More on Cheesecakes
May. 22nd, 2007 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillToday is the forty-ninth day of the Omer, which is seven weeks into the Omer.
Hah! Yes! I made it! I might not have done it every day, but as I've never done it at all before now, I'm feeling pretty damn proud.
I. The Practical
So, the counting of the Omer begins on the second day of Passover and goes for seven weeks through the spring. This is not a coincidence. What happens (or at least happened) during the first few day of the Omer, way back in ancient Israel, is that the spring wheat crop was put in the ground and they began harvesting the winter barley crop. Passover is in many ways a spring festival, and so what Ancient farmers would have been doing, if they weren't the designated pilgrims that year, was plant.
Also on the second day of Passover, we stop saying the prayer "Geshem" (geshem means rain, guess what it's a prayer for) and start saying the prayer "Tal" (pronounced like tall, but with more of an aaaaaah sound; it means dew). It's about Passover when the winter rain stops but the plants still need their water, so you pray for the other type of moisture.
Then you count off seven weeks. Hopefully, you're also doing useful things like weeding the fields and grazing your animals. In Israel, where the growing season is long and days in spring quickly go from nice to damn hot, your plants should do very well. Providing, of course, that your Tal prayers are working. At the end of seven weeks, the wheat is ready to harvest. So you go out to harvest it in the last day or two of the Omer, and then you hold a festival. The work isn't done, because all that grain still has to be threshed and stored, the hay dried, but the part that the men are involved with is done -_-.
The festival, at any rate, is called Shavuot. The word "shavuot" means weeks. Because you counted seven of them. It happens on the fiftieth day. It's not a beer festival, because you've been busy harvesting, it's not like anyone had the time to make beer. Yet. It's not a meat festival, because you slaughter animals in the fall. But all of your herd animals have (hopefully) given birth and their calves/lambs/kids are weaned by now, and if you are a good farmer this means that there's plenty of milk around. So you traditionally eat dairy-based foods on Shavuot.
Thus, cheesecake. Religious cheesecake. It's not the point of the holiday, but it's what you do.
II. The Allegorical
But the first Shavuot ever celebrated had nothing to do with planting and harvesting. It just happens to fall that way. The first Omer was the counting of the days and weeks after the Exodus from Egypt while the very newly formed Jewish nation wandered off towards Mount Sinai. They arrived on the evening of the forty-ninth day, and went to sleep. Overnight, the Mountain bloomed, covering itself with flowers as if to celebrate also. Theoretically, that's the first attempt God made at giving the Torah to the nation of Israel, which failed miserably because Jews kvetch. A lot. But they were making the effort, at least.
Later, when it became a harvest festival (this is for grains, not fruits, which are harvested in the fall) another ritual evolved. The idea is that you're supposed to give the first and best of your crops to God, and that's basically what the ritual is about. You give the first ephaph (and ephaph is the amount of grain required to feed one man for ten days) of each of your crops, and maybe slaughter a lamb. Then you go off to eat, because this is a Jewish holiday, and your mother keeps stuffing you until it's actually painful.
The final tradition about Shavuot is that of reading the Book of Ruth. Basically,it's about his virtuous woman named Ruth who was the paragon of Jewish values, and how she married this rich guy and got to be the great-grandmother of King David. There may or may not be thinly veiled sex in the story. It happened during the grain harvest, which is pretty much its only connection to the time of year, but it's also the only really appropriate time to read it, so read it is. If any of you are named Ruth, this holiday is also about you. Not as much as, say, Purim is about Esthers, but a lot.
And for all of you who read all of that and feel like telling me about similar/different Christian holidays (or Buddhist, or Spiritualist, or anything else you may want to tell me about) I'd love to hear it. "More respect for our fellow being through a better understanding of them" and all that stuff :)
Hah! Yes! I made it! I might not have done it every day, but as I've never done it at all before now, I'm feeling pretty damn proud.
