TORAH! We got Torah, the cradle of civilization. And some of us go to shul (compare it to Yom Kippur attendance) and we study, or nap, through the night over an open Chumash and we eat dairy and read the Book of Ruth. But no bugles blare and no rabbis make two-hour presentations. Even books designed to explain Judaism\u2019s beauty give it short shrift. (Ten pages to the Jacob\/Esau rivalry. A page and a half to this modest holiday.)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m only a scribbler, not a sage, but I don\u2019t get it. And our reception of Torah is also combined with a harvest celebration. What\u2019s the connection? The relationship between barley and Torah seems odd. Maybe one is food for the body \u2013 the other for the soul. Are we trying to economize on holidays? Two for the price of one?<\/p>\n
And why do we read the Book of Ruth, which, of course, is a tract on integration – a principle loudly condemned by dozens of statements in Torah? It seems to be written by someone who favored fraternization with our deadly enemies, the Moabites. Remember that the path to the Promised Land goes through Moab. We fought our way through it.<\/p>\n
How did this book get into the canon? Did they take the vote on Purim after a day of gorging on the grape? It is a book in which everyone is gentle \u2013 even the hated Moabites. Everyone is supportive of their fellow characters. It would run for years on Broadway. Ruth is loyal to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Naomi \u2013 remember, an Israelite \u2013 strategizes with Ruth (a common habit also of modern women) to snatch the heart of Boaz, a Jew. A famine stalks the land. The agricultural setting explains the use of the holiday as a harvest celebration, but not its connection with Torah. Again, ask your Rabbi. Maybe he can clarity this mystery.<\/p>\n
I consider this oversight every time I think of Shavuot \u2013 one of the three special occasions, along with Succot and Pesach, when all Israel flocked to the Temple. With the destruction of the Temple, I think we lost the grandeur of Shavuot.<\/p>\n
They shouldn\u2019t have named it Shavuot \u2013 weeks. Weeks \u2013 seven weeks after Pesach comes along Shavuot. Like in our wedding ceremony \u2013 the seven times the bride, Israel, circles the groom \u2013 our Creator, thereby remembering our covenant. We rest on the seventh\u00a0day; and for seven years the land must lie fallow. Even today \u2013 from the sublime to the ridiculous \u2013 the seven that wins initially for the dice shooter and excites the roar of the winners. Seven, that ancient poetic number that still glows with luck.<\/p>\n
I can see it now. It\u2019s 1000 B.C.E. and the annual meeting of the Israelite Holiday Commemoration Committee. \u201cWe need a special day to honor and commemorate that fateful day when G-d gave us Torah,\u201d said the chairman. A chorus of agreement rocked the room. Done. Then that insignificant little guy in the back of every room (yes, he was around even then) shouted, \u201cYeah, but what about the grain harvest?\u201d Puzzled, the committeemen looked at each other in bewilderment. The grain harvest?<\/p>\n
The chairman spoke. \u201cLook, we got enough holidays now \u2013 nobody\u2019s working. Let\u2019s save a holiday and throw it in with Shavuot. (And they hadn\u2019t even made Tu B\u2019Shevat yet.) After all, the grain harvest lasts seven weeks and the Holy One gave us Torah seven weeks after we paraded out of Egypt. We\u2019ll make Shavuot celebrate both, thereby economizing on holidays. Done,\u201d said the chairman.<\/p>\n
If this explanation doesn\u2019t intellectually satisfy you, check your rabbi. This scribbler has never understood the association of the harvest and Torah. Maybe they are combined because they\u2019re both gifts from G-d that makes the heart of humankind glad. And by the way, you might also ask your Rabbi why we read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot \u2013 a book that seems at least to condone intermarriage, Yes, the setting of the story is the barley harvest. But is that enough? I hope you have a smart rabbi.<\/p>\n
My obvious point is that Shavuot \u2013 for all its importance \u2013 among the world of Jewry, doesn\u2019t get its due. Probably because unlike Pesach, it offers no feasting. Unlike Succot, we build nothing. Unlike Yom Kippur, no dramatic breast-beating. Unlike Chanukah and Purim, there is no triumphant chauvinism. It has no symbols; only the satisfaction that more than three millennia ago in the darkest of the dark ages we were chosen to receive from the hand of G-d a solemn covenant that we would be a light of civilization to the nations of the world.<\/p>\n
But seven or three or eight weeks after Pesach. \u201cWeeks\u201d doesn\u2019t do it justice. They should have called it Yom Torah or something more descriptive of the stature of the event. If I as a member of the holiday naming committee, I\u2019d call it our \u201cIndependence Day.”<\/p>\n
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