Shavuot Festival

Shavuot Festival - Jerusalem

Shavuot festival celebrates Moses returning from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. In Jerusalem, the Shavuot festival involves all-night chanting and Torah reading. In this photo, the group of men* in the foreground is celebrating the Shavuot festival by walking in a circle chanting, "Thank you for the Law!" in Hebrew at Jerusalem's Western Wall plaza.

Travel Tip
As a non-Jew in a sea of orthodox Jews celebrating the Shavuot festival, I was on guard as I walked through the crowd to get to the Western Wall. I didn't know if I'd be shunned, yelled at or pushed out by the crowd. When I reached the wall, a Jewish man approached me, introduced himself as a rabbi, welcomed me, shook my hand and blessed me profusely in English. Grateful and relieved at the unexpected welcome, I smiled and thanked him for his kind words. Still gripping my hand, he advised that he is so poor that he cannot get married and asked me to help him by making a donation. When I started to fish in my pocket for change with my free hand, he further advised, "I prefer paper money." He got change, which is more than he deserved, as he looked neither poor nor like a rabbi. Be careful whose hand you shake at the wall.

* Behind them is the section for the women, and draped with Israeli flags is the access ramp leading up to the Temple Mount, where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque sit.