Shavuot

The symbols of Shavuot’s ancient agricultural origins are sweet with the perfumes of deep spring: soft-skinned fruits and sun-warm berries, decorative branches of fresh greens and fragrant flowers. One of the three pilgrimage festivals, the holiday began as a joyous harvest celebration. Seven weeks after Passover (“Shavuot” means weeks, and the festival is sometimes known as the Feast of Weeks), the last of the barley harvest was ready to be gathered and the first fruits and new spring wheat were beginning to ripen. Together these comprised the Seven Species, the choice crops mentioned in Deuteronomy with which the ancientland was blessed: in addition to barley and wheat, dates, figs, grapes, olives, and pomegranates.