Shavuot

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In Hebrew, Shavuot means "weeks" (referring to the 7 weeks between Passover and Shavuot.) Jews believe that Shavuot is when God handed down the Torah on Mount Sinai. It's also one of the harvest festivals in Judaism, specifically the festival of the harvest of wheat.

Story of Shavuot

The story of Shavuot starts with the story of Passover, you can find a brief version of the Passover story on my previous post on Passover. So, picking up from there.

Pharaoh lets the Israelites leave Egypt, and they start the 40 year journey to the Promised Land.  Weeks later, the Israelites make camp at the base a mountain in the Sinai desert known as Mount Sinai. Over the time they are camped out there, Moses goes up the mountain several times to talk to God, and God gives Moses. During Moses' trips up the mountain, God gives him the 10 Commandments, along with laws concerning the altar, slaves, violence, property, restitution, the sabbatical year, the sabbath, festivities, the Tabernacle, and more. (You can read the full story in Exodus 19:1-34:30 of a Christian Bible.)

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Celebrations

How long you celebrate Shavuot depends on if you're in Israel or not. In Israel, it's a one day holiday, while the rest of the world extends the holiday to two days.

• Prayers for Shavuot are said to thank God for the Torah and God's law, especially at dawn.
• The Synagogue is decorated with flowers and plants to symbolize the flowers on Mount Sinai. Also, Jews go to the synagogue to hear the 10 Commandments be read there.
• People typically stay up all night to study the Torah on the first night.

As for food, it's customary to eat dairy food on Shavuot. Why? To Jews, the Torah is like nourishing milk, along with a few other reasons.

Sources

• BBC page on Shavuot
• Chabad.org's pages on Shavuot 101, why cheese is eaten

Want to learn more?

• Chabad.org has pages on several aspects of Shavuot.
• myjewishlearning.com's shavuot-101 page