Both count 50 days: Pentecost and Shavuot, both today!

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It is a double celebration today, with Jewish Shavuot and Christian Pentecost coming on the same day.

Today Jews celebrate Shavuot, also know by its Biblical names Chag HaKatsir, the [wheat] Harvest Festival, and Yom HaBikurim, Day of the First Fruits.
By tradition today also marks the day of King David's birth and death.
But mainly Shavuot is Zman Matan Toratenu, The Season of the Giving of our Torah.
Seven weeks (shavuot = weeks) have passed since Passover.
It took 49 (+1) days of wandering in the desert for God and Moses to prepare the People for the the biggest day in history.
In today's morning prayer service Exodus 19-20 is read.
All rise in silent reverence to listen to the Ten Commandments with the feeling that we all are standing at Mount Sinai.
The scroll of the Book of Ruth is also chanted, in loving memory of David and of Ruth, his Moabite ancestor, the mother of all converts.

In the dim recesses of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a priest and his reflection.
What almost looks like a flame above his head reminds us that this Sunday is Pentecost for some Christians.

The Book of Acts says that the Apostles were gathered together in one place [in Jerusalem's Upper Room] when suddenly a sound came from heaven like a rushing wind, filling the entire house where they were sitting.
Then tongues of fire appeared and one sat upon each one of Apostles!
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as directed by the Holy Spirit.

Chag sameach, happy holiday  to you, whichever festival you are celebrating today!
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(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)
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Walking through the Ten Commandments

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Today is the happy holiday of Shavuot, also called the Festival of Weeks, Pentecost, the holiday of the First Fruits and of the reaping of grain.
Shavuot also became known as the day on which God gave the Torah on Mt. Sinai.
It is a mitsvah for every Jew to stand and hear the Ten Commandments read in the synagogue today. 

During the recent Heritage Preservation Week, the head man of  Struma Synagogue in Beer Sheva showed our tour group the Torah scrolls in their holy ark.

And with a big smile he explained that when they were building the synagogue the 1950s movie "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston was popular, and he was inspired by it to design the back wall and door as the two tablets!

You are welcome to see my other posts about Ruth and Naomi and about cheese and cheesemakers, which are also part of the Shavuot tradition.
See more about the Struma synagogue at my other post.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday  and   Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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A good Shavuot lesson for modern-day Israel

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Chag sameach!
Today is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

The Feast of Weeks is also called the Time of the Giving of the Torah, the Festival of the First Fruits, and the [wheat] Harvest Festival. 

Shavuot commemorates the people's pilgrimage to Jerusalem to bring first crops to the Temple. 

 

Today the Ten Commandments were  read in synagogues and also the Book of Ruth, telling the story of Ruth the Moabitess who followed Naomi and became Jewish.

 On Shavuot it is the tradition to eat dairy foods, wear white, and study Torah throughout the night.

More posts about it under my labels "Shavuot"  and "Torah."

I learned something nice today, thanks to the Velveteen Rabbi.

Exodus 19:1-2 states that

1 In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. 
2 And when they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mount. 

That last part, in Hebrew,  is  וַיִּחַן-שָׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל, נֶגֶד הָהָר
Suddenly the Torah is using a singular verb to say that we (plural) camped in front of the mountain.
Why?

 Rashi understands it to mean that the Israelites camped there as a single entity, with one heart and one purpose.

Or as Velveteen Rabbi says in her blog, "On this day, long long ago, despite all of our frustrations and our differences, we were together at the mountain as one. We were one people, one heart, one community. And in that state of oneness, we entered into relationship with God. In that state of oneness, we received revelation. We experienced divinity. We experienced the theophany . . . "

And the following verse says, "And Moshe ascended to Heaven and God called to him from the mountain. . . ."
 The 15th century Italian commentator Rabbi Sforno explains that  "This teaches us that Yisrael set themselves to the task of preparing the camp, and Moshe ascended to prepare himself for his approaching prophecy."

