Shavuot

[cellio]

Tonight/tomorrow is the festival of Shavuot, which (among things) is about the giving of torah at Sinai. It's my favorite holiday thematically.

There is a tradition to stay up all night (or, well, into the night at least) studying torah, in preparation for "receiving" it in the morning. (Why? The ancient Israelites had to be woken up; we're supposed to try not to repeat the mistake.) This study session is called a tikkun leil shavuot (or "tikkun" for short). My rabbi leads an excellent tikkun every year, but this year there is going to be a community-wide one with many local rabbis (including mine), so we won't be having ours. On the one hand that's disappointing, but I picked up a copy of the schedule at services this morning, and there are interesting-sounding sessions being taught by rabbis I've never met. So while it's tempting to go to the classes taught by the rabbis I know (and know to be good), I plan to use this opportunity instead to get to know some new-to-me folks. Should be fun.

The community tikkun only goes until 1AM. There will be all-night sessions at Kollel and (I thnk) Shaare Torah. I'll decide at the time how I feel about continuing at one of those places. (I've never been to Kollel. I sometimes get a "we're for men, and women who want to be good moms" vibe from them, but tonight could be different. We'll see.

Chag sameach if you celebrate; happy Friday if you don't. And I guess if Shavuot is now then Pentecost is Sunday, so happy holiday to my Christian readers.

Comments

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Well the *Christian* holiday of "Pentecost" (or "Whitsunday" for Anglicans) is certainly different from Shavuot. That's not the source of my confusion. This is:

"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place." (Luke 2:1, RSV)

(Side note: "pent-" is "five" in Greek. But in Latin "quinque" == "five" and "quinquaginta" == "fifty", so I wouldn't be surprised of the Greek for "fifty" had "pente" in there somewhere.)

The annotation states that Luke refers to this as Pentecost because of the Jewish holiday, seven weeks (fifty days, counting both ends, which they did back then) after Pesach, celebrating the giving of the Law. Now I don't know what the actual term is that Luke used in the original Biblical Greek, but he's definitely referring to the *Jewish* festival.

Thanks for clarifying that Shavuot is both a harvest thing and the celebration of the giving of the Law.

[cellio]

"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place." (Luke 2:1, RSV)

Sounds like they were gathered for Shavuot, yes. (Shavuot is not constrained to be on a Sunday the way Pentecost is, but depending on how precise Luke is being, that might be fine. If you'd shlepped to Jerusalem for the festival you might stay a few days. :-) )

Interestingly, if you follow the gospel reckoning that this all happened in 33CE, Shavuot was on a Sunday. If you hold that Jesus's birth was in 4BCE as some scholars have suggested, then that puts this in 29CE, in which Shavuot was on a Monday (so starting Sunday night). Just sayin'. (No, I don't just know this stuff; I have software.)

I don't know if the gospels care about the day of the week or if that's only a later church concern.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

The gospels often mention the day of the week if it's in some way important. The Resurrection is specifically noted as having taken place on "the first day of the week", and some things happen specifically on Shabbat. This passage does *not* state that it was Sunday, only that it was morning. The placing of Pentecost on Sunday is probably a later Church decision, and likely was a desire to put the feast seven weeks after Easter in the same way as Shavuot is seven weeks after Pesach, ignoring whatever actual day of the week it actually occurred (but conveniently putting the feast on a day of the week when most Christians would be meeting for religious services anyway).

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh, ooh! I know this one! ;-)

On Sunday my pastor made a reference to the fact that this was "Pentecost Sunday", which is the day Sunday we celebrate the (New Testament) events of Pentecost, although the actual day of Pentecost was later in the week.

And you are right in saying that Luke is referring to Shavuot, calling it by the Greek name.

-- Pamela/Anastasia (I lurk a lot, but rarely have time to post -- I love reading though!)

[cellio]

Thanks for the info! (And hi. :-) )

[cellio]

BTW, Shavuot is 7 weeks + 1 day after Pesach (e.g. this year the first night of Pesach was a Wednesday and Shavuot night was a Thursday). Not that I expect the timing of Pentecost to be so constrained anyway, but Easter and Pentecost both being on the same day and being treated as mapping to the Jewish holidays doesn't quite work.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Well, the timing of Pentecost is tied to the timing of Easter. That is almost certainly *based* on the timing of Shavuot relative to Pesach. The Jewish and Christian holiday sets don't always end up in quite so close proximity, due to the differences in calendars.

[cellio]

Yup yup -- I don't expect them to exactly sync up either.