Omer

Originally, each farmer marked the start of their harvest by bringing the first sheaf to the priest, then working for seven consecutive weeks, culminating in an offering of new grain. Later, when this offering was transformed into the national festival of Shavuot and Shabbat observance became central, the count was anchored in מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת—“the day after Shabbat”—to avoid harvesting on the new day of rest.

In 1096, the Crusaders captured the Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks. On the way, they stopped in Jewish communities throughout the Rhineland and massacred them in the name of Christ. Robert the Monk drew on the biblical song of the sea to highlight God’s support for the crusade, while the Chronicle of Solomon bar Simson used Psalms and Lamentations to articulate Jewish suffering and martyrdom.

The Shavuot rebellion and consequent burning of the Temples’ porticoes during the time of Augustus Caesar made no impression on subsequent Jewish historiography, despite the later humiliating defeat of the rebellion’s suppressor, Varus, in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Another lost memory of Shavuot is the all-night vegetarian feast, prayer, and Torah study of the Therapeutae, an egalitarian ascetic Jewish community in Egypt.

Both Shavuot and Pentecost celebrate the culmination of a fifty-day season in the spring, after Passover and Easter respectively.

The omer or “sheaf” offering takes place ממחרת השבת, “after the Shabbat” (Leviticus 23:15). Jewish interpreters have debated the exact meaning of this phrase for two millennia, resulting in four different dates being adopted by one Jewish sect or another.

Throughout the Bible, we find that the land of Israel is blessed with grain, wine, and oil (דגן, תירוש, ויצהר). In the Torah, however, the festival of Bikkurim, “First Produce,” only celebrates the wheat harvest. In the Temple Scroll, the Essenes rewrote the biblical festival calendar to include two further bikkurim festivals to celebrate wine and oil.

A 364 Day Solar Year