Shavuot

Seven weeks after Passover comes the Festival of Weeks, Shavuot. This actually means 'weeks' in Hebrew. Shavuot takes place at the time of the harvest of wheat and of the first fruits, and was also a pilgrim festival when offerings to God were taken to the Temple in Jerusalem. It also coincides with the time that the Children of Israel received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai and is thus the Festival of the Giving of the Law.

A sculpture in the Ben Uri collection relates to this event.

MOSES by Max Sokol (1895-1973)
Plaster
Purchased 1951
(155K)
Born in Warsaw, Sokol studied in Stettin and Berlin before settling in London in 1937. He spent a year in Jerusalem in 1926, teaching in the sculpture department at the Bezalel School. He was closely involved in the work of the Ben Uri Art Society, serving on its Art Committee.

He made sculptures in wood or plaster, and this image shows Moses with the first tablets of stone that God gave him. These he smashed to the ground and broke in anger when he saw the Children of Israel worshipping the Golden Calf. (Exodus 32)

Click for more Jewish Holy Days