Shavuot is celebrated seven weeks after Pesach/Passover, and it encompasses two separate religious observances. The first is of agricultural origin - it is a festival to honor the first fruits (bikkurim) of the early summer grain harvest. The second observance is to honor Revelation, the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Shavuot is a holiday that looks both backwards and forwards. We will be doing our own looking backwards and forwards with a mixture of nostalgia and excitement because Shavuot will be the last festival that we celebrate in the current iteration of our Sanctuary. As you may know, this summer we are reconfiguring our Sanctuary to better serve the needs of our community.

This Shavuot we will have the opportunity to honor Rodfei Zedek’s past, and look toward our future. 

We ask that everyone think about one memory from our current Sanctuary, and bring a physical representation as well as a little blurb that describes that memory with you as your bikkurim - your first fruit offering. These offerings will be presented and displayed on the bimah for the evening. We’ll be led in song and teaching by Cantor Rosenberg and Rabbi Minkus, and conduct our processional up to the bimah to make our offering, and then have dinner together. Following dinner, we’ll have the chance to hear some memories, as well as hopes, directly from some members. 

Additionally, we will be inviting the whole congregation to share their hopes for CRZ. Over the next few weeks we’ll be providing a card for you to fill out, and we hope you’ll bring it back when you come for Shavuot (or sometime around then). We will put all the cards up in the atrium and they will be left up through the High Holy Days. We encourage everyone to spend time reading each other's hopes, so that we, together, can continue to strengthen this community for the generations to come. We also look forward to being even more inspired in the transformed Sanctuary, which will now embody the values that we hold so dearly here at Rodfei Zedek.