Regulation: On Shavuot Observance

During the days of Shavuot, quite a number of householders, accompanied by their sons, their wives and their infant children, would rise early each morning and walk outside the city, and outside the Sabbath boundaries,¹ laden with heavy burdens. They would carry food and drink in such quantities, the consumption of which could burst their bellies [see Numbers 5:22]. They would set up camp in that very place where the Christians are accustomed to make an annual pilgrimage in commemoration of the ascent of Christ to heaven, and to celebrate their Feast of the Ascension, which is their equivalent of our dividing line between the sacred and the profane, the impure and the pure; and they [the Corfu Jews] would eat, make merry, and dance there in a light-hearted manner in that very same field, in that very same place, exactly as they [the Christians] do; and there they drink for at least the entire day. But in his zeal for the Lord, he and R. Menaḥem Vivante succeeded in uprooting this form of idolatry from our land, may God be praised!