The triple power of Shavuot
Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)
49 days after the Exodus from Egypt, Israel stood before G-d at Mount Sinai and received the Torah. While Passover celebrates the initial liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, Shavuot marks the culmination of this process of liberation, when the Jewish People became an autonomous community with their own laws and standards.
In 1952, an ancient scroll with the Ten Commandments was discovered in the Qumran Caves. It is the oldest written text citing the 10 Commandments. Learn more about it HERE
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Agricultural Connections
The Pilgrimage Festivals outlined in the Torah are directly connected to the agricultural cycles in the Land of Israel.
Deuteronomy/Devarim 16:16:
Three times in a year all your males will appear before the L-RD your G-d in the place which He shall choose (Jerusalem); on the feast of unleavened bread (Pesach), and on the feast of weeks (Shavuot), and on the feast of tabernacles (Sukkot); and they shall not appear before the L-RD empty handed.
Shavuot falls in the middle of the three. The first, Pesach or Passover, starts at the beginning of spring, commemorating the exodus from Egypt. On the second day of Pesach, the counting of the Omer commences, which consists of a bundle of barley being presented in the Temple. Barley is the first grain to ripen in the fields.
The Omer is counted for seven weeks or 49 days – see Leviticus/Vayikra 23:15-16.
On the 50th day, a new offering of wheat is presented, as wheat ripens later than barley and is considered superior. The Omer count, therefore, represents personal character improvement and spiritual maturing.
As Shavuot is connected to the 7-week Omer count, it is referred to in the Bible as the Feast of Weeks. The word “shavua” in Hebrew means “week”.
After the gathering of barley concludes after the seven weeks, a new offering of wheat is brought to the Temple, signaling an agricultural shift. The time of preparing and bringing the bikkurim or First Fruits to the Temple is also commanded in the Torah. This period culminates during the festival of Sukkot, which is the last of the three festivals. Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles, falls at the end of the summer after the crops have been harvested.
Learn more about the Jewish Pilgrimage to Jerusalem HERE
Ruth and Boaz
Back to Shavuot, where the gathering and threshing of grain are intimately connected to the story of Ruth, a righteous convert to Judaism, and Boaz, her redeemer. As part of the many redemptive undertones of Shavuot, Ruth and Boaz meet in the reaper's field close to Boaz's town, Bethlehem. The Book of Ruth tells us that Ruth started during the barley harvest and was working in the fields till the end of the wheat harvest (Ruth 2:23), placing Shavuot at the center of the events.
Learn more about Ruth’s story HERE
Read more about the Bethlehem Seal Impression HERE
House of David
The Redemptive thread continues as the end of the Book of Ruth notifies the reader that Boaz and Ruth were the great-grandparents of King David (Ruth 4:17). It is hardly a coincidence that the birthday and passing of King David fall on Shavuot. Moreover that he was born in Bethlehem (Beit Lehem).
Up till 30 years ago, no empirical proof existed of King David’s existence in history, until a stele was discovered during excavations of the ancient Tel Dan, in northern Israel, in 1993. The stele mentions a king from the House of David – truly a monumental discovery!
You can learn more about the Tel Dan stele HERE
Article: AnaRina Kreisman
