Israel in the Post-American Middle East
Israel is a guarantee against the day the Jews find themselves alone.
June 10, 2016
Sephardi Shavuot Customs and Poetry
Solomon ibn Gabirol’s azharot.
The holiday of Shavuot, which begins Saturday night, celebrates the beginning of the harvest season as well as the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Since the Middle Ages, Jews from Spain and their descendants have marked the holiday by reciting intricate liturgical poems as part of the synagogue service, including a special class of poem called azharot (literally, “warnings” or “commandments”), which list the 613 commandments that, according to rabbinic tradition, are found in the Torah. Ty Alhadeff writes (2015):