On Passover, the people of Israel were freed from their enslavement to Pharaoh; on Shavuot, they were given the Torah and became a nation committed to serving God.

[14] Shavuot is not explicitly named in the Bible as the day on which the Torah was revealed by God to the Israelite nation at Mount Sinai, although this is commonly considered to be its main significance.

[27] According to the classical timeline, the Israelites arrived at the wilderness of Sinai on the new moon (Exodus 19:1) and the Ten Commandments were given on the following Shabbat (i.e., Saturday).

What is textually connected in the Bible to the Feast of Shavuot is the season of the grain harvest, specifically of the wheat, in the Land of Israel.

During the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, an offering of two loaves of bread from the wheat harvest was made on Shavuot according to the commandment in Lev.

[5] The penultimate Dead Sea text to be published has been discovered to contain two festival dates observed by the sect at Qumran as part of their formally perfect 364-day calendar.

All three festivals are calculated starting from the first Sabbath following Passover by repeatedly adding exactly fifty days each time: first came New Wheat (Shavuot), then New Wine, and then New Oil.

[36] Nowadays in the post-Temple era, Shavuot is the only biblically ordained holiday that has no specific laws attached to it other than usual festival requirements of abstaining from creative work.

The rabbinic observances for the holiday include reciting additional prayers, making kiddush, partaking of meals and being in a state of joy.

In addition, each line ends with the syllable ta (תא‎), the last and first letters of the Hebrew alphabet, alluding to the endlessness of Torah.

[citation needed] Italian Jews do the same except that they switch the piyyutim of the two day, and in recent centuries, Ata Hinchalta has been truncated to include only one 22-line poem instead of eight.

The liturgical poem Yatziv Pitgam (Imperial Aramaic: יציב פתגם) is recited by some synagogues in the diaspora on the second day of Shavuot.

The author signs his name at the beginning of the poem's 15 lines – Yaakov ben Meir Levi, better knows as Rabbeinu Tam.

As a dessert, Sephardic Jews traditionally consume sütlaç (a rice pudding cooked in milk) decorated with cinnamon in designs such as the Star of David, flowers, and other patterns.

Reasons given for this custom include: In many Jewish communities, there is a tradition to decorate homes and synagogues with plants, flowers and leafy branches on Shavuot.

A common reason given for this custom is the story that Mount Sinai suddenly blossomed with flowers in anticipation of the giving of the Torah on its summit.

[58] Some synagogues decorate the bimah with a canopy of flowers and plants so that it resembles a chuppah, as Shavuot is mystically referred to as the day the matchmaker (Moses) brought the bride (the nation of Israel) to the chuppah (Mount Sinai) to marry the bridegroom (God); the ketubah (marriage contract) was the Torah.

[62] The custom was later linked to a Midrash which relates that the night before the Torah was given, the Israelites retired early to be well-rested for the momentous day ahead.

[65][66][67] It has been suggested that the introduction of coffee throughout the Ottoman empire may have attributed to the "feasibility and popularity" of the practice of all-night Torah study.

[70] In keeping with the custom of engaging in all-night Torah study, leading 16th-century kabbalist Isaac Luria arranged a recital consisting of excerpts from the beginning and end of each of the 24 books of Tanakh (including the reading in full of several key sections such as the account of the days of creation, the Exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments and the Shema) and the 63 tractates of Mishnah,[71][72] followed by the reading of Sefer Yetzirah, the 613 commandments as enumerated by Maimonides, and excerpts from the Zohar, with opening and concluding prayers.

In Jerusalem, at the conclusion of the night time study session, tens of thousands of people walk to the Western Wall to pray with sunrise.

[70][74][75][76] In secular agricultural communities in Israel, such as most kibbutzim and moshavim, Shavuot is celebrated as a harvest and first-fruit festival including a wider, symbolic meaning of joy over the accomplishments of the year.

[77][failed verification] In the 19th century several Orthodox synagogues in Britain and Australia held confirmation ceremonies for 12-year-old girls on Shavuot, a precursor to the modern Bat Mitzvah.

[6] Today, Reform synagogues in North America typically hold confirmation ceremonies on Shavuot for students aged 16 to 18 who are completing their religious studies.

1:1 claims that Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah "on the sixteenth day of the third month in the first year of the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt".