Shavuot and cheesecake

There are five festivals mentioned in the Old Testament, with directions on how they will be celebrated:
1) Rosh Hashanah to listen to the shofar (horn)
2) Yom Kippur to repent and make atonement
3) Pesach (Passover) to eat unleavened bread
4) Sukkot to live in a tent
5) Shavuot to...uh...well, this one is a bit vague.

To be fair, all of these involve making sacrifices of meat, fruit, and bread, and three of the festivals (including Shavuot)  involved going to the temple in Jerusalem (which, oddly, hadn't been built when the Old Testament was supposedly written).  Unfortunately, the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 CE, and while all the other festivals had other things to keep them going, Shavuot was kind of forgotten.

Fortunately, the great sages managed to rescue it from obscurity.  They argued that since Pesach represented the Jews fleeing Egypt, and Sukkot represented the Jews entering Israel, then Shavuot (which fell between them) must have been the day the Jews went to Mount Sinai and received the Bible from God.  (That's a pretty big stretch, although not quite as big as when they literally interpreted the phrase, "the people were beneath the mountain" and therefore claimed the entire mountain lifted off the ground.)

Now, of course, it gets a bit weird.  The sages then argued that during the day, the Jews would have been preparing a meal, slaughtering animals, and so forth.  Then they went to Mount Sinai and accepted the Bible, including all the laws about keeping kosher, so that when they came back to their camp, they would not have been allowed to eat any of the meat.  Therefore, they only ate the dairy products and went to bed.

From this we get two traditions around Shavuot: One is to stay up all night discussing the Bible; and the other is we eat cheesecake.

I probably won't stay up all night, but I will definitely eat cheesecake.

Here is the section of Leviticus 23 (King James Bible translation) that deals with the festivals.  (Leviticus, the fifth book of the bible, was kind of a cliffs notes for the first four books, and even though it got a lot of stuff wrong, it summed up the holidays nicely.)

Passover:
5: In the fourteenth day of the first month at even [sundown] is the LORD's passover.
6: And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
7: In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
8: But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
...
Shavuot:
15: And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
16: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
...
21: And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

Rosh Hashanah:
24: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
25: Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

Yom Kippur:
27: Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
28: And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.

Sukkot:
39: Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.
42: Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:
43: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

P.S. Oddly, Christians have tried to claim all of these festivals, with the idea that these were not annual events, but prophecies to be fulfilled by Christ.  I don't get that at all.  However, since Shavuot falls 50 days after Pesach, the Christians renamed it Pentecost, with something about the holy spirit.  Christians=holy spirit comes to earth, Jews=cheesecake.  'Nuf said.