If you’ve ever heard someone mention Shavuot and immediately thought “cheesecake holiday,” you’re not wrong—but you’re definitely missing the bigger picture. And honestly? Most Jews—even lifelong ones—aren’t exactly sure how to explain what this holiday is about.
Shavuot doesn’t have a seder. It doesn’t have a sukkah. It doesn’t come with an obvious playbook. So if you’re new to it (or to Judaism altogether), it’s easy to feel lost.
In this video, I’m breaking it down: what Shavuot really is, what’s actually required by halacha, what’s just custom (and optional!), and how you can create a celebration that feels meaningful without burning out. Whether you’re a conversion candidate, newly observant, or just someone trying to make sense of the Jewish calendar—this guide is here to help you find your rhythm.
Let’s go beyond cheesecake and take a deeper look at what Shavuot is really about—and how you can make it your own.
Transcript below!
Transcript:
If you’ve ever even heard of Shavuot, you probably know it as “the cheesecake holiday.”
But it’s so much deeper- and a lot more confusing- if you’re new to the holiday.
So at the most basic, Shavuot
is a holiday that is two days long outside the land of Israel, which will be most of my audience here. It’s only one day in the land of Israel. It happens starting on the sixth of Sivan.
Shavuot doesn’t have a seder.
It doesn’t have a sukkah. It doesn’t even have a clear script.
So what is it?
And more importantly, what do I have to do about it?
You’re not alone. I didn’t grow up with Shavuot either.
I converted to Judaism and it took me years to really understand how powerful this holiday is.
And for most people, it flies under the radar.
A lot of the Jews you know probably can’t explain to you what it’s about.
In the Bible, Shavuot is one of the three pilgrimage holidays, Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. These were the times when the ancient Jews were required to travel to the Beit HaMikdash, the temple in Jerusalem, and to bring offerings.
The first harvest, the “first fruits” to the Temple, the Beit HaMikdash.
This was about expressing gratitude
and acknowledging that their land and abundance came from Hashem.
The word Shavuot itself means “weeks.” We are measuring the seven weeks from the second night of Pesach until Shavuot. 49 days, seven by seven.
This period is called the Omer. You may have heard that we’re “counting the Omer” right now.
Later on, rabbinic tradition added another layer, another meaning for this holiday.
Shavuot became the day that we celebrate the giving of the Torah from Hashem to the Jewish people: Matan Torah.
There’s no specific date given in the Torah for this event, but the sages anchored it to Shavuot.
So you get this beautiful dual meaning, physically a time of harvest and first fruits,
spiritually, a time of revelation and sacred responsibility.
Understanding this duality is key.
Shavuot is about more than cheesecake and late night study. It’s about receiving.
To reflect on what it means to enter a covenant, a sacred promise.
To take on a spiritual identity,
and to bring your own “first fruits” of learning, practice, and intention.
Shavuot isn’t just about one moment in history. Jewish history is cyclical. We’re traveling around the circle of the year, but coming back to these same points with similar lessons every year as we move forward through history.
It’s about an ongoing spiritual process that invites us into three core experiences:
revelation, relationship, and responsibility.
Shavuot marks the moment when the Jewish people received the Torah at Har Sinai.
A direct spiritual encounter that changed everything for the whole world, not just the Jewish people, but it’s not just about what was given. It’s about the act of receiving.
Every year we’re invited to stand at the foot of Har Sinai, figuratively, and ask, “what Torah am I going to receive this year?”
What teachings will I receive this year?
For conversion candidates, this can feel deeply personal. You’re not just studying Judaism, you’re choosing it.
And that choice mirrors the moment of Revelation.
The giving of the Torah wasn’t a one-sided event, it was a partnership,
a covenant,
a two-way relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people.
Shavuot’s a celebration of that relationship
and the ongoing commitment to a life guided by Jewish values, practice, and purpose.
For converts, this mirrors the process of us joining the Jewish people.
Not just through ritual, but also through connection and shared responsibility.
Because with Torah comes responsibility.
Not just to laws, but to ethics, community justice, spiritual growth.
Shavuot reminds us that this isn’t a spectator tradition. This is a practice.
It’s about showing up- not perfectly, but intentionally.
It’s a moment that’s not about whether you’ve “done enough.”
But in how you’re choosing to step
into a relationship with Torah, Hashem, the Jewish people, the world, and yourself.
So. Now that we’ve covered all the philosophy of this and the hashkafic nature of it, what do we actually do?
what’s actually required by Jewish law, halacha?
This is a really important question. It’s important to know what the difference is between halacha and custom (minhag). Especially when you’re new to these practices, you wanna prioritize, and you can’t prioritize properly if you don’t know the status of these rules. What’s most important to prioritize?
