Shalom, Support Team. This is a study recorded in 2014 shortly before leaving China. I lived there for a year as an English teacher, where I had 658 Chinese high school students. Back then, I recorded one of my first Support Team Studies, entitled Shavuot: Feast of Oaths. My time in China gave me the opportunity to pause for some reflection on my years of research and ministry, and the result was some pretty cool insights. The sound quality is pretty bad, but it’s still worth listening. And here it is.

Shalom guys, and happy Shavuot, Chag Shavuot Sameach! This is the second installment of… I don’t know what we’re calling this. “Nehemia rambling about the Torah!” I like that name. I don’t know… Anyway, I sent one out last week, and there was some good, positive feedback, and I decided I’m going to do another one for Shavuot for those who have supported my ministry, and really just to thank you guys. It’s really important and means a lot that you've supported my ministry; it’s allowed me to get the message out and do what I’m doing.

Anyway, I want to talk to you today about Shavuot, the holiday of Shavuot, and I wrote an article, a study that was on the internet. I think it was written in 1998; I could be wrong. And actually, it occurred to me, one of my students told me last night that it’s her birthday today. She said, “Tomorrow’s my birthday.” And we’re going to do something in class for her, and “When were you born?” “1999.” And I thought, “Wow! I have a study on the internet that’s older than this student!”

And it made me start to really think about it; that’s a lifetime for this little girl. And what’s happened to me in that lifetime? And I think one of the things that’s happened to me is, if you look at the things I wrote back in 1998, and that period, and certainly the way I remember it, in a sense I was very reactionary. And what I mean by that is, I had come out of Rabbinical Judaism, and I was what I call the “ex-smoker.” I had been a smoker, that is, a Rabbinical Jew, and I had realized that this is bad; this isn’t truth, and I’ve got to give it up. I’ve got to walk away from smoking, and I had some of that “ex-smoker syndrome”. You know what? I had some of the spirit of Shimi, I’ll be honest with you. If you don’t know who Shimi is, you need to listen to this program that Keith and I did on the spirit of Shimi. I think it’s called The Power of Positivity or something like that. It really is, I think, one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’m not saying it to brag, it’s just when I listened to it afterwards, I was like, “Did I say those things? Wow!” I give Yehovah credit for all the correct stuff, and all the bad stuff I’ll take credit.

Anyway, I was somewhat reactionary, and when it came to Shavuot, one of the things I had been taught was that Shavuot is the festival celebrating the revelation at Sinai. And my response was, “Where does it say that? You guys are making stuff up.” And no one has ever been able to show me where it said that. What they were able to say is, “Well, it says it in the Gemara, it says it in the Oral Law, in the Talmud.” “It says it in this Midrash, in this Oral Law.” No one was able to ever show me a verse or a word or anything that showed me a connection between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai.

And when I did look at the Tanakh, what I saw was Shavuot has two functions, and really the same function. One is, it’s called Chag Ha’katzir, obviously it’s called Chag Ha’Shavuot, “The Feast of Weeks”, but it’s also called Chag Ha’katzir, “The Feast of Harvest”, and it’s also called Yom Ha’Bikkurim, “The Day of First Fruits”.

Now, in the Christian Messianic World there’s some huge confusion. A lot of people think “The Day of First Fruits”, a term that appears in Numbers 28, refers to the day of the Omer Offering, but that is not the case. Read it in its context it clearly is referring to Shavuot. It lists all of the feast days in which work is forbidden and certain sacrifices are brought. Yom Ha’Bikkurim is “The Day of the First Fruits,” which is another name for Shavuot. The day of the Omer Offering doesn’t actually have a name in The Tanakh. Anyway, I digress.

So, it’s a harvest festival, and I can understand, today we live in the 21st century. And even the rabbis living two thousand years ago in their cities, in Israel most of the peasants were farmers, these were the elite of society. Harvest-shmarvest, what did they care about a harvest festival? They had to find more meaning in it, they wanted to look for a spiritual meaning.

And in a sense, I look back on it and I think, “Wow, they so took the harvest for granted that they wanted a different meaning.” So I, as a young Karaite reacting to this, as we say in Hebrew, “mah pitom!” What are you talking about? Show me! Prove to me that it has anything to do with the revelation in Sinai. No one was ever able to prove anything.

