There is always something going on in the Jewish festival calendar. From the fast of the 10th of Tevet (January 5th this year) through Hanukkah (which ends on December 16th) right around to the next fast of the 10th of Tevet on December 23rd, it's hard to go more than four or five weeks in a row without finding some special day to be observed.
But it wasn't always so. The Jewish holidays described explicitly in the Torah are not scattered through the year, but occur in just two distinct periods. The key to understanding this is found in the rabbinic name of the festival that begins on Saturday night. We call it Shavuot—in English, it's the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost—but in rabbinic literature it goes by the name Atzeret.
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