The festival of Shavuot, marked this year on June 5 and 6, celebrates the biblical story of God revealing Torah – Jewish scriptures and teachings – to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. This gift, and the observance of Torah’s principles, is at the core of the Jews’ relationship with God, referred to as the “covenant.”
Shavuot has deeply agrarian roots. As a scholar of early Rabbinic Judaism, I know that the holiday has evolved significantly over the centuries, as has Judaism itself. Today, rather than primarily marking the harvest, Shavuot observance transports the Jewish community back to Sinai, to symbolically experience the awe of revelation and personally recommit to the covenant.