Now, I still say it’s a harvest festival, and it’s a “Day of First Fruits.” That’s what it says in the word of God, in the Torah. It says that explicitly. And I don’t want to diminish from that or take anything away from that, but I do want to talk about the possibility that maybe there is a connection to the revelation at Sinai. And the first piece of evidence is kind of obvious, and this they were able to show me many years ago, but by itself it’s not definitive. But let’s look at it anyway. How can we have any connection whatsoever between the revelation at Sinai and Shavuot?

Well, Shavuot takes place in the third month, okay, and in the Rabbinical calendar it’s always the 6th of Sivan. In the Biblical calendar it doesn’t give a date, it says, “You count 50 days from the Sunday,” or, “mimocharat ha’Shabbat”, “the morrow of the Sabbath”, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So, it says in Exodus 19 verse 1, “Ba’chodesh ha’shlishi,” “In the third month,” “le’tzet bnei-Israel mi’eretz mitzrayim,” “of the going out of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt.” So, all of history from this point on is counted from the going out from the land of Egypt. They went out on the first month, on the 15th day of the month, and now we’re in the third month. So, it’s been approximately 45 days, give or take a day, since they left Egypt. Give or take a few days, approximately 45 days.

And it says, “Ba’yom hazeh, ba’u midbar Sinai,” “In this day they came into the desert of Sinai,” “the wilderness of Sinai.” And this is the beginning of the story of the revelation at Sinai, and Moses tells them to purify themselves for three days. And let’s say that takes us to around the third or the fourth of the month, probably the fourth.

So, when did the revelation at Sinai take place? We don’t know exactly, but it was sometime early in the third month, and Shavuot is early in the third month; whether in the Rabbinical calendar or the Biblical calendar, Shavuot is early in the third month.

I think it’s interesting, and here we say in Hebrew, “zeh omer darsheni”, “this fact says, investigate me, look deeper”. And the “look deeper” fact is that it doesn’t give us the date of the revelation at Sinai - the most important event in history, where Yehovah speaks with His word to the entire people of Israel. They actually hear His voice! It’s the only time in all of history where a mass group of people heard the voice of Yehovah directly. We’ve always heard it through prophets and intermediaries. This is the only time in all of history, and we’re not given the date. And the only festival in the Torah that we’re not given a date for is Shavuot, so maybe there’s a connection there.

But that’s not good enough for me; it wasn’t good enough for me 15 years ago, and it’s not good enough for me now. That’s circumstantial evidence. I need more than that. So, I want to offer you more than that, and again I’m not saying, “This is the doctrine of Karaites, that Shavuot is the feast celebrating the revelation at Sinai.” I’m not saying that at all.

I’m proposing this as another possibility which I actually think is correct, but this is definitely not doctrine. That Shavuot is “The Feast of Weeks”, that’s a Biblical fact; that Shavuot is “The Day of First Fruits”, that’s a Biblical fact. This is me suggesting another possibility, which again, I know I’m right. But in a sense, it is circumstantial evidence, but I think it’s pretty strong. My problem was when somebody comes along and says, “Well no, you have to believe this. This is true, this is a fact,” when it doesn’t say that in the Bible. To that I say, “Now you’re adding to the Torah.”

Alright, let me start out with the meaning of the word Shavuot. So, what is Shavuot? Chag Ha’Shavuot is “The Feast of Weeks.” Okay, that’s kind of obvious. I’m not saying anything new. What is the root? The word is shevah, which is “seven”, and a week, “shavuah”, a period of seven days, and Shavuot is “The Feast of the Seven Days”, “of the Weeks”. And why is that? Because it tells us in Deuteronomy 16, “you will count for yourselves seven weeks and the 50 day, the day after that is the day of Shavuot.” Okay, I’m all for stating the obvious here, but let me get back to the issue.

So, Shavuot… there’s another word, which is almost identical in Hebrew, which is sh’vuah, and sh’vuah means “oath”. So could there be a connection between “oath” and “weeks?” Now, I’m not the first one to propose this; this was proposed around 200 BC in a book called The Book of Jubilees. The Book of Jubilees is not Scripture, but it is stories and elaborations on Scripture, and people looking at Scripture and saying, “Well, what does this mean?” And “What is this talking about?”

And sometimes, like I said, they would elaborate and make stories up. But it’s interesting the stories that they made up. So, I’m going to read you a little passage from Jubilees.

