Torah In Bloom: Tikkun Leil Shavuot 5782

Rabbi Yuspe Shamesh (Worms, d. 1678)
They cover the floor of the synagogues and the houses with grasses before Minhah, and they put on top of and on the sides of the Holy Ark and on the tower [the Torah reading tower] lilies and flowers and grasses which smell good. And for every Haver and for every Parnass one lily on his seat in the synagogue, and to a Moreinu two lilies, and to the Av Bet Din many, as many as the shamesh wants. And if Shavuot falls on Sunday, they cover the floors and they put the lilies on the Friday before.

Jewish Customs in Muslim Lands
Rabbi Hayyim Falache (Izmir, d. 1869) reports that one person would walk around the synagogue on Shavuot with a vial of rose water in his hand and let the worshippers smell it. And the scrupulous would put sweet-smelling lilies in their prayer books and tallit bags.
Rabbi Eliyahu Hazzan reports that in Alexandria, Egypt in 1894 they used to spread grasses on Shavuot and Simhat Torah in memory of the Giving of the Torah.
The Jews of Persia call Shavuot Modeh Gol, which is a corruption of Mo’ed Gol, “the holiday of flowers” because they decorate the tables with sweet-smelling flowers.
Rabbi Shem Tov Gaguine reports that the custom in Eretz Yisrael, Syria, Turkey and Egypt to hang from the Rimonim [Torah decorations] some flowers and shoshanim [lilies].
Why do We Decorate Synagogues and Homes with Trees and Flowers in Honor of Shavuot? - The Schechter Institutes

Jenna Weissman Joselit, "How Jewish Confirmation Came of Age"
Pomp and circumstance rather than creed endeared confirmation to growing numbers of American Jewish parents and their offspring. Its pages overflowing with detail, the American Israelite noted how, with great relish, they took to the ceremony with its multiple “affirmations and declarations and bows,” elaborate musical arrangements, “pretty” speeches, and heaps of flowers everywhere, from the confirmands themselves, bedecked with boutonnieres and bouquets, to the sanctuary, which was transformed into a botanical garden of delights...
Where so much of Jewish ritual activity spoke of tradition, the weight of the past and the demands of responsibility, confirmation was as fresh as a daisy.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/how-confirmation-came-of-age

Rabbi Avraham Danzig (Vilna, d. 1820) makes a brief but very important statement about our topic in his classic code of Jewish law:
The G”ra [the Gaon of Vilna] abolished the custom of setting up trees on Shavuot, because it is hok ha’amim [the law of the nations, i.e., Christians] to set up trees on their holiday.
As it turns out, it appears that the Gaon of Vilna was correct. As Prof. Theodor Gaster writes in his classic book The Festivals of the Jewish Year:
"In many parts of Europe… it is customary to deck the churches at Whitsun [=Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter] with wreaths and bunches of flowers; in Catholic districts of Germany, even private dwellings are adorned with green twigs on this occasion. In Italy, rose leaves are scattered from the ceilings of churches during the progress of the services… similarly, in Russia it is customary to carry flowers and green twigs on Whitsun… All of this appears to be but a Christian transformation of the ancient Roman festival of Rosalia, celebrated in the preceding month. At this festival, it was the practice to adore Venus by decorating her images with roses…"
Of course, one could then object that if we borrowed these Shavuot customs from our Christian neighbors, doesn’t this invalidate them? I would reply that, first of all, many poskim [halakhic authorities], have justified this specific custom despite the objections of the Gaon of Vilna... But, more generally, I have shown elsewhere that many Jewish laws and customs began as pagan or Christian or Muslim customs and they were Judaized by rabbis and/or the Jewish people...
Floral and arboreal decorations on Shavuot may have begun as Christian customs, but over the past 600 years they became Jewish customs, with all of the beautiful explanations given above.
David Golinkin, Jerusalem, 3 Sivan 5775
Why do We Decorate Synagogues and Homes with Trees and Flowers in Honor of Shavuot? - The Schechter Institutes

Rabbi Zoe Klein Miles
Moses spent forty days on the mountaintop receiving the revelation to bring to the people below. You don’t have to climb a mountain. You don’t have to go swimming in the ocean, it could be as simple as gazing at a tree outside your window, or even asking siri, alexa or google to play the sound of rain, or birds in a forest. Watch hummingbirds and bees and clouds. Moses encountered Gd on the top of the mountain, and Gd was there at the bottom as well, and all along the path, in the soft fascination of stones and streams, salamanders and moths, in the slanting sunlight, in the swath of stars. In the still small voice, the sweet, whispered song of the natural world.