Shavuot, aka Shavuos and Pentecost

Shavu-what? 

Shavuot is the holiday that celebrates the day when God gave Moses the Torah (i.e., the Books of Moses, the first 5 books of the Bible, literally translated “instructions”). The Torah tells how to live a life set apart in a blessed way. 

The Israelites were in Egypt living as slaves for 430 years. It was terrible, and the Lord saw them, and said he would rescue, deliver, redeem, and judge greatly those who enslaved them 🤯💪.

After he rescued and delivered them from Pharaoh on Passover, he went to work on the redemption part. For the next 50 days, he told them to count the Omer 🌾. It’s an agricultural thing, having to do with the harvest of barley and then wheat, and it has a deeper purpose. It is believed that during these 50 days God was changing the slavery mentality of his people, helping them do the inner work needed before they could receive the Torah. Before they could learn to love God and their neighbor, God had to extract the low view of self that slavery put in them. Then he had to instill in them humility. After these 50 days, the Lord met with Moses on Mt. Sinai 🌄 and gave the Torah 📜.

It is customary to decorate for this Biblical Holiday with flowers 🌸. It is said that when the Lord was on Mt. Sinai, his very presence caused everything on that mountain to birth life, and there were flowers blooming everywhere 💐. We love to decorate and gift our handmade macrame flowers for Shavuot! 

Fast forward a few thousand years, it was when the early followers of Jesus were gathered together celebrating Shavuot, 10 days after Jesus had left and ascended into heaven, that the Holy Spirit filled all the believers gathered and they began to speak in many different languages. They were speaking about the the great things God had done, in a way that all the Jews from afar could understand natively 😳. It was an amazing day full of miracles and signs, and 3,000 Jews became believers that day. 🎉