Shavuot 2014

Shavuot begins at sunset on Tuesday, June 3 and will end on the evening of Thursday, June 5 2014.

What is Shavuot?

Shavuot, the feast of weeks, is celebrated seven weeks after the second Passover seder.

Although Shavuot began as an ancient grain harvest festival, the holiday has been identified since biblical times with the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

Read more about the history of Shavuot.

What are some customs and practices for Shavuot?

- To commemorate the giving of the Torah at Sinai there is a tradition of staying up all night studying Jewish texts in what is called a tikun
- On Shavuot the Book of Ruth is read.
- Traditionally dairy foods are eaten on Shavuot.
- In order to mark the agricultural history of Shavuot, some decorate their house and synagogues with a floral theme.

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For more Shavuot ideas, check out our    page.

Dancing in Jerusalem

by Sam Glaser

This was the last song written for my new album, The Promise. I needed a groovy, let's-all-make-aliyah theme song that would describe the various major redemption moments of the past century. The opening line quotes the Ethiopian Crown Prince Ahmad when he finally gave permission for the Jews to leave. My heart is Dancing in Jerusalem. Now I just got to get my whole body there! Enjoy the video! You can buy the album at my site here, and on itunes.

My groovy, let's-all-make-aliyah theme song that describes the various major redemption moments of the past century.

In honor of Yom Yerushalayim/Jerusalem Day on May 28th, enjoy this video from Sam Glazer

If unable to view this video, check it out on aish.com













Check out Jvillage’s Modern Jewish Holiday page    page.

Top 10 Rolling Stones Shavuot songs

The good news? The Rolling Stones will play Tel Aviv in June. The bad news? A large portion of Israelis won’t be able to go.

The concert, scheduled for June 4, falls at the end of Shavuot — making it near impossible for holiday-observant Israelis to go see Mick, Keith and Co. prove they’ve still got the magic at age 70. Jewish Home MK Nissan Slomiansky petitioned the Stones to move the concert, but in case they don’t acquiesce, we’ve got the next best thing: The top 10 Rolling Stones Shavuot songs.

(Props to the Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov for this idea.)

1. Sympathy for the Devil’s Food Cake — We can’t have meat, but at least we can have great dessert.
2. (Don’t) Gimme Shellfish — The laws of kashrut, put to hard rock.
3. Wild Moses — Check out Charlton Heston’s beard in “The Ten Commandments.” Now tell me Moses wasn’t wild.
4. Dairy Tuesday — This one really only works this year.
5. 19th Nervous Breakdown — The song title is the same, but this time it’s about a Jewish mother.
6. Let’s Spend the Night Together… Learning Torah — Probably not what you expected from a Stones song.
7. Holy Talk Woman — Shavuot night at Yeshivat Maharat.
8. It’s Only Lox and Rolls But I Like It — Nothing like a good bagel.
9. Write with Fire – According to legend, God wrote the Ten Commandments with black fire on white fire. Don’t try this at home.
10. Hey, Jew, Get Off of My Cow – Moses gets angry about the Golden Calf

Kabbalah and Lag B'Omer

by Yair Danielsohn for aish.com

Lag B'Omer is celebrated May 18, 2014

Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, is celebrated as a commemoration of the memory of Rabi Shimon bar Yochai. A prominent sage of the Mishna, Rabbi Shimon is best known as the author of the chief mystical work, the Zohar, or “Luminescence”. Accordingly, this day has come to be associated with the Kabbalah, the mystical tradition that deals with the concealed aspects of Torah.

If genuine Kabbalah is decidedly not a quick-fix derivative of Judaism ― a jar of blessed water, an amulet or a red string can bring blessing into your life and solve all of your problems – what is it exactly? Does Kabbalah have something to offer the uninitiated layman in terms of opportunities for growth and enlightenment?

The Torah has two general levels of meaning. One, called “pshat”, is the plain meaning of the text, without resorting to concepts that need to be learned from other sources. This term is somewhat deceiving, since even the basic meaning of the Torah’s texts requires ceaseless study and yields an inexhaustible fountain of inspiration and enlightenment.

The second level is that of “sod”, which means “secrets”. At this level, everything within the Torah can be seen as just the tip of the iceberg, and actually hints at esoteric levels of existence we do not ordinarily come into contact with. Generally speaking, the focus of attention at this level of Torah study is the ways in which God relates to this world. It describes the spiritual DNA of the universe.