What can be let go?
So at its most basic,
Shavuot is a “yom tov” which halachically speaking means that we don’t do melacha, which is certain forms of work. We eat holiday meals with challah and grape juice or wine.
And people generally attend synagogue and read the 10 Commandments .
So that’s the core of it.
What are the customs?
Most communities have a practice of trying to stay up all night long learning Torah, and we do mean all night long. They will go until morning prayers the next day. It’s called Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Tikkun means fixing or repairing. It comes from a midrash, a story, that the Jewish people kind of overslept the giving of the Torah and were late, and so we try to make up for that.
There’s a few other interpretations of where the idea of Tikkun Leil Shavuot comes from, but that’s the one you’re most likely to hear.
Do you have to do it? No, you don’t have to do any of it. If you wanna go to bed at nine o’clock at night, more power to you. You’re fine.
The eating dairy foods. In America that most often is gonna be cheesecake and blintzes, Ashkenazi foods.
Again, there’s a lot of symbolic reasons for eating dairy foods, but not required. If you wanna eat meat or if you’re vegan, no one’s gonna check.
People like to decorate with greenery and flowers. Again, that’s going to that harvest theme of Shavuot, but it also speaks to the tradition that Har Sinai blossomed at the giving of the Torah.
So should you buy a bouquet of flowers? If you’d like to, that’s great. Are you required to? No.
And reading the book of Ruth, or in Hebrew, Rut, is a minhag, not halacha.
So those are the customs that people tend to practice on Shavuot.
When you’re converting or new to observance, it’s easy to assume you have to do everything.
But Judaism is rich with layers.
Knowing what’s halacha versus minhag helps you to prioritize without guilt,
build up a meaningful practice over time, and stay grounded in what matters most.
So why Ruth and why on Shavuot?
The Book of Ruth isn’t just a traditional reading for Shavuot. It’s a deeply symbolic text, especially for conversion candidates.
On the surface, it’s a short pastoral story about loyalty and family.
But beneath that, it carries themes of spiritual power, especially for those who are converting to Judaism.
Shavuot marks the giving of the Torah, Matan Torah when the Jewish people collectively accepted the covenant with God. Ruth, a Moabite woman who is markedly not Jewish, chose to enter that covenant as an individual.
She wasn’t born Jewish. She wasn’t obligated. She chose.
That’s the core of why her story is read on Shavuot.
Ruth represents personal acceptance of the Torah, just as the Jewish people did collectively and personally at Har Sinai.
While there were other converts before Ruth, she is held up as kind of the archetypal convert.
Not because she converted through a beit din. There weren’t formal procedures at that point.
And not because she was perfect, because she wasn’t,
but because she was committed, humble, and kind.
So some other reasons that we read it at this time. The Book of Ruth takes place during the harvest season, just like Shavuot.
It connects to themes of lovingkindness (chesed), family loyalty, and spiritual courage.
And also because Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of King David,
showing that converts aren’t marginal in Jewish history- we are a key part of it.
So for many conversion candidates,
reading Ruth today isn’t just a tradition. It’s a mirror that you can hold up to yourself. You might see yourself in her questions, in her outsider status,
in her quiet, radical decision to belong.
so the bottom line, you don’t need to bake a cheesecake. You especially don’t need to bake a cheesecake from scratch. If you wanna have a cheesecake, it’s perfectly fine to get it from the bakery or the frozen food section.
And you don’t need to stay up all night to make a connection with Shavuot.
Start with what’s required, add what feels meaningful. And let your observance grow with you.
It may not feel like it, but you have lots of time.
You don’t have to do it all, especially not right away.
So if you’re still wondering how to do Shavuot in a way that feels manageable and doable and not overwhelming, I made another video about that called ” What I Wish I Knew Before My First Shavuot.” You can find it up here. It walks you through a calm, beginner friendly, budget friendly plan.
Whether this is your first Shavuot or you’re still figuring out how Jewish holidays fit into your life,
there’s room for a version of this holiday that meets you where you are right now, not where you wish you were.
One that honors the meaning of the day without expecting perfection or burnout. Because if you wanna grow in Jewish observance, the quickest way to stop that is to do too much at once and burnout and never wanna do it again.
And if you want a full guide with meal ideas, ritual options, a timeline, and tools to help you prepare without burnout or perfectionism, you can find my workbook “Shavuot Without Stress” on my site at Building a Jewish Life.com.
Your version of Shavuot doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, and your first Shavuot should not look like someone else’s 20th Shavuot. Start where you are and build from there. It’ll come, I promise.
If you have more questions, be sure to drop them down in the comments below.