One of the things in the Book of Jubilees… which again, isn’t the Bible. It was written by the Essenes, but it was written in a very early period. So, the Book of Jubilees reads back into history the festival of Shavuot to the time of Noah, and actually all the way to Creation. But that’s a different story.

Jubilees chapter 6 verse 1, it says, “On the new moon of the third month, Noah went forth from the ark and built an altar on that mountain,” and there’s a bunch of other things. I’ll skip to verse 10. It says, “And Noah and his sons swore that they would not eat any blood that was in any flesh.” Now why are they doing this? Because God just commanded them, “Don’t eat the blood,” which by the way is commanded to all people, not just Jews. It’s commanded to all mankind not to eat blood. That’s actually said very explicitly in Genesis chapter 9, and it had quoted Genesis 9 in Jubilees 6. Now Jubilees 6 is adding information that’s not in Genesis 9, which is that Noah and his son swore that they would not eat any blood that was in the flesh. “And he made a covenant before the Lord God forever throughout all the generations of the Earth in this month.”

So, here’s an interesting connection between two things, which we’ll get back to in a minute, if I remember, which is that Noah is swearing - and the connection to swearing is making a covenant. That’s an interesting connection. Did Jubilees just make that up, that covenants entail swearing? And if not, if that’s really a Biblical thing, that a covenant has to do with swearing, then Shavuot could be the festival of the covenant at Sinai. In other words, the covenant in Sinai is a brit, brit means “covenant”, but with every brit, you have a shvuah, “an oath”, and shvuah and Chag Ha’Shavuot, “Feast of Weeks”, could also mean “Feast of Oaths”.

Jubilees 6:11, “On this account he spake to you,” this is an Old English translation. “On this account he spoke to you that you shall make the covenant with the children of Israel, on this month upon the mountain with an oath.” So here, the Book of Jubilees is connecting the covenant at Sinai in the third month with shvuah, “an oath”.

And it goes on in verse 17, I’m skipping ahead. “For this reason, it is ordained and written on the heavenly tablets that they should celebrate the Feast of Weeks in this month once a year to renew the covenant every year.” Wow! So, what it’s saying in Jubilees is, why do you celebrate Shavuot? It’s a renewal every year of the covenant of Sinai. And how do we know that? Because it’s called Chag Ha’Shavuot, “The Feast of Weeks”, which also could mean, or at least it can allude to, “The Feast of Oaths”. Wow! That’s pretty cool. Jubilees, 200 BC… some people may say it’s older. I don’t buy it; 200 BC is about what I’d give it.

And it goes on in verse 20, “And do thou command the children of Israel to observe this festival and all their generations are commanded unto them to one day of the year in this month, they shall celebrate this festival, for this is a Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of First Fruits. The feast is two-fold of a double nature, according to what was written and engraven concerning it, celebrate it.”

So, what's a “double nature” in the Book of Jubilees of 200 BC? It’s the Feast of Harvest, “First Fruits”, nobody questions that, and it also is Chag Ha’Shavuot, “The Feast of Oaths”, of renewing the oaths.

Now, Shavuot doesn’t literally mean “oaths”, it means “weeks.” Don’t misunderstand, but it sounds almost identical to the word for “oaths”, and in certain forms of it, it is identical when you have it in smichut and the construct form, it’s shvuot. If you looked at that one word by itself you wouldn’t know if it meant “weeks” or, “oaths”. But that’s technical stuff; don’t worry about it.

Alright, this is pretty cool. So, we’ve got a connection in 200 BC between the “Feast of Weeks”, and on the one hand the harvest, which is disputed, but also the renewal of the covenant. And if I remember, when I get back to the renewal of the covenant in Jubilees 16, because that’s a very important point, renewing the covenant every year. Now that is a Biblical concept that I want to talk about.

Alright, Jubilees 22:1, one last thing. “And it came to pass, in the first week in the 44th jubilee in the second year, that is the year in which Abraham died, that Isaac and Ishmael came from the Well of the Oath to celebrate the Feast of Weeks; that is, the feast of the first fruits of the harvest, to Abraham, their father, and Abraham rejoiced because his two sons had come.”

