The Jewish Holidays in June 2025

Shavuoth – The Feast of Weeks

Shavuothis 50 days after  Pesach. It became associated with the receipt of the Torah at Sinai by the rabbis.  There's no reference to this in the Torah, but it is now part of our tradition, celebrated by studying Torah all night.  There are no traditional Shavuoth foods per se, although it is customary to have a dairy meal.  This, we are told, was because once we had the laws of Kosher in the Torah, our ancestors could not eat the meat they had because it was non-Kosher, so they must have eaten dairy meals until they could prepare and eat an appropriate animal.

Shavuoth is one of the three Pilgrimage Holidays (Passover and Sukkoth are the other two). The instruction to celebrate it appears in the Torah in:  

(1) Exodus 23:16 - And the festival of the reaping of the first fruits of your workings that you seeded in the field...

(2) Exodus 34:22 - And the festival of Weeks [Shavuoth] you will make for yourself with the first fruits of the reaping of wheat...

(3) Leviticus 23:15 - You will count for yourself from the day after the Sabbath from the day of your bringing the Omer [sheaf of wheat] for a wave-offering for seven Sabbaths, complete they will be.

(4) Deuteronomy 16:10 - You will make a Festival of Shavuoth for YHVH your Elohim, a measure of the free-will of your hand

Deuteronomy 16:16 - Three times in the year all of your males will appear before YHVH your Elohim in the place that He chose: with the Festival of the Unleavened Breads, and with the Festival of the Weeks...