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May 21, 2004/Sivan 1 5764, Vol. 56, No.35
Shavuot: A night of study, a lifetime of commitmentAMY LEDERMAN
The crowd of people outside the Pardes Institute where we chose to study buzzed with anticipation as we waited for the doors to open. The old-timers came prepared with canteens of soda, thermoses of hot coffee and pillows to sit on. I brought a pen and some No-Doze, just in case. We studied from the book of Exodus with great scholars like Dr. Aviva Zornberg and Rabbi Danny Landis. We discussed the revelation at Mount Sinai, what it must have been like then and what it means to receive the Torah in our own day. We struggled with the texts, interpreting difficult passages while plates of cookies and fruit were passed around the room. The hours flew by but instead of feeling tired, I was exhilarated by the many views that were shared. The fact that we all didn't necessarily agree with one another was far less important than the act of grappling with the texts together, as Jews have done for thousands of years. About an hour before sunrise, we ended our study session and headed through the darkened streets towards the Old City. An ethereal dance of silhouettes moved all around us as thousands of people, many dressed in traditional Hasidic black coats and hats, walked with the same goal in mind - to arrive at the Western Wall (or Kotel in Hebrew) by sunrise in time to say the morning prayer service. Originally Shavuot was celebrated as a spring harvest festival, the time when Jews would make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer their first fruits (bikkurim in Hebrew). These took the form of loaves of bread made from their choicest flour (Leviticus 23:17-22). When sacrifices could no longer be offered because of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., the Talmudic rabbis took the brilliant step of designating Shavuot as the day the Israelites received the Torah at Mount Sinai. They were able to do this because the Torah does not mention any specific date for this momentous event. In Exodus 19:1 it says that the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai "on this day" (bayom hazeh in Hebrew). The rabbis interpreted "on this day" to mean that the giving and receiving of the Torah is a perpetual and continuing process which occurs for each person in every generation. The actual date therefore transcends all limitations of time and place. Through the process of interpreting time markers in Exodus and linking various biblical verses however, the rabbis were able to affix the date of the giving of the Torah as the sixth of Sivan, 50 days after the first counting of the Omer which begins on the second day of Passover. The 50th day coincides with Shavuot.
The answer came three months later at the foot of Mount Sinai when the Hebrew people became a spiritual nation, unified in the covenant they entered into with the God that brought them out of Egypt "with a strong hand and an outstretched arm." They were freed for a special purpose and mission - to love God, follow the laws of the Torah and become a holy nation. Redemption and revelation, physical and spiritual liberation, are intimately linked through Jewish history. The sun was rising as we reached the Kotel, its golden rays spread over the wall that Solomon built more than 1,000 years ago. A sea of bodies swayed back and forth and the hum of Hebrew prayers was almost deafening. We stood together in the early morning light - a tapestry of Israeli, American, Canadian, European, South African and Oriental Jews, calling out to history and God in different voices but calling out together, as the Jewish nation did at Sinai over 2,500 years ago. As we headed home for breakfast, I understood the significance of staying up all night to study the Torah. The commitment to study reaffirms our relationship to the text, to the Jewish people and to God. Just as we celebrate marriage annually with an anniversary, Shavuot is the time to celebrate the marriage between God and the Jewish people and honor all that has occurred throughout our history to keep it alive and well. Amy Lederman is a free-lance writer based in Tucson.
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