Rabbi Joui Hessel, Interim Director at 92NY’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, writes:
Shavuot, meaning “weeks,” refers to the seven weeks since the second day of Passover and is the second of the three Pilgrim Festivals of the Jewish religious calendar. It was originally an agricultural festival, marking the beginning of the wheat harvest.
On Shavuot, we commemorate the moment when our people received the Torah at Mount Sinai. This is a joyous holiday, since it is the moment when God and the People of Israel entered into a covenant, a figurative marriage with each other, the hopeful springtime of their relationship.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said that the difference between a covenant and an ordinary contract is love. Love is that special ingredient. And so, this Shavuot, let each of us share the love of our Torah, the guidebook of how to live an ethical and moral life, with one another.
This year, Shavuot begins at sundown on June 4 and concludes at sundown on June 6.