Shavuot - 1 or 2 days?

[iitb]

/me is about to show his ignorance of Biblical holidays ;)

So, I was looking up the date(s) for Shavuot so I could put in a vacation request, and I notice it runs from sunset on the 25th to sunset on the 27th. However, in another thread where Henaynei was listing Holy days, she counted it as 1 Sabbath. I'm a little confused. :scratch:

[debi b]

Shavu'ot is not tied to a particular calendar date, but to a counting from Passover. Because the length of the months used to be variable, determined by observation (see Jewish Calendar), and there are two new moons between Passover and Shavu'ot, Shavu'ot could occur on the 5th or 6th of Sivan. However, now that we have a mathematically determined calendar, and the months between Passover and Shavu'ot do not change length on the mathematical calendar, Shavu'ot is always on the 6th of Sivan (the 6th and 7th outside of Israel. See Extra Day of Holidays.)

Extra Day of Holidays

You may notice that the number of days of some holidays do not accord with what the Bible specifies. In most cases, we celebrate one more day than the Bible requires. There is an interesting reason for this additional day.
The Jewish calendar is lunar, with each month beginning on the new moon. The new months used to be determined by observation. When the new moon was observed, the Sanhedrin declared the beginning of a new month notice sent out messengers to tell people when the month began. People in distant communities could not always be notified of the new moon (and therefore, of the first day of the month), so they did not know the correct day to celebrate. They knew that the old month would be either 29 or 30 days, so if they didn't get notice of the new moon, they celebrated holidays on both possible days.

This practice of celebrating an extra day was maintained as a custom even after we adopted a precise mathematical calendar, because it was the custom of our ancestors. This extra day is not celebrated by Israelis, regardless of whether they are in Israel at the time of the holiday, because it is not the custom of their ancestors, but is celebrated by everybody else, even if they are visiting Israel at the time of the holiday.

[debi b]

This is an interesting site http://www.rigal.freeserve.co.uk/jewish/customs/indexpage.htm

JEWISH CUSTOMS & PRACTICES Their origins, dates and the reasons for them.
By Rabbi Lawrence Rigal

THE NAME
Shavuot means Weeks so the festival is sometimes called the Feast of Weeks. The Torah states that the festival occurs seven weeks after Passover, the beginning of the barley harvest: Seven weeks shall you count; begin to number the seven weeks from such time as you begin to put the sickle to the grain. And you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give according as the Lord your God has blessed you. These seven weeks was sometimes regarded as a week of weeks. The plural in Hebrew is sometimes used in this sense.

THE DATE.
The Bible does not give a date to Shavuot; but what it does say is: And you shall count from the next day after the sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete; To the next day after the seventh sabbath shall you count fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to the Lord. From the context it is clear that the counting starts in or near Passover. There were various interpretations as to when we should start counting the seven weeks. The Saducees who did not accept oral interpretations of the Torah, took the word Sabbath literally and started counting on the day after the Saturday in Pesach. They always observed Shavuot on a Sunday. The Pharisees interpreted the word to mean a rest day and took it to refer to the first day of Passover, and so began counting on the second day of Pesach. By this method Shavuot always fell on the sixth of Sivan. After 70 CE when the second Temple was destroyed, the Pharisaism became main-stream Judaism, and so this is our current practice. The festival is sometimes called Pentecost (from the Greek for fifty) because it was the fiftieth day. Leviticus 23, 15-16.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.
The Festival of First Fruits as commanded in the Torah (7). was observed until the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE. There is a brief description of the ritual in Deuteronomy 26 vs. 1 - 11. There is a longer and more detailed description in the Mishnah.(8). The first fruits usually offered up were: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and date honey, for these were the species singled out in Torah as being typical produce of a fruitful land.(9). Those living nearby brought fresh fruit while those coming from afar brought dried fruit.

After 70 CE when all sacrifices stopped, it eventually became necessary to give the festival a new significance. About the third century CE Shavuot became associated with the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai, which the Bible said took place about this time of year. R. Eleazar said: All agree in respect to the Feast of Weeks ['azereth] that we require [it to be a time of rejoicing] 'for you'. What is the reason? It is the day on which the Torah was given.(10). Neither Josephus, who lived at the time of the destruction of the Temple, or the Mishnah, dating from about 210 CE, speak of the historical significance of the festival. But the Talmud (c. 5th Cent.) mentions it several times.(11).

In the 20th century, many of the Kibbutzim in Israel reintroduced the celebration of first fruits at Shavuot which often took place in the fields.

(7.) Exodus 34, 22, Leviticus 23, 25ff, Deut. 16, 9-10 and 26, 2ff.
(8.) Bikkurim 3, 1 - 9.
(9.) Deut. 8, 8.
(10.) Pesachim 68b.
(11.) Yoma 4b, Ta'anit 28b. and Shabbat 86b.

[The Thadman]

* justinhulsey is about to show his ignorance of Biblical holidays ;)

So, I was looking up the date(s) for Shavuot so I could put in a vacation request, and I notice it runs from sunset on the 25th to sunset on the 27th. However, in another thread where Henaynei was listing Holy days, she counted it as 1 Sabbath. I'm a little confused. :scratch:

A good resource for calculating holiday dates is:

http://www.karaite-korner.org/holiday_dates.shtml

Peace!
-Steve-o

[Flavius]

Ever have the feeling that Shavuot will happen one year and suddenly all over the world there will be people who begin to heal at hospitals and raising the dead? Or maybe the last ten days we should be in an upper room locked in?

[Henaynei]

good thread - interesting and informative information :clap: