Back when I was newly married, I used to get my wife flowers every Friday. I’d get a ride with a friend from Ner Israel to what was then called Shopper’s and we’d both go and buy flowers for our spouses. He would walk in and do what I call, the no-look-flower-grab. As he’d be walking to the milk section, he would just stick his hand out and without breaking his stride, pick up whichever bouquet came up in his hand. Voila, he is done. He has just picked out flowers for his wife.
For me, on the other hand, it was not so simple. First, I had to make sure that the flowers were not dying. Then I would search for a bouquet with a nice array of colors. That narrows it down but then I had to figure out what color is appropriate. Is this week a red rose week or a white rose week? Should I be getting something springy to go with the weather? But it’s rainy this weekend, what’s the right color for a rainy weekend in the summer? And then if you’re a real pro, which I was, I had to remember which dishes were being served over Shabbos so that the flowers could be color coordinated, not only with the napkins but with the squash kugel. Needless to say, I’d spend at least twenty minutes choosing flowers for my wife.
Eventually, Hindy told me to stop buying her flowers. Both because we had no money, and because my friend kept on leaving me at Shopper’s because I took so long and this whole thing was a colossal waste of time.
I make one exception and that is Shavuos. For Shavuos, I go to Trader Joe’s, I elbow my way to the flower section through tens of Jewish women all doing the same. I typically pick out a bouquet, stand in line to pay, and then go running back to switch bouquets at least once, usually twice, and finally come home with a beautiful bouquet, only to find out that my wife made flowers with the Sisterhood on Thursday night…
Where does this minhag come from? Why do people buy flowers especially for Shavuos? And why do many shuls decorate the shul with flowers specifically on this Yom Tov?
As we’ll see, this may be the one holiday, I should not be buying flowers for, as there are those who argue that flowers on Shavuos is not only not a good custom but it is forbidden. So let’s jump in. (Sources from a wonderful shiur by Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb on YUTorah)
The earliest source that discusses this minhag is someone known as the Maharil, Rav Yaakov Moelin, a 15th century highly influential German scholar. He writes that there is a custom to put fragrant greenery, asavim, on the floors of the shul on Shavuos.
The most famous explanation is that Har Sinai was covered in grass and flowers. But how do we know this? There’s a beautiful depiction of Har Sinai that you can see in the new lobby – thank you to the Chernikoff family! – you’ll notice that the mountain is brown. Which makes sense as the Sinai desert is a… desert. Where does the idea that the mountain was covered in grass and flowers come from?
Rav Mordechai Yoffee, a 16th century scholar known as the Levush, directs us to a prohibition found in relation to the giving of the Torah. When the Jewish People arrived at the Sinai desert, G-d gave them a number of laws to prepare for the giving of the Torah. One of them was that it is forbidden for sheep to graze on the mountain. Sheep do not graze on sand. It must be, says the Levush, that the pictures my 5-year-old came home from school with, are correct, the mountain must have miraculously become covered with grass. There are other explanations, but this one is by far the most famous one.
But here’s where things get interesting. In the 17th century, a scholar known by his book, the Magen Avraham, records this minhag, but he does not talk about grass, he mentions trees. “It is the custom to place trees in one’s home and shul on Shavuos.” Now he wasn’t making this custom up, he was reporting on a widely-practiced custom.
Why trees? He explains that there is a Mishna in Rosh Hashana that tells us that although humans are judged on Rosh Hashana, trees are judged on… Shavuos. Says the Magen Avraham, we place trees in shuls to remind us to pray for a good crop.
Comes along the Vilna Gaon, probably the most influential rabbi to have lived in the last 600 years, and says, absolutely not. He acknowledges that is a real minhag, not a shminhag. But he makes it his business to ban this minhag. Why?
Though it’s not written so clearly, and that is because of Christian censorship, he (his students) writes that it is Biblically forbidden to maintain this minhag because, you know where this is going, because… There is a Christian custom of placing trees in their places of worship on their holiday and it is forbidden to have the same custom.
Which holiday?
Wrong.
Don’t tell my children, but let’s learn a little Christianity. There is a holiday that today is only celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Church called Pentecost. You’re not going to believe this but 49 days after Easter, sounds familiar yet – is when it takes place. It is the holiday that the Greek Orthodox Church believes that G-d came down to earth… It gets better. The first night of the celebration is observed by a vigil that takes place all night!
The Vilna Gaon, writing in the late 18th century, says, it does not matter if our custom came before theirs, the bottom line is it looks like we’re imitating them and it has to stop. There is some debate if he was only against trees or if he was opposed to all forms of greenery on this holiday (opinion of the Aruch Hashulchan). One way or another, nobody puts trees up in their shul on Shavuos; many have the minhag of placing flowers in shul and at home, and some say doing so is absolutely forbidden.
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Those are the two classical reasons as to why we have flowers on Shavuos; to recall the miracle of the grassy Har Sinai or to remind us to pray for trees. Virtually no one puts up a tree, and some buy extra flowers and some buy no flowers at all.
I’d like to share with you one final thought on flowers and Shavuos:
As a teenager, I once wanted to thank my friend’s mother. Throughout all of our senior year of high school we spent a lot time in this home and made a whole lot of noise. I decided to buy her some flowers. She thanked me and told me that she never gets flowers from her husband. Before I could ask why, her husband, who was in the next room, went on a rant explaining to me how silly it was to buy flowers. To his credit, he would regularly buy his wife jewelry. But flowers, he pointed out, don’t last. It made no sense to him to invest in something that was going to die a few days later.
He was right, there is nothing you could do with flowers. They are useless, they serve no utilitarian purpose. And that’s what makes them so beautifully meaningful! Flowers convey a message of affection in its truest form. You could give someone some jewelry today, but a month later, does your spouse know that you still feel the same way?
Flowers have a short lifespan, but they represent a feeling, and like all feelings, it’s fleeting. The flowers eventually die, feelings eventually dissipate, and when they do, it’s time to go back to Trader Joe’s, it’s time to invest once again in the relationship.
In a loving relationship, it’s not enough to say, I bought you diamond a month ago, don’t you know I love you? I said I love you last week, do I really need to say it again? That doesn’t work. And that’s why the impracticality of flowers is the perfect representation of a relationship.
Out of all the many Mitzvos we have, Talmud Torah, studying Torah is the least practical. Yes, sometimes we study something that tells us what to do. But often, especially for those of you studying the Talmud, you’re left scratching your head, why am I studying this?
The answer is, it’s an act of love. Learning Torah is buying flowers for G-d.
There is a famous Talmudic passage that describes G-d holding the mountain over us. Many interpret this mountain over our heads in a menacing fashion, that G-d was threatening us that we better accept the Torah or else. But there is another interpretation, one which I prefer. In this explanation, the mountain over our heads is a canopy, a chuppah, and what G-d was saying to us was, I love you. The mountain is the chuppah, the Luchos are our Ketubah, and Shavuos is the beginning of a love affair with G-d.
If we want a relationship with G-d, which I know we all do, it’s not enough to show up to shul once a week, it’s not enough to give a gift of charity every month, like all relationships, it needs constant investment. That’s why our sages encourage daily Torah study over everything else. Talmud Torah k’neged kulam. It’s an opportunity to connect daily with our Divine lover. For those of you who have taken daily Torah study on, don’t stop. And for those who haven’t, Shavuos, the holiday that reminds us of the true nature of Judaism, is a great time to start. And yes, it’s true, studying Torah on a daily basis may not have tangible results, but then again, neither do flowers.