As I find at a "Chassidus" website, 

"Rabbi Chayim Shmuelevitz, the former Rosh Yeshiva of the famous Mir Yeshiva of Poland and then later Jerusalem, once pointed out the seemingly contrary intent of the comments of the Sforno:

 How is it possible to describe the activities of Moshe and the people in one breath?! Moshe Rabbenu is preparing for the world's greatest revelation, and the people are digging latrines and pounding in tent pegs?

 He answers that when they pitched camp, each one was concerned not with his own place, rather he took the time to worry about his neighbor; was his camp in order, did he need some help.
Because they were doing chesed [~ acts of kindness] one with the other, they showed that they were indeed a nation that was fit to receive the Torah.
Moshe's going up was made possible by the Nation's pitching camp."
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Cheese with soul

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Chag sameach--happy Shavuot holiday!

I already told you the story of how I discovered the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in a Swiss lake.
I've posted about Ruth and Naomi and Boaz, and about the customs of Shavuot, about reinventing ritual with art, and about hearing the thunder of Mt. Sinai.

So what else is there to tell about Shavuot?
About the custom of eating dairy foods on that holiday, of course!
Cheesecake, blintzes, soft cheese, hard cheese . . .

So recently I made a "pilgrimage" up to Har Eitan, to the goat farm hidden in a wild and wildly beautiful landscape in the Jerusalem Hills.

Goat cheese at its very best!
Many different varieties of prize-winning artisan cheeses.
And yogurt, too, to drink cold from the bottle.

The cheese tasting and selling is done in this cave next to one of the goat pens.
Resistance is futile.

Sit under a tree and soak up the mountain air as you enjoy some wine and cheese.

These terraced hills where the herd grazes are ancient.
See the pretty goats at my previous post about the farm, as well as how to get there.

Ta-da! Here is the master cheesemaker himself, my old friend Shai Seltzer.

Learn more about Shai, his goats, cheesemaking, and the farm at his nice website.
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UPDATE: There is a nice new article, "Israeli Cheese Goes Artisanal," that tells about Shai and other "boutique cheesemakers."
UPDATE 2018: Here is a 2017 article about Shai:
https://www.israel21c.org/working-magic-with-cheese-on-har-eitan-farm/
and also
this about fancy cheeses in Israel:  https://www.israel21c.org/for-the-love-of-the-cheese/
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For Shavuot -- faces of Ruth

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Today Jews celebrate Shavuot, also know by its Biblical names Chag HaKatsir, the [wheat] Harvest Festival, and Yom HaBikurim, Day of the First Fruits.
By tradition today also marks the day of King David's birth and death.

But mainly Shavuot is Zman Matan Toratenu, The Season of the Giving of our Torah.
Seven weeks (shavuot) have passed since Passover.
It took 49 (+1) days of wandering in the desert for God and Moses to prepare the People for the the biggest day in history.
In today's morning prayer service Exodus 19-20 is read.
All rise in silent reverence to listen to the Ten Commandments with the feeling that we all are standing at Mount Sinai.
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The scroll of the Book of Ruth is also chanted, in loving memory of David and of Ruth, his Moabite ancestor, the mother of all converts.
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Let's look at some very different portrayals of Ruth, all at the current exhibit of Bible story sculpture at Mamilla in Jerusalem.

The one above is called "Ruth and Naomi, the dialogue."
Sculptor Ruth Agmon quotes the famous passage in Ruth 1:16-17 that widowed Ruth speaks to her mother-in-law Naomi:

And Ruth said: 'Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;
where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried . . .

"Ruth the Moabitess" by Judith Sudai who quotes Ruth 2:3:

So she went. She came and gleaned in the field behind the reapers. As it happened, she came to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

"Ruth" by Cathy Kerner. Ruth 2:2:

Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain . . .

"Ruth and Boaz" by Rachel Levi. Ruth 2:10:

Then she fell prostrate, with her face to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?”

