Shavuot for Kids: A pajama party with ice cream
By Ken Bresler

Shavuot has at least two traditions that can easily and memorably be transformed for children and adolescents. The two traditions are all-night study (or at least late-night study) and eating dairy foods. What does this mean for children? A pajama party with ice cream.

All-night study is called Tikkun Leyl Shavuot (Pronounce "Tikkun" with the accent on the second syllable, which rhymes with "moon." Pronounce "Leyl" to rhyme with "veil.")

The tradition of eating dairy foods has many explanations, including these: Israel is a land flowing with milk and honey; the Song of Songs likens the Torah to "milk and honey...under your tongue"; and on Shavuot, we accepted the Torah, Kashrut, and separating milk and meat.

There are also a number of Shavuot activities to make Tikkun Leyl Shavuot for children and adolescents more than a slumber-and-ice-cream party. Here are a few ideas:

• Read books. A Child's Book of Midrash by Barbara Diamond Goldin contains at least two midrashim or interpretive stories, which you can consider short stories, appropriate for Shavuot, '"Why God Chose Mount Sinai" and "The Most Precious Gift." (When you're done preparing for Shavuot, make time to read the rest of this wonderful book.)
• Read and/or act out the story of Ruth. The Book of Ruth, which celebrates the mother-daughter bond as well as the pivotal role of "Jews by Choice" in Judaism, is read on Shavuot.
• Make flower decorations or arrangements for your home. Flowers and greenery are another Shavuot tradition. Make wreaths or garlands to wear to Shavuot services.
• Another name for Shavuot is Yom Habikurim – Holiday of First Fruits. You can make and decorate bikurim (first fruits) baskets.
• Make decorations of cut paper, another Shavuot tradition.
• Make tablets of the 10 commandments out of clay or similar material.

A Midrash for Shavuot

One of my favorite stories connected with Shavuot is retold by Julie Hilton Danan: "The Midrash (Midrash Shir HaShirim 1:4) tells that before God would give the Torah to Israel, he told Moses that the Jews would have to provide a guarantor who would prove that they would continue to observe the Torah. First the Israelites offered their holy ancestors, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, as guarantors, but God would not accept it. Then they suggested the prophets, people of passion and vision. But still the Holy One was not satisfied with their suggestion. Finally, the Israelites said that their children would be the guarantors that they would observe the Torah. And God accepted."

When I began gathering material about Shavuot, I considered writing about how parents could help children feel the awe that our ancestors felt at Mount Sinai. God's giving of the Torah, which Shavuot commemorates, was accompanied by thunder, lightning, and the blast of a supernal shofar.

Why not recreate those sights and sounds? There are at least two important reasons not to do that. The first, as my neighbor Dick Israel pointed out, is that children have limited "databases." To hear the shofar sounded on Rosh HaShanna and Shavuot would confuse them. Second, and I quote Michael Strassfeld directly, because he put it so eloquently:

On Shavuot, we remember the tradition that states that all of us were present at the Revelation at Sinai. Yet on Shavuot we do not really try to re-experience or reenact the Sinai Revelation [as we re-experience Exodus at the Passover seder]...

The reason we don't is that Sinai is a continuous event ...The Revelation continues to occur as the Torah unfolds before us, if we pay attention to it. Thus Sinai needs fulfillment, not re-experiencing; enactment, not reenactment ... Anytime a person studies Torah with devotion and holiness is a zeman matan torah – the moment of the giving of the Torah.

So forget the thunder and lightning. Do something seemingly ordinary. Go to Shavuot services with your children. After all, they are the guarantors of the Torah.

May this Shavuot – and the day after, and the day after that – include a personal moment when you receive the Torah.

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For additional reading

• Holidays: Shavout
• Holidays: Shavout: The Book of Ruth
• Holidays: Shavout for Kids
• What do we celebrate? A Shavuot reflection
• Seven Complete Weeks: A Shavuot reflection