‘Sukkah City: New York City’ will re-imagine this ancient phenomenon, develop new methods of material practice and parametric design, and propose radical possibilities for traditional design constraints in a contemporary urban site. Twelve finalists will be selected by a panel of celebrated architects, designers, and critics to be constructed in a visionary village in Union Square Park from September 19-21, 2010.

One structure will be chosen by New Yorkers to stand and delight throughout the week-long festival of Sukkot as the Official Sukkah of New York City. The process and results of the competition, along with construction documentation and critical essays, will be published in the forthcoming book “Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next Three Thousand Years.”

Information about registering can be found here.

But today, for some reason Shavuot is no longer the end of the barley harvest. It is no longer anything agricultural, it is all about mattan Torah, the giving of the Law, both written and oral, at Mount Sinai.

How did that come about? At times of occupation and revolt, the original ceremonies could not take place, and after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, the ceremonies seem to have ceased altogether. Was Shavuot then to be discontinued? No, certainly not, and the rabbis at the academy of Yavne, who strove to give new meaning to the Torah after the loss of the Temple, worked hard to find an alternative reason to celebrate. In time, they made the calculation that the Torah had been given to the children of Israel on the sixth of Sivan, the date fixed for Shavuot.

While this view is held by a number of scholars, it is by no means unanimous. There is strong evidence that already during the Second Temple Period there were Jews who saw a connection between Shavuot and the covenant between Israel and God. In the Book of Jubilees, chapter 6 it says,

And on the new moon of the third month he [i.e. Noah] went forth from the ark, and built an altar on that mountain. And he made atonement for the earth, and took a kid and made atonement by its blood for all the guilt of the earth; for everything that had been on it had been destroyed, save those that were in the ark with Noah…And He gave to Noah and his sons a sign that there should not again be a flood on the earth. He set His bow in the cloud for a sign of the eternal covenant that there should not again be a flood on the earth to destroy it all the days of the earth. 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.

Jubilees does date Shavuot differently, but many scholars see this as evidence of an association between Shavuot and the giving of the Torah already during the Second Temple period. See here, here, here, and here (in Hebrew). In addition, there is no uniform opinion as to the date of Shavuot in rabbinic sources. Rosenberg refers to the discussion found in B. Shabbat 86b.

“Our Rabbis taught: On the sixth day of the month [of Sivan] the Ten Commandments were given to Israel. R. Jose maintained: On the seventh.”

He writes that,

Although one of the sages, Rabbi Jose, calculated it to be the seventh of Sivan, the majority said it was the sixth, and so it remained that the date of Shavuot, 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt, was the date of the giving of the Torah. Thus it was that the people could continue to celebrate Shavuot in the knowledge that they were commemorating one of the most important events in Jewish history.

If the sixth of Sivan was the accepted day and Shavuot was associated with the giving of the Torah, why does the Tosefta Archin 1:9 speak about the possibility of Shavuot being on the fifth, sixth, or seventh?

“Atzeret (=Shavuot): If it falls on the fifth [of Sivan]-it is a bad sign for the world, if it falls on the sixth-it is a moderate sign for the world, if it falls on the seventh-it is a good sign for the world. Abba Shaul says: Any time that the day of Atzeret is clear, it is a good sign for the world.”

It seems that attributing to rabbis at Yavneh the formation of a connection between Shavuot and the giving of the Torah as a response to the destruction of the Temple might not be the most convincing claim. Among some Jews it seems to have been earlier and in rabbinic circles it may not have gained ground until the beginning of the third century (see here). While some scholars may be over zealous in their early dating of certain traditions, this may be a case in which it is justified.

Sources:

Gedaliah Alon, “On Philo’s Halakhah” in Jews, Judaism and the Classical World, 132-134, n. 91; Josef Tabory, Moadei Yisrael be-Tekufat ha-Mishnah ve-ha-Talmud, 151-154

Muki Tsur, “Pesach in the Land of Israel: Kibbutz Haggadot” in Israel Studies, 12, 2007, 80-81. For more on the expulsion of the Jews from Tel Aviv see here, here, and here.

The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary presents a fascinating discussion and analysis of the historical development of each aspect of the Seder, from the development of the Mah Nishtanah to the use of horseradish as maror, to the larger question of how new seder rituals were established and infused with meaning. Along with the traditional Hebrew text and English commentary, The Schechter Haggadah is adorned with over 100 illuminations from Haggadot from the medieval and modern periods.