The study of sod is also called Kabbalah. This is because the word Kabbalah means the reception of a tradition, and due to the extremely sensitive nature of Kabbalah, it can only be understood properly when received as a transmission from a knowledgeable scholar. The discipline of Kabbalah was given at Sinai as one of the levels of interpretation of the Torah. It was always studied as a part of Torah, and its existence is alluded to throughout the Mishna and Talmud, although its investigation was usually reserved for the most spiritually gifted of each generation.

Just as one cannot study calculus without being fluent in arithmetic or study quantum physics without a background in the basics of science, so too is it impossible to comprehend the esoteric secrets of sod without first having thoroughly studied pshat, the first level of Torah understanding.

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Check out Jvillage’s Modern Jewish Holiday page    page.  Also, check out our spring & Summer Holiday Spotlight Kit.

Yom HaZikaron & Yom HaAtzmaut - Israeli Memorial Day & Independence Day

In 2014, these holidays are celebrated on May 4th and May 5th

From ReformJudaism.org

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, four new holidays have been added to the Jewish calendar - Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), Yom HaAatzmaut (Independence Day), and Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). In Israel, these holidays are observed as national holidays.

The Israeli Knesset established the day before Yom HaAtzmaut as Yom HaZikaron, a Memorial Day for soldiers who lost their lives fighting in the War of Independence and in other subsequent battles.

Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, marks the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. It is observed on or near the 5th of Iyar in the Hebrew calendar, which usually falls in April.

For more information, check out Jvillage Network's Holiday Spotlight Kits.  You'll find ways to celebrate, commemorate, videos and the history of all the holidays.

Also: Check out Jvillage’s Modern Jewish Holiday page    page.

Allies Open Trial Of 20 Top Germans For Crimes Of War

With Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day being commemorated on April 27th, we take a look back at the headlines from November 1941 of the Nuremburg Trials

History-Making Case Begins In Nuremberg With Reading of Long Indictment

GOERING FIRST DEFENDANT

Presentation of Evidence Due to Start Today--Hess in Court Pending Ruling

Allied Open Trial of 20 Top Germans
By KATHLEEN MCLAUGHLIN

Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES

Nuremberg, Germany, Nov. 20--Four of the world's great powers sit in judgment today on twenty top Germans whom the democratic nations charge with major responsibility for plunging the world into World War II. The twenty-first defendant, tacitly although not specifically named in the indictment, is the German nation that raised them to power and gloried in their might.

Subdued and tractable, awaiting their hour for what justification they can show, the accused filed by threes into the court room in the Palace of Justice here thirty minutes before the convocation of the International Military Tribunal created to weigh the evidence. They spent five and one-quarter hours listening more or less intently to the preliminary formalities in which the groundwork of the prosecution was laid.

3 Chief Prosecutors Absent
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Great Questions to bring up at your seder

Things to Talk About

(Somewhere in your Seder ask one of these questions and see how people react. If you don’t want to rely on someone’s actually responding, type the following questions on small pieces of paper. Fold them up, pass them around your table, have people read aloud the question they’ve got, and ask them to respond. Obviously, the responses can be serious or playful. It depends on your audience. Either way you can’t lose.)


One - What if "Bitter Herb" is your brother-in-law? How should he be treated at the seder?

Two - What do Passover and Easter have in common? Spring festivals? Eggs? Redemption? How do they differ?

Three - Will your great-grandchildren be sitting at a Passover Seder?

Four - Roasted egg, maror, pesach (shankbone), karpas, charoset…Which symbol on the Seder plate do you think is the most important?

Five - It is traditional for the youngest person at a Seder to ask the Four Questions. If you were to create a new “tradition” for the asking of the Four Questions, who would you choose to ask the questions and why?

Six - Tradition says that Elijah the Prophet is supposed to announce the coming of the Messiah. If you could send Eliyahu Ha-Navee to any spot on the globe to make the announcement of the Messiah, where would you send him?

Seven - If Barak Obama or Daisuke Matsuzaka or Jon Stewart of The Daily Show (or anyone else you want to name) came to the Seder, which Seder symbol or ritual would you want to show them first?

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For other great Pesach ideas, visit Jvillage's Passover Spotlight Kit