Facts About Hag Ha-Shavuot [Feast of Weeks] by Hacham Mordecai Alfandari

1) The day is called Hag HaShavuot [Feast of Weeks] in the Torah because its date is dependent on weeks and a fixed number of days and not on a date of the month like all the other holidays in the Torah.

2) Its date is dependent on the date of the Sabbath Day, for the Torah says that it falls on the morrow of the seventh Sabbath reckoned from the [morrow after the] Sabbath during the days of Hag HaMatzot. Just as the date of the Sabbath changes every week so too does the date of this holiday change within its month, but its weekday is fixed by the Torah to always be on a Sunday. This is its special character, and because of the above its name is "Feast of Weeks".

3) The Torah also calls this day "Hag HaBikurum" [The Day of Firstfruits] and it is an agricultural Feast like Passover (which is the Feast of the Abib¹) and Sukkot (which is the "Feast of Ingathering"). According to the Rabbanites the Torah was given on this day, but the Karaite sages have proven that this view is erroneous although they observed it as a day of remembrance of the giving of the Torah since the date of the giving of the Torah is not known.²

4) The Samaritans, who learned the foundations of their religion from the mouths of the priestly teachers sent from Jerusalem before the period of the Second Temple, hold the same opinion that Shavuot always falls on a Sunday. There is no reason to doubt this tradition since there was no external factor which affected this decision, which is not the case regarding their denial of the holiness of Jerusalem and the Books of the Prophets after Moses, the reason for which is explained in the Book of Nehemiah.³

5) There is an opinion in the Talmud which holds the same tradition as we have, that Shavuot always falls on a Sunday. However, this tradition was suppressed by the "majority-rule" in order to "remove it from the hearts of the Sadducees", in the manner of Rabbanite politics of that period, since their competitors the Sadducees also held this view.⁴

Notes:

Note 1: Although the name "Feast of the Abib" never appears in the Tanach. The term Month of the Abib appears in Dt 16,1 [NG]. Back

Note 2: May YHWH have mercy on those who add to His Torah. [NG] Back

Note 3: An argument based on Samaritan practice is at best a [weak] secondary support that lags behind the real consideration, which is of course the Biblical evidence. We would point out that in general traditions are suspect by their very nature. Furthermore, the notion that the Samaritans preserved "purer" traditions because they were "untouched" by the centuries is not supported by history. We know of a great deal of internal evolution within Samaritan thought and they by no means remain unchanged for the last 2700 years! Indeed such internal evolution is inevitable within any group. [NG] Back

Note 4: The same is true here as with the last argument. The fact that there is a Rabbanite tradition which always places Shavuot on a Sunday is interesting but it does not prove the correctness of our own reading. It does show that two groups with vastly differing approaches to the Scripture can read the Torah and both arrive at the same conclusion. Regarding Shavuot it can be said with a fair degree of confidence that the Karaite approach is backed up by an unbroken chain of Jewish practice going back to Biblical times and nevertheless it is important to emphasize that what is decisive is not tradition but the Biblical evidence. [NG] Back

This article was originally published in Hebrew in the Karaite Journal Ha'Or, Year 3 Volume 1 (Nissan--Iyyar) [March-May 1958] p.2 under the title "Hag HaShavuot - Uvdot" ["The Morrow After the Sabbath - The Beginning of the Counting of the Omer"]. Translated from the Hebrew by Nehemia Gordon (May 2000).