Do you love to make special foods for the Jewish holidays? Shavuot (which starts at sundown on June 3rd this year) can really inspire creativity in the kitchen. Or, if you prefer, it can be extremely simple.

The three main categories are dairy (cheese and

It is customary to read and study the Book of Ruth on Shavuot. Why? A couple of reasons.

Have you seen the Ten Commandments lately? Not the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille blockbuster, but the Decalogue: the biblical guidelines Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai and a cause for Jewish celebration each year on Shavuot.

For a while, it seemed the Ten

This year, Shavuot starts at sundown on June 3rd. Aside from what happens in synagogue, your home celebrations can take so many forms — decorating with fresh greens and flowers, making special foods, and so much more.

I stood on the border of my wilderness.
It beckons in silent commandment,
My feet feeling for the road
That is dusty and half hidden
Under brambles and
Desire.

I am draped in cloth of gold
That pales under a sun of glory
Rings of silver and lapis
Grace my

As we approach the Festival of Shavuot this coming week, tens of thousands of American Reform Jews will be fondly recalling a milestone moment in their own personal religious lives - their confirmation ceremonies.

I have never attended a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, a community gathering to study Torah all night on the holiday of Shavuot. This year, that will all change!

For a people with just one God, we Jews sure do a lot of counting. 

Three patriarchs, four matriarchs, six days of creation, eight nights of Hanukkah, 12 tribes, 40 years in the desert, 70 years in a life - 80 if we’re really robust. You get the picture…

In

On Shavuot, every spring, we return to Sinai. We stand at the foot of the mountain enveloped in cloud and fire, the mountain hanging over our heads as if dangling from the Heavens themselves¹, and we accept the Torah that was given to us when we assembled