to the Law given to them by God.
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According to folk tradition, on this night,
people who have not sinned can catch a glimpse of heaven for
a fleeting
moment, revealing a view of Paradise and the power of God.
If one can
manage to express one's innermost wish at this moment, it
will surely
come true.
During the holiday service, the Book of Ruth is also
read, because
it takes place entirely during the harvest, and Ruth-the
heroine of this
story�converts to Judaism of her own will. For this
reason, her fate is
depicted as an allusion to the Jews who received the
Commandments in
the desert.
Another custom during the Festival of Weeks is to
decorate the
synagogue and houses of prayer with greenery�with
greenery and flowers
in memory of the miraculous blossoming the slopes of the
Sinai at the
moment the Torah was given. The houses are also swathed in
greenery, and
even today bouquets or wreaths of flowers and herbs are used
for
decoration.
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Up until the late nineteenth century, people in
Poland and Russia would put paper cut-outs on the windows,
called
shevuosim or shevuosl, or royzelech (little roses), because
they were
round. It was primarily the men and soyfers (writers who
would
transcribe the Torah scrolls) who would make the shevuos.
These
delicate, filigreed cut-outs were often decorated with
flower, bird,
star and animal motifs�particularly those which in
Jewish tradition are
given divine attributes, such as lions, griffins and stags.
It is worth
adding that the shevuosim also served as the model for
traditional
Polish paper cut-outs as well.
Shevuot also has its own culinary traditions. That day,
no meat is
eaten, since it is thought that after receiving the Torah,
the Jews
began observing kosher dietary rules. Thus, all kinds of
foods prepared
with fruit, flour and milk products are served that day
instead.
(kw/cm)
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