Shavuot, Our Last Israeli Holiday

First, apologies for not writing more reguarly, but life has been busy.  Two weeks ago we experienced the last national holiday occurring during our brief six month stay.  It's been quite a fun time: Purim (had to work), Passover I and II, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Lag Ba Omer (had to work), and finally Shavuot.  Six holidays (5 days free) in four months!  During this same time the US has had Presidents Day and Memorial Day off.  I think we got the better deal. 

Israel has so many holidays in the spring because spring is much nicer here than summer.  Spring is an accelerated season (relative to California) and due to its abundance of heat and water, most crops are coming to harvest 2 months before they would in the Central Valley.  For example, fresh corn and watermelons started showing up in roadside stands in May!

Passover traditionally marked the start of the barley harvest, and fifty days later (give or take) Shavuot celebrates the wheat harvest and the bringing of the first fruits to the Temple.  Traditionally, the holiday is associated with the giving of the Torah to the Israelites camped out at the base of Mt. Sinai.  Synagogues stay open into the wee hours as devoted Jews pull a collective all-night study session.  The Book of Ruth is also somehow involved.  But for the secular Jew, there is still fun to be had.  The bringing of the first fruits to the temple became associated with milk and bread, and consequently cheese and specialty pastries.  So, to the observer, Shavuot is a holiday for eating cheesecake, cheese blintzes, and cheese spread on exotic breads.  They even decorated the halls of my company with large milk jugs, hay bales and shafts of wheat.  It's like a more dairy-focused feast of Thanksgiving, crossed with May Day pastoralism, crossed with a harvest festival.

Harvest festival for Shavuot

We enjoyed the time off and the excuse to eat cheesecake. We saw lots of hay bales and possibly the set up for a tractor pull and had a good time.  My parents visited, taking advantage of the holiday to travel with us, but their experience of Shavuot paled in comparison with being in Jerusalem, at the Western Wall, for Jerusalem Day.  Jerusalem Day was the day that Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan during the Six Day War.  One look at the celebrations here is enough to convince you that the UN won't be partitioning Jerusalem any time soon.

Now the holidays are over and it's back to work for another month.  Kids are starting their summer vacations this week and the beach is heating up.  It will be hard to walk past the summer vacationers on our way into work, but we will savor the beautiful sea while we can.  We'll be home again before we know it.