"Ruth" by Cathy Kerner.
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Notice the crown of future kingship on the boy's head!
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For other aspects of the holiday please click on my label "Shavuot."
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HAPPY SHAVUOT!
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Revelation and response

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Happy Shavuot! The holiday begins tonight.
And so does ABC Wednesday R Day.

One name of the Shavuot holiday is The Time of the Giving of Our Torah.
Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Teacher, received the revelation from God on Mt. Sinai.
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"Boaz and Ruth" by William Hole, 1607-1624, British

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In the synagogue the Book of Ruth is read.

Converts like Ruth the Moabite, who followed Naomi, are appreciated especially on this day.

Ruth was gleaning in the field when she met Boaz. They married and became ancestors of King David.

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Shavuot is indeed The Festival of the Harvest.

Last week, from the bus window, going up north to the Galilee, I could see that the grain had just been cut.
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Pilgrimage section at the Tower of David Museum

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It is also the Festival of the First Fruits.
Specific agricultural offerings were brought to the Temple on Shavuot, which is one of the Slosh Regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals when Jews went up to Jerusalem.


Not part of the ritual, but really important as a custom, is to eat cheese and dairy food on Shavuot.
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Then there is Tikkun Lel Shavuot, the all-night study session of Torah.
And wearing white.
And decorating the house with greenery.
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Every year on this holiday we renew our acceptance of God's gift and God "re-gives" the Torah!
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Counting the omer with objects of the spirit

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Omer and Objects of the Spirit -- for O Day at ABC Wednesday.

I saw this at the Jewish art museum at Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem and was delighted to learn that it is a modern, artistic version of an omer calendar!

The acrylic on wood creation is called Saphyr, Sefirat haOmer counter [sefira means "counting" in Hebrew].

American artist Tobi Kahn made it in 2002.

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Saphyr is a 7 x 7 sculptural grid with 49 pegs that mark the 49-day interval between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot, between the commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

This 49-day period begins on the second day of Passover – when an omer , or measure of barley, was offered at the Temple in Jerusalem – and ends on the day the wheat harvest began. Symbolically, the time between the two holidays traces the path from physical freedom (the Exodus) to spiritual freedom attained by the acceptance of the Torah.

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Special calendars are used to count off the seven weeks of the omer.

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Since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, we can no longer bring the offering.

Instead, we now "count the omer" each night during this period by saying a blessing and enumerating the day.

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The omer also became a time of semi-mourning during which many observant Jews refrain from cutting their hair, listening to music, or celebrating marriages.

After nightfall tonight, we will recite "Today is twenty-nine days, which is four weeks and one day of the omer." That means you can see many men in my village, who normally are clean-shaven, with quite a beard by now.

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The mourning is normally associated with a 2nd century plague said to have decimated the "24,000" disciples of Rabbi Akiva who died "because they did not treat each other with respect."

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It has been suggested (at the Jewish Museum in New York website) that "Each peg on Kahn's counter is unique, but they all fit together as a whole, their combined form suggesting the rooftops of a village. The dark color of the work reflects the mood of the omer period."

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The interior of each of the compartments, designed to hold the sculpted counting pegs, is painted gold to symbolize the spiritual journey embodied in the interval between the two holidays of Passover and Shavuot.

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Richard McBee, talking about "Reinventing Ritual at The Jewish Museum," offers this:

"The wooden pegs are sculpted in unique shapes, each a different miniature sculpture that in its own way represents the uniqueness of each day as we perform G-d's commandments. Here counting becomes a physical act, forcing us to feel the difference of each day and place it in the next slot. This very uniqueness comes together as we count. The counting of the Omer represents the relationship between a person and his or her community. Beginning with one, we become an ordered multitude. Kahn's message is direct: each day and each person counts."

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Dairy goats and a cheesemaker, for Shavuot!

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Yesterday we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Shavuot on which it is traditional to eat dairy food, and LOTS of it.
In the past week Israelis purchased THREE times the normal amount of cheeses and dairy products.

Nothing can beat goat and sheep cheese--in taste, texture, and appearance.

These are the young bucks which will sire the does which will produce the milk which will be transformed into cheese.

