Parashat Chag Shavuot (HaShavua)
22nd May 2026
Week of 15-23 May 2026
Torah portion : Lev. 23 :15-22 Haftarah Eze. 23:14-16; 34:22
Dear friends, Chag Shavuot Sameach!
Given the importance of celebrating Shavuot this weekend, I would like to share some thoughts with you about this festivity. And by a happy coincidence, the Church celebrates, practically on the same date, the feast of Pentecost, which in fact arises from within the celebration of Shavuot and, therefore, is understood from it, as attested in chapter 2 of the book of Acts of the Apostles.
Shavuot is known by various names that express different ways of understanding its profound meaning in the biblical-Jewish tradition and of experiencing it:
- Shavuot is one of the three pilgrimage festivals, or שלושה רגלים. All three mark important agricultural periods in the Land of Israel. Pesach marks the beginning of the harvest of the most important crops; Shavuot marks the harvest of grains and fruits; and Sukkot marks the end of the growing season, as the rains begin for the new planting.
Shavuot: Feast of Weeks. God commanded that seven weeks be counted, day by day, starting from the second day of Pesach, when the Omer, or first sheaf, was offered. In the Land of Israel, the wheat harvest was complete, and an offering of two loaves of the new wheat was to be brought to the Temple and dedicated to God. See Dt 16:9-12 // Ex 23:14-16; 34:22, Lv 23:15-22: These texts are comprehensive and demonstrate the social importance of this festival. Essentially, it represents a movement to live out justice among people. The divine dimension encompassed by the festival does not obscure God’s justice in relationships.
2. Also known as the Feast of First-fruits בכוּרים (the Mishnah tractate deals only with this). The offering in question, like that of all first-fruits in general, was intended to remind human thought that all good things come from God. This festival could therefore also be called the Feast of Thanksgiving. – First-fruits of all: people, livestock, and all the earth’s bounty. “First fruits are brought only for the seven species (wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates, Dt 8:8), but not for mountain dates, nor for fruits from the valleys, nor for olives, which are not of choice. First fruits are not brought before the Feast of Weeks. The period for bringing first fruits begins with this and not before, until Sukkot” (Cf Mishna Bikourim 3).
3. Harvest Festival (הקציר חג, Ex 23:16) also (Lv 23:16-17): This is the basis where rabbinic tradition connects the twofold expression of the Torah: Written and Oral, “in two parts of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour baked with leaven, as first-fruits for the Lord.”
4. Also, a festival: תורה מתן זמן, Day of the Giving of the Torah, because seven weeks after the Exodus from Egypt, as the Oral Law recounts, God gave His holy law to Israel, who, numbering six hundred thousand men, surrounded Mount Sinai. Exodus 19:8: the people accept the covenant with God. Indeed, the festival of Shavuot is the moment when the people become a people, they constitute themselves as a people, it is the total emancipation of their being because they assume their spiritual freedom through the Torah.
In Exodus (19:17) we read: ויתיצבוּ בתחתית ההר They stood beneath the mountain. “Rav Abdimi son of Hama, son of Hassa said: The literal meaning of the text teaches us that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain upon them like a basin and said to them: If you accept the Torah, it is good; if not, there will be your burial” (TB Shabbath 88a). This means that without the Torah there is no life—the rejection of the Word of God is death.
If Passover is the festival of the liberation of our souls… If the miracles performed in Egypt aimed to deliver our ancestors from harsh slavery and the oppression of a barbaric people, the Law of Sinai delivered them from the treachery of errors and ignorance into which centuries of servitude had plunged them. The people who, seven weeks earlier, had regained their material and political freedom, received on that day from the divine Revealer their constitution, the purpose and essential condition of that freedom, this precious code, this source of light and happiness for all humanity. (Here we have the key to understanding the context and extent of the meaning given to Chapter 2 of Acts).
5. Can also be called the עצרת (the conclusion). It completes the Pesach festival, for it marks the end of the seven-week period that begins after Pesach.
During the festival of Shavuot, the Book of Ruth is read. Why this book and not another? On the day Ruth the Moabite accepts the God of Israel, she enters under the wings of the שכינה (Shekhinah = presence of God), just as Israel did when it received the Torah on Shavuot. Also, the Book of Ruth marks and confirms the two dimensions of the Torah: Written and Oral. According to Deuteronomy 23:4: The Moabites shall not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord; Even their descendants to the tenth generation will not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord, and this forever…” The book shows the relationship between the tribe of Moab; Ruth is a Moabite and marries Boaz, and we see that this takes place during harvest time (Ruth 1:22) and concludes (Ruth 4:13ff), from which David descends. Therefore, the integration of the reading of Ruth into the festival of Shavuot is thanks to the Oral tradition, which found another way to interpret or fulfill the text of Deuteronomy 23:4.
This week’s Parasha Commentary was prepared by
Elio Passeto, NDS, Jerusalem – Israel Bat kol Director
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