Shavuot, The Festival of the Giving of the Torah

By Linda Levin, Kehillah Chadashah President

In Shavuot: The Harvest Festival of Torah, Rabbi Emanuel S. Goldsmith wrote “A good case can be made for Shavuot being the most important of all the Jewish festivals. The revival of its observance is of particular concern to Reconstructionist Jews because our understanding of the nature and task of the Jewish people in the world and of what God should mean to us cannot be separated from our reinterpretation of the meaning of Torah. Shavuot is the festival of the giving and the receiving of Torah — of Torah as revelation, as law and as study.”

Rabbi Goldsmith continued in his article “While we are grateful and proud that the Torah has become the heritage of many peoples, for us the secret of its greatness lies in the fact that it is of the Jewish people, by the Jewish people, and for the Jewish people — our sacred and living heritage.

This Shavuot, as Kehillah Chadashah approaches its first year anniversary, Kehillah Chadashah has been blessed to have received one Torah as a gift from Olga and Chiel Wind and will soon be receiving a second Torah from Temple Beth Sholom in Miami. We are so grateful for both!

Click to read Rabbi Goldsmith’s full article: In Shavuot: The Harvest Festival of Torah