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Jewish ladies, a question about Shavuot
Hello ladies, I have a question abotu Shavuot. I know it is the celebration of when the Torah was given to the Jews. What I don't understand is how does that relate to not using electricity during the observation? Is there something that happened that started it or is it just something that evolved?
Re: Jewish ladies, a question about Shavuot
Not Jewish myself....and I don't know anything about abstaining from electricity specifically relating to Shavuot. Of course, observing Shabbat you don't use electricity, work, tear, drive, carry or spend money, shave, etc. It might be bundled in along the same lines because these are holy days.
I do know that you eat dairy foods, it is the end of counting Omer and my son's school is closed for 2 1/2 days.
Keep in mind, that as with ANY Jewish holiday or practice....it all depends on the level of observance. kwim? If you're Orthodox, you're staying up all night tonight reading the Torah...by candlelight.
Anyone else? Please correct me if I'm totally off.
Thanks for the info. I went to Catholic & Anglican schools so we studied the Jewish faith a bit, but I don't remember going over Shavuot at all. My interest is from reading this article:
http://www.crownheights.info/index.php?itemid=35319
I thought it was interesting.
Observant/orthodox Jews don't use electricity on Shabbat (from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday). My guess is that the same restriction applies on major holidays (I'm Jewish but not orthodox and my family isn't super strict about the religious stuff so we never observed the "no electricity" rule.)
The reason for this is because you aren't supposed to perform any "work" on these holy days, and turning electricity on/off is considered "work" under Jewish law. Same goes for cooking, driving, and going to work obviously
Shavuot is, strictly speaking, a celebration of the Jews receiving the Torah (the Jewish biblical text). Many less religious Jews (like me) see it as more of a celebration of spring, the abundance of food/crops, new animals being born, etc. It's traditional to have a vegetarian/dairy-heavy meal to celebrate that (no meat since Jews who observe kosher laws don't mix meat and dairy in the same meal.) Growing up, we'd always get cheesecake and blintzes for Shavuot