But this is the master cheesemaker and only he knows how to create the delicious prize-winning artisan cheeses of many varieties!
Shai Seltzer learned to make cheese thirty years ago and ever since, to quote the farm's lovely website, "Shai has won acclaim worldwide as an instructor and mentor of dairy goat farming and cheese making."
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Learn about the cheese in the cave and the specially-bred herd, about the hills that have known agriculture for 6,000 years, and about Shai--all at the website (linked above).

Or, take a hike or a drive up the mountain and meet this fascinating man in person.
Follow the sign with the doe that says goat cheese.
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You might want to click and enlarge this photo.
Even zoomed in, it looks far away. It is the view across the valley, from my hill in the Jerusalem Hills, looking toward Har Eitan mountain.

You see the little white dots in the center, in the middle of nowhere?
That is where Shai lives and works.
He built it all from scratch years ago. A real pioneer.

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Besides being Shavuot, today is also the day for our bloggers' weekly animal meme, Camera-Critters Sunday.
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A blessed Shavuot

"On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain." -- Exodus 19:16-17

This is just the view from one side of my village. But when it looks all dramatic in the sky I like to imagine that the next ridge is Mount Sinai and that God is answering Moses in the thunder and that I am there to witness the moments of fear and trembling!

You see?! Moses did receive the tablets of the Ten Commandments!

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Today is not only SkyWatch Friday but also the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

The Feast of Weeks is also called the Time of the Giving of the Torah, the Festival of the First Fruits, and the Harvest Festival. Shavuot commemorates the people's pilgrimage to Jerusalem to bring first crops to the Temple. Tomorrow the Ten Commandments will be read in synagogues and also the Book of Ruth, telling the story of Ruth the Moabitess who followed Naomi and became Jewish.

On Shavuot it is the tradition to eat dairy foods, wear white, and study Torah throughout the night. Happy holiday!

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P.S. To see how I discovered the tablets of the Covenant in a Swiss lake, please click here.
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Shavuot miracle

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Today Jews celebrate Shavuot, also know by its Biblical names Chag HaKatsir, the [wheat] Harvest Festival, and Yom HaBikurim, Day of the First Fruits. By tradition today also marks the day of King David's birth and death. In synagogues the scroll of the Book of Ruth is chanted, in loving memory of David and Ruth, his Moabite ancestor, the mother of all converts.

But mainly Shavuot is Zman Matan Toratenu, The Season of the Giving of our Torah. Seven weeks (shavuot) have passed since Passover. It took 49 (+1) days of wandering in the desert for God and Moses to prepare the People for the the biggest day in history.
In  today's morning prayer service Exodus 19-20 is read. All rise in silent reverence to listen to the Ten Commandments, with the feeling that we all are standing at Mount Sinai.

More about the deep meaning of all this and the fascinating customs of celebration await you at the friendly Chabad site.

But what I actually want to tell you today is my Shavuot miracle story from far-away SWITZERLAND.
OK. . . The winds blew cold as I wandered alone along the shore of Lake Neuchatel, missing Israel. So I asked God for a sign of friendship and connection:
 Hey, remember the split rock that our friend Sister H. found and made into something nice? I know such rocks are rare, but please, could You let me have one too?

I searched and searched, but in vain, and was about to head back. Then something told me to try at the little stretch of beach where the ominous sign says (or at least what my poor French thought it said): "Private property. Walking along this beach is permitted but stopping is prohibited."

I walked, and kept walking, and lo and behold--there it was, under the ripples of cold water!


Wrapping the heavy rock in my scarf, I almost danced all the way home.
After it got dry it looked like a loaf of bread,


or maybe the whale about to swallow Jonah.


But no! We knew its real destiny.
With a few strokes of my pencil, trying to do like the finger of God, the Hebrew letters for 1 to 10 were etched in stone and voila--the tablets of the Ten Commandments!

Click a few times to enlarge the photo and see the alef-bet letters:

Chag sameach, happy holiday to all!
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