Jeremy Rosen
What has Ruth Got to do with Sinai?
Summary
The Festival of Shavuot (Pentecost) is traditionally a harvest festival, specifically the wheat harvest following Passover, with limited mention in the Bible. However, after the destruction of the temple, the rabbis added an extra layer of significance to Shavuot, emphasizing the importance of study and education. Shavuot also marks the anniversary of the God giving the Ten Commandments to Moses. Historically, it has transformed from a passive religious performance into a celebration of self-education and learning.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
No, there’s no archaeological evidence and you wouldn’t expect to find archaeological evidence after all this time. The only thing that might have remained would’ve been the two tablets, theoretically, because stone could have survived. But we haven’t found them.
The straight answer is, we don’t know whether it’s correct or not. All we know is this is our tradition. Each community- Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Hasidic, non-Hasidic, has its own traditions. And in the end, it’s where you want to fit in that counts.