Shavuot—The holiest day that no one has heard of.

 

Everyone knows about Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Everyone knows about Passover. Most know about Sukkot. But Shavuot, which has the same level of importance, simply is not on radars in the same way.  Tell your boss that you’re off on Friday for Shavuot, and you get a blank stare.

 

Shavuot is a biblically ordained holiday on which we celebrate both the receiving of the Torah on Saini as well as the beginning of the wheat harvest. We celebrate (in normal years) by staying up all night learning Torah with each other, hearing the Ten Commandments read in synagogue, and eating dairy foods.

 

A favorite meme of mine regarding combatting COVID-19 reads, “We can literally save humanity by sitting on our couches and watching TV. C’mon people, we’ve got this.”

 

Similarly, we can celebrate Shavuot this year by sitting on our couches and eating cheesecake. “C’mon people, we’ve got this.”

 

We don’t need to clean our homes, make a seder, eat matzah, or build a sukkah as we would for the other big holidays. We can’t spend all night or any part of the day in synagogue as we normally might. It will be like a weekday Shabbat with cheesecake—and maybe a little blintz, too.  This is certainly in my wheelhouse.  

 

Shavuot starts tonight at sundown. Chag sameach!

 

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