Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

2010/5/18 Yigal Levin wrote:
> The festival of Shavu'ot begins tonight at sundown and ends in Israel
> tomorrow night. The custom of many Jewish communities outside of Israel is
> to add an extra day. Besides the usual holiday prayers and meals, many
> communities hold all-night Torah study sessions, "Torah" in the wider
> meaning of the study of any Jewish texts, from the Bible to modern. One
> traditional reason for these all-night sessions is that according to one
> legend, on the morning of the original Sinai event the Israelites were all
> asleep in their tents and Moses had to go from tent to tent pulling them out
> of bed. So we don't want to miss out this time around. In many communities
> it is also customary to read and to study the book of Ruth, the main action
> of which occurred during the harvest-time. Since Ruth is the
> great-grandmother of David (and thus also the ancestress of the Messiah),
> Shavu'ot is also considered the anniversary of David's birth and of his
> death. I'll actually be giving a talk on Joab at our synagogue. Also, since
> the Torah is likened to milk and honey, Shavu'ot is also a festival of
> cheesecakes and other milk dishes. There's a cheesecake in the oven as I
> write.

In addition to cheese, you might want to consider Humus as well.  Ruth 2:14
is taken -- at least by various Humus afficionados on the web -- to relate to
the Humus dip:
http://humus101.com/EN/2006/10/10/6/ (English)
http://humus101.com/?p=99 (Hebrew)

What Meir Shalev and the Humus blog haven't noticed is that Homets is
used as a name for a plant alongside sumac and coriander in Damai 1:1.
I personally think that "chickpea" is much better suited than vinegar in
such a context.  (Note, the Aruch of the 11th century comments on this
Mishnah that it is the small hard sour grapes - ענבים קטנים הקשים החמוצים,
so it too chooses to read here a plant rather than vinegar, and perhaps
he is even trying to describe chickpeas).

Vayyiqra Rabba also quotes R' Simon as saying that this is the way of the
reapers -- to dip the bread in Homets.  Again, IMO, more likely that humus
is at stake.  (http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/tanach/raba3/34.htm - Hebrew)

But then, you probably have your Humus already prepared.

Happy Shavuot.

Yitzhak Sapir