If you open up a Shulchan Aruch to find the halachot of Shavuot, you’ll probably spend a few minutes flipping pages with a perplexed look on your face. Where is the section called Hilchot Shavuot? Shouldn’t it be immediately after Hilchot Pesach? Or before Hilchot Tisha B’av? But in fact, Hilchot Shavuot does not appear in any of those places, because Hilchot Shavuot does not have its own section in the Shulchan Aruch. Instead, the last siman (chapter) of Hilchot Pesach is called Seder Tefillat Chag Hashavuot, and it contains just three short seifim, or sentences. The Shulchan Aruch simply lists what the order of davening is for Shavuot, and which Torah portions are read, followed by the prohibition of fasting on the holiday. 

What is also immediately obvious is the lack of any specific halachot for Shavuot — there’s no matzah, no sitting in a sukkah, no blowing of the shofar — absolutely nothing marks Shavuot as a unique holiday from the halachic perspective of the Shulchan Aruch. The Rema, in 494:3, adds some Shavuot-specific details in the form of customs — but not halachot — which were common in his day. These include spreading out grass in shuls and houses, and eating dairy foods. Many of the other common hallmarks of Shavuot are also customs, including staying up all night to learn, reading Megillat Rut, and reciting Akdamot. To wit, the majority of our contemporary celebration of Shavuot is really made up of minhagim, customs, as opposed to halachot. 

What is responsible for this oddity? Where are the missing mitzvot of Shavuot? Why are there so many minhagim? What makes this holiday different from all others?

The first thing that separates Shavuot from Pesach in the Torah is that it is exclusively an agricultural holiday, and is not linked to any historical event. As opposed to Pesach, which marks the Exodus, and, secondarily, the beginning of the barley harvest, Shavuot only celebrates the wheat harvest, reflected in the korban of the Shtei HaLechem, which was brought on Shavuot (Shmot 23:16). Here we start to understand our feeling a lack of mitzvot on Shavuot; the mitzvot that we perform on other holidays are predicated upon the commemoration of significant historical events, and not solely upon agricultural timekeeping. The commandments to sit in a sukkah or to eat matzah are mitzvot whose function is to recall the historical experience they echo; Shavuot, which is not as directly tied to a historical event, lacks a comparable thematic mitzvah.

And yet the agricultural celebration of the wheat harvest is ultimately less associated with Shavuot than a particular historical event — the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai. Even though the Torah never gives a specific date for matan Torah, it is understood by all later sources to be on the same day as Shavuot (Pesachim 68b, Shabbat 86b and others). Shavuot is described as zman Matan Torateinu in the davening, and the Torah reading on Shavuot is the story of the receiving of the Torah in Parshat Yitro. So if we follow our previous train of thought, shouldn’t there be a mitzvah associated with this historical event that we perform on Shavuot? 

R’ David Tzvi Hoffman answers this question by suggesting that Shavuot’s connection to matan Torah is in fact the very reason why there are no mitzvot associated with it. In his commentary to Vayikra 23, he explains that our responsibility to remember the giving of the Torah is so all-encompassing that it cannot be reduced to symbolic actions. The revelation of God to the Jewish people at Har Sinai cannot be reproduced in any physical way, and therefore the day of Shavuot must remain untethered by specific mitzvah obligations. 

R’ David Tzvi Hoffman believed that Shavuot was always known as Zman Matan Torateinu, and was celebrated as such since the time the Jews wandered in the desert. However, there remains no text in the Torah connecting  matan Torah  to Shavuot. This has led some scholars to suggest that after the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, the rabbis placed a greater emphasis on the historic significance of Shavuot as zman Matan Torateinu. Shavuot was originally an agriculture-focused holiday, which was celebrated with a special korban in the Beit Hamikdash. No other rituals were necessary because it was a holiday centered around the Beit Hamikdash. However, after the destructions of the First Beit Hamikdash and the Second Beit Hamikdash, the day was suddenly empty, celebrated as a generic holiday with nothing marking it as unique. The rabbis then placed a greater emphasis on the historic aspect of the holiday, and developed Shavuot into a holiday focused around the giving of the Torah. 

There are various explanations for the most prevalent minhagim of Shavuot, many of which relate back to Shavuot as zman matan Torateinu. But it does not seem far-fetched to say that a holiday which may have been empty of unique practices was bolstered by minhagim developed over the course of centuries, so as to make the day more special. 

One final source suggests this idea in a slightly different way. The Gemara in Pesachim 68b, discusses the optimal way to celebrate Yom Tov, and quotes a dispute between R’ Eliezer and R’ Yehoshua. R’ Eliezer says that Yom Yov should be spent either “kulo laShem” entirely in the service of God and learning of Torah, or “kulo lachem,” entirely as a day of eating, drinking, and physical enjoyment. R’ Yehoshua believed that the holidays should be split half and half — “chetzyo laShem v’chetzyo lachem.” But even R’ Eliezer agreed that Shavuot must also include time for physical enjoyment, because it is the day on which the Torah was given. Rashi explains that we need to show that we are still happy that we accepted the Torah, and therefore we need to celebrate in a physical way. 

To take this idea one step further, we can suggest that Shavuot cannot be a day of purely ritual structure; in order for us to show our happiness around accepting the Torah, the day must include time for human initiative. The “chetzyo lachem,” the part of the holiday meant for human enjoyment, is described in the Gemara as being for eating and drinking. But it seems that on Shavuot this concept has expanded, as generations of Jews have added minhagim to the celebration of Shavuot. To show our acceptance of the Torah anew every year, we imbue the “chetzyo lachem” with communally-created meaning, whether by eating cheesecake, decorating the shul with flowers, or any of the other minhagim that we choose to perform, all as a show of our love for the holiday empty of mitzvot but full of minhagim, and full of meaning.