So, this is a completely fictitious story. I mean, it may have happened, but we don’t have information about this in the Bible that Abraham, Avraham, celebrated Shavuot with Ishmael and Yitzchak, with Isaac and Ishmael. And where did they celebrate Chag Ha’Shavuot, “the Feast of Weeks”? They celebrated it at “the Well of the Oath”. What’s “the Well of the Oath”? The “Well of the Oath” is Be’er Sheva, Be’er Sheba. How do I know that? Because Abraham tells us that he called it Be’er Sheva and there are two reasons. He took aside seven sheep when he made the covenant with Avimelech, and seven symbolized the oath. Why? Because “seven” is shiv’ah, and “oath” is shvuah.

What’s the connection? Let’s back up. A crash course in Biblical Hebrew; every word in Biblical Hebrew has a three-letter root. That’s called the triliteral root theory. It was proven definitively by Jonah ibn Janah around the year 1100. There may be some exceptions, but we’re not going to worry about that now. Basically, every word in the Hebrew Bible, or in Biblical Hebrew, has a three-letter root. And that’s actually true with Arabic, Ge’ez, Aramaic, Akkadian, every Semitic language has a three-letter root system. And again, there are some exceptions that we won’t worry about right now, potential exceptions that could be explained away… it doesn’t matter.

So, what’s the three letter-root for the word for week, shavuah? The root for “week” is shevah, Shin-Bet-Ayin, which means “seven.” What is the word for “oath”? Shvuah, Shin-Bet-Ayin, the same three letters. So, it’s almost impossible not to make a connection between the word “oath” and the word “seven.” It’s the same three letters.

And Abraham explicitly makes that connection in Genesis 21:31 to 33, which I am now going to read. “Therefore, he called the name of that place Be’er Shava, for there they swore,” and “they swore”, two of them swore, “nishbe’u.” “Nishbe’u” is from the root Shin-Bet-Ayin, it’s the verb form of shavuah, which means “oath”. There they shavuah-ed, “they oathed”, “they made an oath”, “they swore”. “Ve’yichretu brit be’Be’er Shava,” “And they cut a covenant in Be’er Shava, and Abimelech and Phicol, his officer in his army, got up and they returned to the land of the Philistines.” And I love this part, verse 33, “And he planted an eshel,” which is a kind of tree, “in Be’er Shava, and he called there upon the name of Yehovah, the eternal God.”

Now I’m excited! Why am I excited? Because we’ve got three things; we’ve got a covenant that was made, it has the word brit, in verse 32. We have an oath, shvuah, and we have the calling on the name of Yehovah. Why is he calling on the name of Yehovah? Because when you make an oath, an oath must be made in the name. Now we’re told about that in other places, you can read my book… it’s in one of my books. I don’t remember where.

Anyway, it’s clearly in the Bible. It’s in three places, one is in Leviticus and two are in Deuteronomy. And in Deuteronomy it says, “U’be’shmi tishava,” “You shall swear in My name.” It says that twice, two witnesses, and then in Leviticus it says, “Don’t swear falsely in My name.” So, we’ve got “Do swear in My name,” and, “Don’t swear falsely in My name”. Swearing in the name of Yehovah. And so here he’s made a covenant, and part of a covenant is you make an oath, and then you call upon the name of Yehovah. This is Genesis 21:31 to 33, and he connects that to the word “seven” which is the root of the word for “week”.

I’m not saying that this is the doctrine, that Chag Ha’Shavuot is the Feast of the Covenant of Sinai, but if you’re an ancient Israelite and you’re hearing about Chag Ha’Shavuot, and you were there at Sinai and you’re told it’s the same time of year, I can’t see how you wouldn’t make the connection. It really is a strong connection.

And at the same time, I’ve got to say, why didn’t somebody show me this? Why years ago, when I said, “What is Shavuot? Prove to me that Shavuot has to do with the covenant at Sinai,” nobody said anything about oaths, and nobody said anything about calling upon the name of Yehovah, which is the main element of an oath. Why not? Because they had banned speaking Yehovah’s name. So now we have to divert everybody to the Oral Law, because we don’t want to talk about calling on Yehovah’s name! Wow!

