Shavuot 2027

The dates

Shavuot is the shortest of the three pilgrimage festivals, a single day in Israel, two in the Diaspora, and possibly the most crowded with meaning. It falls on 6 Sivan, at the close of the Omer count; this year it lands on 11-12/6/27 (Friday).

In the days of the Temple it was first of all a farmers' festival: the end of the wheat harvest, and the season of first fruits carried up to Jerusalem in procession. Almost everything about it has changed since, except the date. The fields and the sickles are gone, and in their place came a night of study that runs until dawn, a table of dairy food, and a synagogue decorated in green.

The festival day by day

A festival with no date

Every other festival in the Hebrew calendar has a date of its own. Shavuot does not. The Torah says to count seven weeks from the day the Omer offering was brought at Passover, and to celebrate on the fiftieth day. The date 6 Sivan is the result of that arithmetic rather than its starting point. That is why the festival is simply called Shavuot, "Weeks," after the weeks that were counted.

Its other names follow the same logic. The rabbis called it Atzeret, as though it were the closing day of Passover after a long intermission, and Greek-speaking Jews called it Pentecost, which just means fifty. Each name points at the same thing: the festival is defined in relation to another festival, not in its own right.

The identification with Sinai came later too, resting on the reckoning that the Israelites reached the wilderness in the third month after leaving Egypt. In the prayer book that identification is already taken for granted: the festival prayers call the day "the season of the giving of our Torah." Shavuot is, in that sense, the one festival whose central meaning tradition added to it, rather than the other way round.

What the Torah actually says

In Leviticus the day is about grain: two loaves of leavened bread are brought from the new harvest as "first fruits to God," and the day is declared a sacred occasion on which no work is done. In Deuteronomy the festival is tied to the moment "the sickle is first put to the standing grain," the instruction is to celebrate "as God has blessed you" (that is, in proportion to the crop), and the very next verse lists who is to rejoice with you: your son, your daughter, your servant, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow.

The tone is hard to miss. The harvest festival in the Torah is not a celebration of having done well; it is a small test of what a person does with having done well. In that same chapter of Leviticus, immediately after the festival is commanded, the obligation returns to leave the corner of the field and the gleanings for the poor and the stranger. The Book of Ruth, read on Shavuot, is that same story from the other side: a woman gleaning in someone else's field at the beginning of the barley harvest.

What people do on Shavuot

First fruits. In the Temple this was the day the first produce of the seven species was brought. The Mishnah in tractate Bikkurim describes how it started: a farmer walks down into his field, sees a fig or a cluster of grapes or a pomegranate that has ripened first, ties a reed around it, marking it in advance. And it describes how it ended: a procession to Jerusalem led by an ox with gilded horns and an olive wreath on its head, a flute playing ahead of it, and the artisans of Jerusalem rising to their feet as the pilgrims passed, to greet them. On kibbutzim and moshavim this side of the festival came back to life as *chagigat bikkurim*, with decorated carts and children in white.

Dairy. Cheeses, blintzes, cheesecake. The Rema notes that it is customary everywhere to eat dairy foods on the first day of Shavuot, and offers his own explanation: like the two cooked dishes on the Seder plate, one eats a dairy dish first and a meat dish after, and the two loaves on the table recall the two loaves of the Temple. Other explanations attach to the verse "honey and milk are under your tongue," traditionally read as a description of the Torah.

The night of study. *Tikkun Leil Shavuot*: learning until daybreak. The custom spread from the kabbalists of Safed in the sixteenth century, and in the morning the Ten Commandments are read publicly. Homes and synagogues are also decorated with greenery and flowers.

Two stories about one morning

The all-night study custom has an explanation that is startling in its plainness. The Mishnah Berurah gives it in the name of the Magen Avraham: Israel slept through that whole night, and God had to wake them to receive the Torah, so we stay awake, to make up for it. Thousands of years of Shavuot night learning rest on an apology for one night's sleep.

Here is a second story, from the midrash, about what happened there. According to Song of Songs Rabbah, God asked for guarantors before giving the Torah. The patriarchs were offered, and refused. The prophets were offered, and refused. Then they said: our children will be our guarantors. And God answered: those are indeed good guarantors. The guarantee on the Torah, in this telling, was not given to those who already knew it, but to the children who did not yet. Which may be the best explanation of why children are the centre of every first-fruits celebration.

Why the festival still works

The Talmud relates that when Israel put "we will do" before "we will hear" (committing first and only then listening to what for), six hundred thousand angels came down and tied two crowns on each of them. The phrase became the emblem of the day: commitment that runs ahead of full understanding.

What is striking is that the double character (field and Torah, crop and commitment) is precisely what kept Shavuot alive. A harvest festival alone would have lost its footing once the people stopped working the land. A festival of revelation alone would have stayed abstract. The combination gave it two anchors, one in the soil and one in the text. In present-day Israel both anchors are working again: a night of study in the city and a first-fruits festival in the valley, on the very same day.

Frequently asked questions

When is Shavuot?

Shavuot always falls on 6 Sivan (11-12/6/27), the fiftieth day of the Omer count. On the civil calendar it drifts between late May and mid-June.

What time does Shavuot start?

At sunset on the evening before 11/6/27. Candles are lit roughly 18 to 40 minutes before that sunset, depending on local custom. Exact times for your city appear at the top of this page.

When does Shavuot end?

At nightfall, about an hour after sunset. In Israel that is the end of 6 Sivan; in the Diaspora, the end of 7 Sivan, a day later. When Shavuot falls on a Friday, the festival runs straight into Shabbat, so outside Israel it ends on Saturday night.

How many days is Shavuot?

One day in Israel, 6 Sivan. Two days in the Diaspora, 6 and 7 Sivan, because of the second festival day. In both cases it begins the evening before and ends at nightfall.

What is the Hebrew date of Shavuot?

6 Sivan, counted as the fiftieth day from the second day of Passover. Shavuot is the only festival whose date the Torah does not state outright but defines by a count.

Dates and links

The table at the top of this page shows Shavuot as it actually falls: the Hebrew date, the matching civil date and the weekday, for the selected year and the years after it.

In the Diaspora the festival runs one day longer: through 7 Sivan.

• Every festival of the year at a glance: Jewish holidays 2027
• The full printable calendar: home page
• The month it falls in: Sivan

Related pages

• Printable calendar for June 2027
• The Hebrew month of Sivan 5787
• All the Jewish holidays of 2027
• Printable 2026 Jewish calendar with holidays