Shavuot, the Jewish spring agricultural holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah, starts Saturday evening, May 26. It’s traditional for children to decorate baskets with flowers, fill the baskets with fruit, and parade around the synagogue. Long ago, farmers in the land of Israel would bring the first fruits of their harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God. We remember this practice with the children’s baskets.
This year, since we’re exploring tzedakah, Nitzanim children made baskets for people to donate dried fruit. We decorated our baskets with paper flowers we made. Two children wrote notes of explanation. Then we brought our baskets and notes into the Chapel and explained about Shavuot and the farmers’ first fruits. We’ll leave our baskets in the Chapel all week so Chapel regulars can donate dried fruit.
One man thanked us for bringing the baskets!
We had so much fun making the paper flowers that now we want to make flower crowns! (Jewish children worldwide also wear flower garlands on Shavuot.)
