THE JEWISH NEWS
MAY 20, 1988
A Toast
To Jewish Living
1 ,140Sitt Shavuot: A Celebration For Receiving The Torah
By PHILLIP APPLEBAUM
Stop counting and pass the
cheesecake; it's Shavuot!
Shavuot — Z'man matan
Torateinu --- is "The time of the
giving of our Torah," when Moses
ascended Mt. Sinai to meet the
Almighty "face to face" and bring
back the divine teachings to the
Children of Israel.
That's the historical side of the
holiday. But what's all this about
counting and cheesecake?
Counting refers to the fact that
we determine the date of Shavuot
by counting 50 days after the first
day of Pesach (Passover). Why do
we count? The Torah in the Book of
Vayikra (Leviticus 23:15-21)
commands the Jewish people to
begin counting off the days and
weeks beginning with the second
day of Pesach "until seven full
weeks have elapsed; you shall
count 50 days, until the day after
the seventh week." The 50th and
last day of this period becomes the
holiday of Shavuot.
All of this counting is referred to
as S'firat Ha-Omer (the counting of
the omer), because during this
period, an omer (a specific dry
measure) of barley was offered up
as a sacrifice in the Temple in
Jerusalem. Thus, Shavuot is the
only major holiday on the Jewish
calendar whose observance is not
established by a fixed date, but by
calculation from another holiday.
During the Hellenistic period of
Jewish history, Greek-speaking Jews
began to call the holiday
"Pentecost" ("50"). (In Hebrew,
Shavuot means "weeks.")
It's interesting to note that there
is also a Christian Pentecost: the
50th day after Easter (usually called
Whitsunday), a direct copy of our
Shavuot.
Shavuot is also known as Yom
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Phillip Applebaum is a past president of
Young Israel of Oak-Woods.
ICs3 1;
Lack Of Symbols Makes Shavuot Special
Rabbi Alon To/win is the
educational director of Aleynu — the
Partnership for Jewish Adult
Education — and the author of this
month's L'Chayim theme piece,
Shavuot. For each edition of
L'Chayim, a rabbi, a Jewish
educator or other notable from the
community will present an overview.
In the passages of the Torah
which define the holidays, Pesach is
clearly the holiday of freedom,
Sukkot is the time of happiness,
Yom Kippur is the day of atonement.
Shavuot, which we know as the
"time of the giving of the Torah," is
not defined as such. It is declared
as the "festival of the first crop
harvest!"
Shavuot appears to be a true
enigma. It is definitely a major
holiday in the Jewish cycle. It is
referred to in the Torah as one of
the three major festivals of the year.
In the times of the Temple, all Jews
would gather on Pesach, Shavuot
and Sukkot. Shavuot celebrates
having the Torah.
To understand Shavuot and its
paucity of symbols, we need to
spend some time understanding the
relationship we have (or, must
develop) with our Creator. (This
article obviously assumes the
reader believes in the Jewish
concept of God.)
The Torah shows us that God
wants a relationship with all of His
children. The Jewish people chose
to be the vehicle through which God
would establish this relationship with
the other peoples of the world. We
were told that by becoming God's
people we would never disappear.
We would make an impact on
history beyond the strength of our
numbers. The nations of the world
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