Friends, next week Shavuot will be celebrated beginning with Erev Shavuot on Tuesday evening May 25th translating to the 5th day of the month of Sivan on the Hebrew calendar with the festival of Shavuot following on the 6th and 7th days of Sivan, (May 26th and 27th). While celebrated for one day in Israel, Shavuot is observed for two days in the diaspora. Reform Judaism also observes Shavuot for one day.
ZMAN MATAN TORATAYNU—"THE SEASON OF THE GIVING OF OUR TORAH" is celebrated on Shavuot because it was determined over the ages that the Torah was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai by God at this time of the year. Shavuot is also known by several other names for its beginnings were agricultural in nature and had no relationship to the celebration of the events on Mt. Sinai.
One of the three pilgrimage festivals in Judaism, the others being Pesach and Sukkot, Shavuot is also known as HAG HA-SHAVU’OT—"THE FESTIVAL OF WEEKS"—because it is held at the end of seven weeks, counting from the second day of Pesach. Also known as "Pentecost," the Greek term for fifty, Shavuot was celebrated on the 50th day after the cutting of the omer (the sheath) of the new barley. Another name for Shavuot is YOM HA-BIKKURIM—"THE DAY OF THE FIRST FRUITS"—the day on which the first fruits of the year were brought to the Temple. Finally Shavuot is known as HAG HA-KATZIR—THE HARVEST FESTIVAL—named after the agricultural season in which Shavuot occurs. Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot are known as the "Pilgrimage Festivals" because, until the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., all Jewish men were commanded to go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the festivals and to offer special sacrifices.
The Book of Exodus (23:14-19) says: Three times a year you shall hold a festival for Me. You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread—eating unleavened bread for seven days as I have commanded you—at the set time in the month of Abib, for in it you went forth from Egypt; and none shall appear before Me empty-handed; and the Feast of the Harvest, of the first fruits of your work, of what you sow in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in the results of your work from the field. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign, the LORD. The choice of the first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the LORD you GOD.
The three pilgrimage festivals are a time of great joy in Judaism and all have a special positive commandment, "and you shall rejoice on your festivals," (Deuteronomy 16:14). Always in the same order in the Torah: Pesach, the festival of spring, the time of flowering, when the grain begins to ripen. Shavuot the time when the grain is already harvested, the fruits begin to ripen, and the grape harvest starts. Sukkot the festival of gathering in and storing all the produce of the fields, when the annual agricultural season has ended and there is time to enjoy the fruits of the past year before next year’s planting begins.
Thus our ancestors linked Pesach and Shavuot as occasions for thanking God for the fruits of the field. So do we thank God for the renewal of life which all nature proclaims at this season. As Pesach and Shavuot became linked with historical events their association through the counting of the intervening days took on new meaning. It connected the idea of freedom, associated with Pesach, with the idea of Torah, associated with Shavuot.
Traditionally, Synagogues are decorated with flowers and plants, there being a number of reasons for this. One reason is that Mt. Sinai was miraculously covered with vegetation in honor of the giving of the Torah. Dairy foods are also traditional for various reasons, one being that, as Jews entered the promised land, they entered the land of "milk and honey."
In addition to the readings from the Torah, the singing of Hallel, and the Yizkor prayer, one of the traditional readings on Shavuot is from the Book of Ruth.
With famine in the land of Judah, Elimelich, his wife Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion journeyed to Moab. Upon the death of Elimelich, Naomi and was left with her two sons who subsequently took Moabite wives whose names were Orpah and Ruth. There they dwelt for some ten years. Upon the death of her two sons, being destitute, Naomi decides to return to Canaan and asks her two daughters-in-law to remain in Moab. Orpah decides to remain in Moab while Ruth chooses to join Naomi in her journey to Canaan. As the Book of Ruth relates, Ruth tells Naomi: "Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge, thy people shall be my people and thy God my God, where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried."
Arriving in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest, Naomi advises Ruth to exercise the right reserved to the poor to glean grain which falls during the harvest. In the fields Ruth meets Boaz, a kinsman of her late father-in-law, and ultimately Boaz takes Ruth as his wife who gives birth to a son, Obed, who becomes the father of Jesse the father of David.
Thus the story of Ruth is one of commitment to a family, a way of life and a belief. In a way Ruth’s story is that of the the Jewish people from the time of the giving and the receiving of Torah at Mt. Sinai. The events at Sinai led to the conversion of a nation to a commitment to the one God, Adonai, to Torah, its teachings and obligations.
Amen