Click here for the Scholar chat schedule.
Email us your question and we'll try to respond within 24 hours.
Type in your email address here:
Select a topic:
Type in your question here:
The Scholar is ready to answer your question. Click the button below to chat now.
A Scholar is currently unavailable at this time, so please check back again. In the meantime you can click here to email Moses your question or search our archives for related topics.
PRINT EMAIL COMMENT
You've done that in college anyway, haven't you? We’ve all had times when we stayed up to the wee hours of the morning, cramming for that exam or playing our favorite sci-fi shoot-em-up on that old PC. Now, how about doing it for Torah? That's just the idea of this age-old custom, in which Jews show their love for Torah by studying it from dark to dawn the first night of the holiday.
The reason? The night before the Torah was given, our forefathers warmed their mattresses when they should have been sleepless with excitement over the next day's big event. To cosmically correct this, we stay up and study, preferably in large groups, and preferably at your local synagogue.
2. Package for You
Go to synagogue to pick it up. The physical Giving of the Torah was a one-time event (on this day in the year 2448 - 1312 BCE). But every year, the Torah is spiritually given anew. To all Jews. To receive the Torah for yourself, head to your nearest synagogue to hear the reading of the Sinai Revelation and the Ten Commandments. Don't forget to bring the kids -- they played, and play, a vital role in receiving the Torah (see A Childish Understanding of the Torah).
3. Everything Goes with Cheese
It is customary to eat dairy foods on the first day of Shavuot. See Why do we eat dairy foods on Shavuot Day?
4. Holiday Factors
In addition to the observances that are unique to Shavuot, Shavuot is also celebrated with those things common to every Biblical Holiday: candle lighting, festive meals (including Kiddush and Challah), fine dress, special prayer services, Torah readings, and no work.
See also What is Shavuot? and When is Shavuot?
ADD A COMMENT
