Shavuot

Shavuot commemorates the spring harvest and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Shavuot is celebrated on the 6th day of the month of Sivan in the Hebrew calendar, which usually falls in May in the Gregorian calendar.

Alongside Passover and Sukkot, it is one of the three pilgrimage festivals, marked in ancient times by the gathering of the entire Israelite people at the Temple in Jerusalem. Like the others, it is also timed to an important moment in the agricultural calendar: the first grain harvest of the season.

Though it is less observed in modern times than other Jewish holidays, Shavuot marks one of the most important moments in Jewish history, the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. This was the moment when, in the Jewish understanding, God’s will was expressly communicated to human beings. It also marked the transition of the ancient Israelites into a religious community bound by covenant into a mutual relationship with God. For this reason, some Sephardic communities have a tradition of reciting of a ketubah l’Shavuot, a symbolic marriage contract between the Jewish people and God to symbolize the betrothal of God and the people.

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