I. The Practical
So, the counting of the Omer begins on the second day of Passover and goes for seven weeks through the spring. This is not a coincidence. What happens (or at least happened) during the first few day of the Omer, way back in ancient Israel, is that the spring wheat crop was put in the ground and they began harvesting the winter barley crop. Passover is in many ways a spring festival, and so what Ancient farmers would have been doing, if they weren't the designated pilgrims that year, was plant.
Also on the second day of Passover, we stop saying the prayer "Geshem" (geshem means rain, guess what it's a prayer for) and start saying the prayer "Tal" (pronounced like tall, but with more of an aaaaaah sound; it means dew). It's about Passover when the winter rain stops but the plants still need their water, so you pray for the other type of moisture.
Then you count off seven weeks. Hopefully, you're also doing useful things like weeding the fields and grazing your animals. In Israel, where the growing season is long and days in spring quickly go from nice to damn hot, your plants should do very well. Providing, of course, that your Tal prayers are working. At the end of seven weeks, the wheat is ready to harvest. So you go out to harvest it in the last day or two of the Omer, and then you hold a festival. The work isn't done, because all that grain still has to be threshed and stored, the hay dried, but the part that the men are involved with is done -_-.
The festival, at any rate, is called Shavuot. The word "shavuot" means weeks. Because you counted seven of them. It happens on the fiftieth day. It's not a beer festival, because you've been busy harvesting, it's not like anyone had the time to make beer. Yet. It's not a meat festival, because you slaughter animals in the fall. But all of your herd animals have (hopefully) given birth and their calves/lambs/kids are weaned by now, and if you are a good farmer this means that there's plenty of milk around. So you traditionally eat dairy-based foods on Shavuot.
Thus, cheesecake. Religious cheesecake. It's not the point of the holiday, but it's what you do.
II. The Allegorical
But the first Shavuot ever celebrated had nothing to do with planting and harvesting. It just happens to fall that way. The first Omer was the counting of the days and weeks after the Exodus from Egypt while the very newly formed Jewish nation wandered off towards Mount Sinai. They arrived on the evening of the forty-ninth day, and went to sleep. Overnight, the Mountain bloomed, covering itself with flowers as if to celebrate also. Theoretically, that's the first attempt God made at giving the Torah to the nation of Israel, which failed miserably because Jews kvetch. A lot. But they were making the effort, at least.
Later, when it became a harvest festival (this is for grains, not fruits, which are harvested in the fall) another ritual evolved. The idea is that you're supposed to give the first and best of your crops to God, and that's basically what the ritual is about. You give the first ephaph (and ephaph is the amount of grain required to feed one man for ten days) of each of your crops, and maybe slaughter a lamb. Then you go off to eat, because this is a Jewish holiday, and your mother keeps stuffing you until it's actually painful.
The final tradition about Shavuot is that of reading the Book of Ruth. Basically,it's about his virtuous woman named Ruth who was the paragon of Jewish values, and how she married this rich guy and got to be the great-grandmother of King David. There may or may not be thinly veiled sex in the story. It happened during the grain harvest, which is pretty much its only connection to the time of year, but it's also the only really appropriate time to read it, so read it is. If any of you are named Ruth, this holiday is also about you. Not as much as, say, Purim is about Esthers, but a lot.
And for all of you who read all of that and feel like telling me about similar/different Christian holidays (or Buddhist, or Spiritualist, or anything else you may want to tell me about) I'd love to hear it. "More respect for our fellow being through a better understanding of them" and all that stuff :)
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 06:29 pm (UTC)Isn't there some disppute on weither or not Ruth was a lesbian?
My family didn't do much more then lip service to most holidays so I'm not much good at explaining why we do stuff.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 03:41 pm (UTC)I don't know. She lived with her mother-in-law, but as far as I know that doesn't make her lesbian. Just a saint-patience'd young widow.
Eeeeh, s'okay. I don't do much more than lip service either. I just do a lot of lip service, since something like one-sixth of the year occurs during one Jewish holiday or another.