In three different places (Exodus 23:16, Numbers 28:26-31, and Deuteronomy 16:9-12) the Torah commands us to celebrate Shavuot on the fiftieth day after the second day of Pesach.

These three sources provide two reasons for celebrating this Festival at this time: it is the beginning of the season of fruits, and the end of the grain-harvest – specifically the reaping of the wheat, which is the last grain of the year to ripen. Since the reaping of the wheat marks the end of the reaping season for the year, this is the appropriate time to bring a grain-offering to G-d:

“Seven weeks you shall count for yourselves; from when the sickle is first put to the standing grain-crop, you shall begin counting seven weeks. And then you will make the Festival of Shavuot [Weeks] to HaShem your G-d. And the free-will offerings that you will give will be according to how much HaShem your G-d has blessed you” (Deuteronomy 16:9-10).

But in our liturgy, we always refer to Shavuot as “z’man matan Torateinu”, the Season of the giving of our Torah. The Torah itself does not tell us explicitly when G-d gave it, but it does give us enough details for us to deduce the chronology: we came to the Sinai Desert on the first of Sivan (Exodus 19:1), when God told Moshe to sanctify the nation for two days (v. 10) and to be prepared on the third day (v.11), to which Moshe added another three-day period (v.15).


The Giving of the Torah, which is the Torah-reading for Shavuot, is the primordial paradigm for becoming Jewish. That was when Israel, as a nation, converted to Judaism.
Hence the Talmud (Shabbat 86b, Yoma 4b) records that God gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai on the sixth of Sivan according to the Rabbis, or the seventh of Sivan according to the Tanna Yosi ben Halafta.

So since Shavuot celebrates the day on which G-d gave us His Torah, the Torah-reading for Shavuot is the section Exodus 19:1-20:23 (Megillah 31a; Rambam, Laws of Prayer 13:9; Shulchan Aruch 494:1), which includes the Giving of the Torah and the Ten Commandments.

The Giving of the Torah was the resounding event which transformed Israel into G-d’s holy nation: before that, they had the status of non-Jews (see, for example, the Ohr ha-Chaim to Leviticus 25:1). So basic is this principle that for the purpose of practical halachah, the Rambam, based on Keritot 8b-9a, cites it as the precedent for the laws of conversion to Judaism:

“Israel entered the Covenant with three things: circumcision, immersion, and sacrifice. Circumcision was in Egypt, as it says ‘…no uncircumcised man will eat of [the Paschal Sacrifice]” (Exodus 12:48)…

Immersion was in the desert before the Giving of the Torah, as [G-d] said [to Moshe] ‘Go to the nation and sanctify them today and tomorrow, that they shall launder their clothes’ (19:10).

And sacrifice, as it says ‘[Moshe] sent the youths of the Children of Israel and they offered up burnt-offerings, and they slaughtered bulls as peace-offerings to HaShem’ (24:5).

And so, too, for all generations: whenever a non-Jew desires to enter the Covenant and to nestle under the Wings of the Shechinah [the Divine Presence] and to accept upon himself the Yoke of the Torah, he must undergo circumcision and immersion [in the mikveh] and desire to bring a sacrifice” (Hilkhot Issurei Bi’ah/Laws of Forbidden relationships 13:1-4).

So the Giving of the Torah, which is the Torah-reading for Shavuot, is the primordial paradigm for becoming Jewish. That was when Israel, as a nation, converted to Judaism.

There is a nigh-universal custom to read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot (see the Yalkut Shimoni, Ruth 596; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 490:9). One of the reasons is that Ruth’s great-grandson, King David, whose birth is the climax of the Book of Ruth, died on Shavuot (Jerusalem Talmud, Beitzah 2:4, Chagigah 2:3).

