• Holiday Information: Shavuot
• Weddings Between Pesach and Shavuot
• Celebration Times
• Candle Lighting Blessings

• Shavuot

Celebrate the Giving of the Torah on June 9-10, 2008. One of the three pilgrimage festivals, Shavuot is an important holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah. Yet we do not have a specific ritual for this holiday. Most of us think of it as the holiday of cheesecake and blintzes. But many traditions have evolved around this holiday.

Shavuot, which means weeks, was intended as a harvest festival to be celebrated seven weeks after the beginning of Pesach. After the destruction of the second temple, Shavuot took on the meaning we have today; the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Later, the custom of reading the book of Ruth developed in Eastern Europe.

Today, many congregation including our own, hold confirmation ceremonies on Shavuot. Also, we study the entire night before Shavuot. In Israel, many people take fruits and vegetables for distribution to the poor. We should wear new clothes to reflect the commandment to the Israelites to wash before receiving the Torah.

This is the holiday to decorate yourself with flowers. In fact, in Spain and Italy, this holiday is also known as the Holiday of Roses.

• Weddings Between Pesach and Shavuot

Even when tradition forbid weddings during the period of the Counting of the Omer, "exceptions" were allowed on Rosh Hodesh (twice) and Lab B'Omer. The new observances of Yom HaAtzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim further spice a season that was once mournful - but has thankfully become more balanced by the joyous occasions of recent Jewish history.

As a Conservative congregation committed to an expression of restraint, we do not allow weddings from Pesach to Rosh Chodesh Iyar, the period including the mournful Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remebrance Day. Members are encouraged to speak to Rabbi Steindel and Rabbi Werbow about wedding plans elsewhere in this season - or anytime during the year.

• Celebration Times

 

More Information Forthcoming
Erev Shavuout: June 8, 2008
Shavuout: June 9-10, 2008
Bounty of Babies 5768: June 9, 2008 11:00 AM

• Candle Lighting Blessings

#1: Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheynu meleh ha- olam, asher kid-shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tsivanu I'hadlik neyr shel Yom Tov.

#2: Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheynu meleh ha- olam, she-he-cheh-yanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higi'anu la'z'man ha'zeh.