Shavuot

Shavuot is a two-day Jewish holiday that always starts fifty days after Passover, during the Hebrew month of Sivan. It’s the Jewish First Fruits Festival, when the spring wheat is harvested in Israel- a time of thanksgiving for the grains and fruits of the earth. This is the beginning of the wheat harvest in Israel, which continues throughout the summer and ends with Sukkot in the fall. Shavuot also celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jews.

Agenda Today:
1. Decorate the house:
In order to maintain a link with the agricultural nature of the festival, I decorate the house with flowers and greens.

2. Make cheese cake:

Cheese cake and cheese blintzes are traditional treats on Shavuot, because of a passage in the Song of Songs, "honey and milk under your lips." It implies that the words of the Torah energize our spirits as milk and honey strengthen and sweeten our bodies.

I made my first ever cheesecake today! I used the recipe at Simply Recipes, and it turned out almost perfect. I have to admit, though, that my foil wasn't wide enough, and even though I wrapped the pan in 4 layers of foil, some water did get in, and the crust was ever so slightly soggy around the outside edges.

3. First Fruits Meal:
Menu- Lettuce salad (from our garden), salmon fillet, new potatoes (from the Farmer's Market), and cheese cake!

Prayer:
Barukh atah AdonAI,
eloHAYnu melekh ha’olam,
she-hakol nih'yeh bi-d'varo.

Blessed art Thou, our God of the Universe,
by whose word everything comes into being.

4. Read the Ten Commandments:
One Shavuot custom is to stay awake the entire night of Shavuot studying texts, singing songs, telling stories, and then reading the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17) at the first rays of the sun. (I did not stay up all night.)


1. I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt.
2. You shall have no other gods before Me.
3. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not murder.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not bear false witness.
10. Do not covet.