But there is an additional reason. Ruth is the primordial paradigm for the individual who chose to convert into Judaism, and who joined the nation almost four centuries after the Torah was given – so much so that the Talmud cites the interaction between Naomi and her erstwhile daughter-in-law Ruth as the precedent for the appropriate way to respond to the non-Jew who wishes to convert:

“The potential convert is neither to be encouraged nor discouraged too much. Rabbi Elazar said: How can we derive this from the Tanach? –

It is written: ‘When she [Naomi] saw that she [Ruth] insisted on going with her, she stopped speaking to her’ (Ruth 1:18).

Naomi told Ruth: We are forbidden [on Shabbat] to walk beyond the Shabbat boundary [2,000 cubits beyond the city limit]; [Ruth replied,] ‘Wherever you go, I will go!’ (Ruth 1:16).

Men and women are forbidden to be alone together when unmarried; Wherever you lodge, I will lodge! (Ruth 1:16).

We have been commanded 613 mitzvot; Your nation will be my nation… (Ruth 1:16).

We have been forbidden to worship idols; ‘…and your G-d will be my G-d!’ (Ruth 1:16).

Our courts, the Beit Din, can inflict four kinds of death penalty; ‘As you die, so I will die…’ (Ruth 1:17).

Our courts have two kinds of graves [one for the severest criminals who were executed by stoning or burning, the other for lesser offenders who were decapitated or strangled – Rashi]; ‘…and there I will be buried’ (Ruth 1:17)” (Yevamot 47b).

Naomi told her two erstwhile daughters-in-law to return to their previous lives: “Go, return each one of you to her mother’s house” (Ruth 1:8); and again for the second time: “return, my daughters – why should you come with me? Return, my daughters, go – because I am too old to have a husband” (v. 11-12). At that second dismissal, Orpah indeed kissed Naomi good-bye and left – but Ruth clung to her (v. 14).

Naomi tried one final time: “See – your sister-in-law has returned to her nation and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law!” (v. 15). When Ruth insisted on staying with her after these three rejections, Naomi indeed finally accepted her.

As the Midrash puts it: “Three times the word ‘return’ appears, corresponding to the three times that one rejects a potential convert. But if he persists beyond this, then we accept him” (Ruth Rabbah 2:16 [12]).

Ruth’s declaration to Naomi – “Wherever you go, I will go! Wherever you lodge, I will lodge! Your nation will be my nation, and your G-d will be my G-d! As you die, so I will die, and there I will be buried” (Ruth 1:16-17) – is the quintessential declaration of the sincere convert. She pledged her loyalty to Naomi, to her nation, and to her G-d. She pledged this loyalty in Moab, and demonstrated her loyalty by leaving her homeland and her family and travelling to Israel – even though she was a royal princess, a daughter of the king of Moab (Nazir 23b, Sotah 47a)!

Yet she gave this up, willing to live in poverty in a foreign land!

By referring to Shavuot as “z’man matan Torateinu”, the Season of the giving of our Torah, our Rabbis emphasized this unique aspect of Shavuot over the agricultural motive that the Torah ascribes to this Festival – just as they refer to Pesach as “z’man heruteinu” (“the season of our liberation”) and Succot as “z’man simchateinu” (“the season of our rejoicing”).

All three Festivals have an agricultural motive, intimately connected to the harvest seasons of the Land of Israel. But each Festival also has its additional identity, commemorating a specific event in our national history.

Shavuot is both the beginning of the season of fruits and the end of the grain-harvest, and also the anniversary of Israel’s conversion to Judaism.

So it is entirely consistent that when the Jew brings his first-fruits offering to the Holy Temple, he makes the declaration to the Kohen in the Holy Temple: “I declare today to HaShem your G-d that I have come to the Land which HaShem swore to our fathers to give us…My ancestor was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there…and there he became a nation… The Egyptians did us evil…then we cried out to HaShem the G-d of our fathers, and HaShem heard our voice…and HaShem took us out of Egypt… He brought us to this place, and He gave us this Land, a Land flowing with milk and honey. And now – behold! I have brought the first-fruit of the ground that You have given me, O HaShem!” (Deuteronomy 26:5-10).

This declaration beautifully and perfectly synthesises the two themes of Shavuot: becoming the Jewish nation, and the first-fruits of the Land of Israel.