Genesis 22:16 to 18, “And he said, ‘I swear by Myself,’” says Yehovah. Why is Yehovah swearing by Himself? Because an oath is made in the name of Yehovah, so Yehovah isn’t going to say, “I swear by Yehovah.” He says, “I swear by Myself,” and this is after the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, Genesis 22. He says, “Because you did this thing and you did not hold back you son, your only son,” sorry Ishmaelites, “you did not hold back your son, your only son, for I will surely bless you and I will surely increase your seed like the stars of the heaven, and like the sand that is on the edge of the sea, and your seed shall inherit the gate of his enemy. And all the nations of the Earth will be blessed in your seed because you obeyed My voice.”

So here we’ve got Yehovah swearing that He’s going to make a great nation out of Abraham, and there’s numerous verses where this is referred to, you can search in a Bible search program. I do it in Hebrew using the Hebrew root, which is the best that you can possibly do, because then there’s no question that the word “oath” here is actually the word shvuah, or le’hishava, which is the verb, as opposed to looking in the English. When it says “oath”, is it neder? Is it some other word for “oath”? Is it ala, perhaps? Which is another word for “oath” which also means “curse”. But shavuah is clearly, explicitly, the word that means “oath” that’s connected to the word “seven.” It has the same root as the word “seven,” it has to do with the covenant, and Yehovah made a shvuah to Abraham.

And there’s other places where He made a covenant to Abraham. I’ll bring one more. Genesis 26:3, it says, “Live in this land and I will be with you, and I will bless you, for to you and your seed I will give all of these lands and I will establish,” or “fulfill”, “the shvuah,” “the oath,” “asher nishbati le’Avraham avicha.” So, this is Isaac He’s talking to, “which I oathed,” “which I swore to Abraham, your father.”

So here God is saying to Isaac, “This wasn’t just a one-time thing to Abraham, this doesn’t have to do with Ishmael, this is you, Isaac. You’re the one that I am going to fulfill the oath,” the “shvuah asher nishbati,” “the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.” So there, twice in that verse we have the same root which is related to the word Shavuot - it is the one that has to do with oaths, which is the same three letters as the root that has to do with “seven”. Now I really feel like I’m...

Okay, Deuteronomy 7:8… I don’t think I can bring all these verses. I mean, there’s so much! This should be an invitation for you guys to look up for yourselves and do some more research, that there is a connection between shavuot, “weeks”, and shvuot, which means “oaths”.

Deuteronomy 7:8, “Because of the love of Yehovah of you, and His keeping of His oath which He swore to your fathers, He has brought you out with a strong hand and He has redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, the King of Egypt.” So here again Yehovah has this oath.

One more, Jeremiah 11:5, “In order to fulfill the” “shvuah asher nishbati,” “In order to fulfill the oath that I oathed,” or, “the swearing that I swore to Abraham, to give you the land flowing with milk and honey as this day,” et cetera. So there, Jeremiah 11 is speaking again about the shvuah, and there’s other places, like I said. I can’t bring them all.

I’ve got to bring one more! Deuteronomy 4:31, it says “Yehovah won’t forget the covenant He swore to the forefathers,” that’s really important. Why is that important? Because now we’re speaking about how Yehovah swore, and His swearing. That’s the covenant, and that was connected also to Genesis. But here it’s being reiterated, “for Yehovah is a merciful God, He shall not relent, He shall not destroy you, He shall not forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.” So, we’ve got this connection between covenant and swearing, and we’ve seen this already.

But why is that important? Because the covenant at Sinai… and here’s the interesting thing, it never uses the word shavah, or shvuah, to swear, in Exodus 19 or in Deuteronomy, when it tells the story of the revelation at Sinai or repeats it. It doesn’t use that, which I find very interesting. I don’t know why; it doesn’t use that exact term. But there’s clearly a connection between making an oath and a covenant. And so, when Yehovah made the covenant at Sinai, that was a shavuah; it was an oath.

Here’s the interesting thing. Remember we have three elements; we have the covenant, brit, we have the oath, shvuah, and we have the name of Yehovah being proclaimed. So, if Yehovah made a covenant at Sinai, well, where’s His name? “What are you saying Nehemia? Yehovah made a covenant and didn’t use the name?” That’s how He started the Ten Commandments! He started the Ten Commandments. He opened up and He said, in Exodus 20 verse 2, “I am Yehovah, your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.” That’s the oath, that’s the shvuah right there. Yehovah is proclaiming His name and speaking something in His name, and something you speak in the name of Yehovah is an oath; it must be true. If you speak in the name of Yehovah in vain, falsely, then you have broken an oath. That’s… wow!

