Shavuot
Shavuot is also known as the festival or feast of 'Weeks'.
There is no set date for the two day festival but it takes place seven weeks (fifty days) after the first day of the spring festival of Passover. This also marks the start of the wheat harvest and the end of the barley harvest.
Shavuot marks the time that the Jews received the Torah on Mount Sinai. It is considered a highly important historical event.
The Christian festival of Pentecost also comes from Shavuot.
Prayers are said on Shavuot (especially at dawn) to thank God for the five books of Moses (known as the Torah) and for his law. Some people also spend the first night of Shavuot studying the Torah.
Synagogues are decorated with flowers and plants on this joyous occasion to remember the flowers of Mount Sinai.
Dairy products are also eaten during Shavuot. There are many interpretations about why this custom is observed.
It is believed that once the rules about the preparation of meat were revealed in the Torah, the people of Sinai were reluctant to eat meat until they fully understood the rules.
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