The Schechter Haggadah, written by educator and Talmud instructor Dr. Joshua Kulp, with illuminations edited by Professor David Golinkin, President of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, is a “must-have” volume for anyone interested in understanding the rich traditions of the Seder.

Dr. Joshua Kulp is a co-founder of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where he has taught Talmud and Halakhah for over a decade. He is also on the faculty of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and coordinates the Mishnah Yomit program for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. He holds a Ph.D. in Talmudic Studies from Bar-Ilan University and has published numerous articles on the Seder and other subjects in leading academic journals.

Prof. David Golinkin is President and the Jerome and Miriam Katzin Professor of Jewish Law at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. He has published forty books and almost 200 articles on various aspects of Jewish Studies. The illuminations for The Schechter Haggadah are taken from his personal collection of Haggadot as well as from The Frank-Lovell and Morris and Beverly Baker Haggadah Collections in the Schechter Institute Library.

Praise for The Schechter Haggadah
“This wonderful resource provides all the sources of the Haggadah from the Bible, Talmud and Midrash. Page by page, the history and development of the Seder unfold before one’s eyes. Kulp’s lucid commentary brilliantly explains, in an historical context, the development of each of the Seder’s parts.”
- Prof. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

“The modern Seder is a direct descendant of the innovations of the Talmudic era. However, without a trustworthy guide to the Haggadah, that complex world is a closed book. In The Schechter Haggadah, Joshua Kulp facilitates our understanding of the many recent discoveries and hypotheses about the origins of the Haggadah. An excellent resource for any student of Rabbinic creativity.
- Noam Zion, Shalom Hartman Institute, author of A Different Night: The Family Participation Haggadah (1997) and A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices (2007)

“The Schechter Haggadah provides an account of the historical development of the seder’s liturgy over the past 2000 years. In a clear fashion, Joshua Kulp demonstrates how the seder is likely to have been performed when it first developed, in the talmudic period, and how it evolved into the set of rituals and texts we recognize today. His insightful, scholarly commentary will give readers much new and engaging material to discuss at their own seders.”
- Prof. Judith Hauptman, E. Billi Ivry Professor of Talmud and Rabbinic Culture, Jewish Theological Seminary

The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary

Joshua Kulp, Jerusalem, hard cover; 350 pages and over 100 illustrations, $30.
Pre-publication Price until January 31, 2009: In the US: Single copy – $25; Set of 6 – $140; Set of 12 – $275, plus shipping. In Israel: Single copy – 100 NIS; Set of 6 – 560 NIS; Set of 12 – 1,000 NIS, plus shipping.

To order you can download the form from here and email it to atalia@schechter.ac.il or fax to +972-2-6790840

With the onset of Sukkot, an increasingly popular Jewish harvest holiday that has lately emerged from the high, holy shadows of its immediate precursors, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, those new to celebrating it will no doubt have questions.

You may be wondering, for example, if it’s permissible to build your sukkah, the structure used during the week-long holiday for dining, entertaining and sometimes sleeping, out of the carcass of a tethered elephant. Or you may be hoping that you can set it up on the back of a camel. In both cases, the Talmud tells us, the answer is yes — as long as the sukkah has three walls (some scholars say two and a half) and stands taller than 10 spans and shorter than 20 ells.

If you’re spatially challenged or don’t have a healthy camel or ailing elephant on hand, you may wonder if there’s an easier way. Again, the answer is yes, thanks to Sukkot’s new currency and to the plethora of prefab sukkahs. (According to rabbis and sukkah mongers alike, this do-it-yourself holiday appeals to green sensibilities and a new emphasis on child-centered observance.) It is now possible to go online and, for a few hundred dollars, order the holiday in a box.

See here for the full article.

The National Library of Israel, David and Fela Shapell Family Digitization
Project, is pleased to announce that a digitized version of the Library’s
manuscript “Catalonia Mahzor” is now available for public access.

The “Catalona Mahzor” is a Mahzor for Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur according
to the Spanish Catalonian Rite. It is dated approximately 1280.

The text includes liturgical hymns by Spanish Jewish poets. Most of the
piyyutim conform to the rites of prayer that have been preserved by Jewish
communities which originated in the city of Barcelona or the region of
Catalonia.

The manuscript is ornamented with micrographic drawings and incipit panels.

The manuscript is presented in the DjVu format which provides high quality,
magnifiable images compressed into relatively small files for easy
downloading. In order to view DjVu images it is necessary to download and
install (once) a special free viewer program.

The Mahzor Catalonia can be accessed at:

here (Description in Hebrew)
or here (Description in
English).