Shavuot - Feast of Weeks - Pentecost
“When you have
entered the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance and have
taken possession of it and settle in it, take some of the first fruits of all
that you produce from the soil of the land the LORD your God is giving you and
put them in a basket. Then go to the place the LORD your God will choose as a
dwelling for his Name…” Deuteronomy
26:1-3 (NIV)
In Israel, Shavuot is celebrated only for one day - on the 6th day of the Hebrew month of Sivan (Usually late May, beginning of June.) In the Diaspora, Jews celebrate it for two days. The Christian holiday of Pentecost always falls on the 7th Sunday after Easter.
The Hebrew word for Shavuot means “weeks” and refers to the counting of seven weeks from the second day of the Pesach (Passover) holiday. This period is called the “Counting of the Omer”. Shavuot is the only Pilgrim festival of which the Bible doesn’t give a specific date on which to celebrate.
Different names of Shavuot
- Chag Shavuot (Festival of Weeks)
- Chag ha Katsir (Reaping holiday)
- Yom ha Bikkurim (day of first fruits)
- Pentecost (Greek for 50)
About seven weeks after their departure from Egypt, the Israelites received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Upon their arrival in the Promised Land, 40 years later, Shavuot became connected to the grain harvest. Harvest time begins during Pesach with the barley harvest, and ends with the wheat harvest at Shavuot. The harvesting season was usually one of gladness.
In ancient times, Jewish farmers brought their first fruits to the Tabernacle in Shiloh. In the First and Second Temple period, they brought their baskets to the Temple in Jerusalem. Bikkurim (first fruits) had to be from the “seven species” – wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. (Deuteronomy 8: 7-8) When the first fruit appeared, the farmer would tie a reed around the fruit and declare, “This is a first fruit.”
Preparing to go
up to Jerusalem for pilgrimage, the rich people placed their fruits in golden
or silver baskets, while the poor used baskets from peeled willow-shoots. Oxen
pulled carts which were heavy laden with the baskets. The horns of the animals
were gilded and laced with garlands of flowers.
From all over
the country people travelled to appointed cities, where a local assembly-head
was responsible for the pilgrims. In order not to become ritually unclean,
people did not enter the houses but slept in the streets.
At dawn the
pilgrims set out together - towards Jerusalem, dancing and singing,
“I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”” Psalm 122:1 (NIV).
Jerusalemites
welcomed them with, “Our brothers from …, welcome and peace to you!”
Carrying the
baskets on their shoulders, (even the king had to carry his own basket), the
people presented their offerings to the priests.
When a pilgrim presented his basket to the priest, he had to recite, “My father was a wandering Aramean…” Deuteronomy 26:5 (NIV)
The baskets became property of the priest and Levites, who represented the “firstborn” sons of the Israelites. Standing side by side, rich and poor rejoiced in all the good things the LORD their God had given to them and their households. (See Deuteronomy 26:11)
Bikkurim has the same root as bechor (first born). The first of everything belonged to God – man and animal alike. Israel was God’s “firstborn”, and in recognition of His ownership of the land and His sovereignty over nature, the first grain and fruits had to be offered to Him.
In the Temple,
the Levites ground the wheat into fine flour, from which leavened “twin loaves”
were baked and eaten by the priests. This was the only time that leaven was
used, for all other grain offerings had to be sacrificed and burned unleavened.
“At your times
of rejoicing… you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and
fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God….” Numbers
10:10 (NIV)
After the destruction of the First and Second Temple, the main emphasis shifted to the anniversary of receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai. Because the first fruits could not be offered anymore, rabbis suggested replacing it with charity.
In the Middle
Ages it became tradition to start the formal Jewish (religious) education of
young children around the time of Shavuot.
The Book of Jubilees (also called the Leptogenesis, the “lesser Genesis”) is parallel to Genesis and parts of Exodus. Between 1947 and 1956, fifteen Hebrew “Jubilee scrolls” were found at Qumran. Probably written between 135-105 BC, these scrolls were well known by early Christian writers and rabbis. The book of Jubilees associates Shavuot with the Covenant and Torah and the Covenants God made with Noah and Abraham as an offering of first fruits.
In the 1890’s, secular Shavuot celebrations were introduced by the kibbutzim (collective farms). Being agricultural communities, the first fruits of the produce of each kibbutz was presented to the community and guests in a festive ceremony. Later, factory products began to receive a place of honor in the parades. But the highlight always was (and still is) when the parents proudly present their ‘crop’ of newborn babies to the community.
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