So, you're wondering, “Where does it say that the covenant of Sinai is an oath?” It’s in the first three words! “Anochi Yehovah elohecha,” “I am Yehovah your God.” He’s swearing by Himself! This is the covenant, this is the brit, this is the shvuah, this is the oath.

So, I think there is a connection after all, between Shavuot and the covenant at Sinai. It was the same time of year. The word for “weeks”, shavuot, also has an almost identical pronunciation, and in some instances the identical pronunciation as the word for oath. This connection was made in 200 BC, so I’m not the first one to come up with it. We have the proclaiming of the name of Yehovah, we have the covenant, and we have an oath. I think there’s a connection there.

So, the Book of Jubilees has the Feast of Weeks, and what’s the Feast of Weeks? The purpose, according to the Book of Jubilees, is to renew the covenant every year. Is that a Biblical concept, renewing the covenant every year? So, here’s what we can say for sure; renewing the covenant is definitely a Biblical concept. And where do I see that? You should listen to Torah Pearls on Deuteronomy 5, I talked about this. Deuteronomy 5 verse 2-3 says something very mysterious, it says, “Yehovah, your God has cut with you a covenant in Horeb, not with your fathers Yehovah has cut this covenant, but with you, us, these who are here today, all of you alive,” Deuteronomy 5:3.

Well, that’s actually not, strictly speaking, true. Meaning, if you take him literally, Moses is a liar, because those people hadn’t been born yet, or some of them may have been born, but they were children. But many of them had never even been born, and it was with the fathers! Remember, the whole generation that made the covenant died. So why does he say that?

And I think there’s a deeper message here. The people hearing that would have said, “Well, wait a minute; it was with our fathers. So what does he mean?” To me it’s obvious what he means. What he means is, this covenant isn’t just with your fathers, it’s with you today. It’s renewed in every year and in every generation, that covenant at Sinai, and this is a concept we see throughout the Tanakh, of renewing the covenant.

I’ll just throw out some verses and you can look them up yourselves. Genesis 15:8 is brit ben ha’betarim, “the covenant between the pieces,” this whole dramatic scene where Abraham cuts these animals in half and walks between the pieces. Go to Jeremiah 34:18 to 19. They renewed that covenant at the time of Jeremiah, and it talks about them walking between the pieces. That’s a renewal of the covenant. It’s not that there are different covenants. There’s not the covenant that God made in Genesis 15 and the covenant He made in Genesis 26, and another covenant He made at Sinai. No, these are all the same covenant that’s being renewed generation after generation. And you can see that in a number of places. Joshua 23 is a renewal of the covenant. Jeremiah 31 talks about the brit ha’chadashah, not “a new covenant”, it’s a “renewal of the covenant”.

There are great passages in Ezra and Nehemiah which talk about renewing the covenant, and my favorite one that I’m going to end with is Ezekiel 16 verse 18. I’m not going to go into the whole thing, but the whole context is describing how God chose Israel, and Israel was first this newborn babe. And she grew up and she was this beautiful young woman, and it’s a metaphor of Yehovah marrying Israel. It’s the marriage between Yehovah and Israel.

And in 16:8, “‘When I passed by you again and saw that your time for love has arrived,’” so now you're a grown woman, “‘so I spread my robe over you and covered your nakedness, and I entered into a covenant with you by oath,’ declares Lord Yehovah, ‘thus you became mine.’” So how did Israel become Yehovah’s people? He married us, and where did He marry us? That was at Sinai. And how is this described metaphorically in Ezekiel 16:8? He entered into a covenant with us, brit, and He made “an oath,” a shvuah. So, this isn’t just Nehemia saying there’s a connection between Chag Ha’Shavuot, “The Feast of Weeks”, which also could mean “The Feast of Oaths;” Ezekiel 16:8 connects the covenant at Sinai explicitly with Yehovah making an oath.

So, I will wish you a happy Chag Ha’Shavuot! I’m going to say it in Hebrew, Chag Shavuot Sameach, Chag Katzir ve’Yom Ha’Bikkurim Sameach. Happy Feast of Weeks, happy Feast of Harvest, and Day of First Fruits, and happy Feast of Oaths. Remember the covenant of Sinai and renew the covenant this year with Yehovah. Enter into that covenant and renew it during Shavuot this year. Shalom, from Changsha, China.

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