Originally published in the Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 14 (1972), pp. 1319-22. SHAVUOT (Heb. שָבוּעות; “weeks,” Pentecost, “the 50th day”), the festival celebrated on the sixth of Sivan (and also on the seventh outside Israel). The biblical names for the festival are: “Hag Shavuot” (“Feast of Weeks,” Ex. 34: 22; Deut. 16: 10); “Yom ha-Bikkurim” (“The Day of…