Celebrating Shavout and Pentecost

What do cheesecake, wheat harvests, fruits and the Old Testament have in common? Don't worry if you don't know - it's actually confusing even to those who do know and I'll explain that in a minute. The answer is they are all related to the holiday of Shavuot  or the Pentecost as it's known in English.

Shavuot is actually one of the strangest holidays on the Jewish calendar. That's because it's a holiday which has undergone a dramatic transformation over the centuries. Back in the days before Jesus, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, Shavuot was primarily a harvest festival. It celebrated the end of the counting of the Omer, a festive time when the ancient Israelites would bring offerings from their fruit  harvests (known as the "First Fruits") to the Temple in Jerusalem. The Omer was a seven week period lasting from Passover to Shavuot and involved counting down the days until the end of the wheat harvest.

Fast forward a few hundred years and the harvest aspect of Shavuot has largely been forgotten. In its place is a festival celebrating the giving of the Torah, or Old Testament at Mount Sinai. The Bible itself doesn't actually tell us that this is what happened on Shavuot. Instead, we rely on the ancient Talmud (a collection of study notes from the 4^th century AD) to provide us with this information. The counting of the Omer too has been changed and is now primarily associated with a time of mourning for the loss of the students of Rabbi Akiva, a Talmudic scholar whose students were said to have died from a plague during this period.

The split personality of Shavuot means that the Orthodox and secular communities in Israel celebrate the holiday in very different ways. The Orthodox focus primarily on the giving of the Torah. That's where the cheesecake comes in. As anyone who has eaten in a kosher restaurant knows, Jews do not eat meat and milk together. This is based on the Old Testament verse, "thou shalt not cook a kid in its mother's milk."

At the time of the giving of the Torah, the ancient Israelites had never kept kosher and they didn't have the proper utensils for slaughtering animals nor did they have pots and pans to cook meat in. Therefore, they ate dairy food only for several days (so the Talmud tells us) and a tradition has arisen to eat cheesecake on the holiday in commemoration of this event.

Secular Jews by comparison, who settled Israel and created farms here decided to focus on the harvest festival aspect of Shavuot. And while most Israelis no longer live and work on farms, there is still a tradition of making an offering of first fruits and grains, however instead of offering them to the Temple, they are offered to the poor and hungry. Although truth be told, everyone enjoys a good cheesecake on Shavuot.

In my opinion, the best cheesecake in Israel (aside from aunt Batya who lives in Kibbutz Yakum) is from a chain store called English Cake. They have branches located all over the country, but are headquartered in Jerusalem. There are a wide variety of cheesecakes available from them, including traditional favorites such as New York cheese cake and more exotic kinds, like Kiwi cheese cake and of course sugar free cheese cake for those watching their calories or for diabetics.

For those interested in learning more about the Jewish roots of their Christian faith, another interesting tradition on Shavuot awaits  you in Jerusalem on Erev Shavuot (the night the holiday begins) this year. According to the Talmud, the ancient Israelites overslept on the night of Shavuot and God had to awaken them to give them the Torah. Therefore, as a way of making up for that, many people have a tradition to study all night long. While most sessions are conducted in Hebrew, several English speaking programs are available as well, including some offered by Pardes and the Merkaz Hamagshimim, both in Jerusalem. These programs are open to people of all faiths. In the past, we've participated in the sessions at the Shalom Hartman Institute and at the Yedidya in Ba'kaa, just south of the German Colony.

English Cake

7 King George Street

Jerusalem

02-6221010

Pardes Institute

29 Pierre Koenig

Jerusalem

02-673-5210

Shalom Hartman Institute

11 Gedalyahu Alon Street, Jerusalem

02-567-5320

Kehilat Yedidya

12 Nachum Lifshitz Street, Baka Jerusalem

 02-6790540

Merkaz Hamagshimim

7A Dor Dor Vedorshav,

German Colony

Jerusalem

054-973-2488