Also known as: Feast of Weeks, Feast of First Fruits, Shavuot means “weeks.”

Shavuot is also called the Feast of Weeks because it occurs seven weeks after the first Passover Sabbath. Jewish people believe that God gave the Torah (the Law) to His people at Mount Sinai on the date of Shavuot. Therefore, the feast is a time of celebrating the gift of the Torah. Many Jewish people today stay up all night reading the Torah together, and when Shavuot dawn breaks, they pray together and read the Ten Commandments.

Because it also relates to the harvest and the offering of the first fruits of the standing wheat harvest, Shavuot is also called the Feast of First Fruits.

Shavuot is one of three pilgrimage feasts in the Jewish year for which God required every Jewish man to travel to Jerusalem. The first Shavuot after Yeshua’s death marked the pouring out of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Jewish men living abroad in many nations returned to Jerusalem for Shavuot, and it was then that God gave the Holy Spirit. Men heard the Gospel of Yeshua in their own languages, and 3,000 came to faith that day.

For Messianic Jewish Believers, Shavuot is a time to recommit ourselves to God’s Word, offer our first fruits to Him, and celebrate the gift of His presence in each of us through His Holy Spirit. It is a time to rejoice in fulfilled prophecy and to hold dear the rich Jewish roots of New Covenant faith in Yeshua.

article recognition : Jewish Voice/Biblical Holidays Messianic