Shavuot

Appears in
The Gefilte Variations
The Gefilte Variations

By Jayne Cohen

Published 2000

  • About

6 and 7 Sivan (May or June)

The beautiful holiday which commemorates the receiving of the Torah arrived, and with it spring came to the steppe. Zlochov was inundated by a sea of moist, green, velvety grass, which streamed from the steppe into the town.... Tall bunches of jessamine looked into every window of Zlochov, and the fragrance of white lilac filled the little rooms.

—SHOLOM ASCH, “WE WILL DO AND WE WILL OBEY”

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 was beginning to ripen.