Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks.

This feast has several names; Shavuot which simply means “Feast of Weeks, Hag matan Torah which means “Festival of giving the Torah”, Hag Ha’Bikurim which means “Festival of the First Fruits” and Hag Ha’Katzir which means “Festival of the Harvest”.
The barley has been harvested and we have been counting the fifty days of Omer and are preparing for Shavuot and the harvesting of the wheat.
It has been a period of temperatures swinging from low to high in waves. We have felt the heat of the Chamsine which is the result of a desert storm being brought to us through strong hot winds and lots of desert dust. The word Chamsine is Arabic and actually means fifty so the Bible and nature is in agreement when it comes to this period between these two holidays in spring.

Both the giving of the Torah and the story about Ruth is part of this holiday.
We learn from the Book of Ruth that she was a widow who followed her mother in law, Naomi, back to Bethlehem.
Naomi had left Betlehem Ephrathah together with her husband and two sons in order to dwell in the country of Moab. After her husband and both sons had passed away she headed back to her hometown in the Judean mountains. Her Moabite daughters in law followed her on the first part of her journey but only Ruth insisted on continuing after Naomi had released them. “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried, “ she stated and continued walking into a new and completely unknown future. Her decision was to become a blessing both to herself and to her mother in law……and even to us. They were on their way to the place and family that would bring forth the Messiah.
The Bible tells us that they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest and that Ruth eventually “stayed close by the young women of Boaz, to glean until the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest.”
Ruth was completely accepted as “a daughter” by Naomi and her new family. She was to become the grand-grandmother of king David. She was “grafted in” physically just as Rahab had been one generation back in time. Rahab was the mother of the man Ruth was about to marry.

Shavuot is all about giving; The giving of the Torah, the giving of the first fruits, the giving of equal rights for whoever chooses God and the giving of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

To give is a lifestyle. It seems to me that people who give never complains about being in need. God instructs us to give and to follow His directions always brings blessings.

A wise man once said: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

Elin Elkouby