OPINION

CD

The Case For Shavuot,
The Forgotten Festival

GARY ROSENBLATT

Editor

Shavuot is the
Rorschach test
of American
Jewry: how you
approach the
holiday — or
whether you ap-
proach it at all —
tells a good deal about what
rind of a Jew you are, at least
in terms of religious practice.
Indeed, no holiday in the
Jewish calendar underscores
the wide chasm that is
American Judaism as does
Shavuot, the forgotten fes-
tival.
Virtually everyone
;f-elebrates a Passover seder
and at least knows about
Sz,Ikkot, the Festival of
Booths, which comes in the
tIiick of the High Holy Day
season, just after Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur
and immediately preceding
Simchat Torah.
But Shavuot, the Festival
of Weeks, which marks no
ilt
than the anniversary of
the giving of the Torah to

U

the Jewish people on Mt.
Sinai, arguably the most
significant event in Jewish
history, is celebrated with
great fervor by Orthodox
and observant Conservative
Jews — and is largely
unacknowledged by most
non-traditional Jews.
In traditional shuls this
Saturday night, here and
around the country, increas-
ing numbers of congregants
(mostly male) will mark the
holiday by continuing a

One segment of
Jews stay up all
night to mark a
festival that the
vast majority of
Jews do not even
know is taking
place.

long-standing tradition of
Tikkun Lel Shavuot, staying
up all night to study Torah,
culminating with the recita-
tion of morning prayers at
dawn.

Religious News Service

This Reuters photograph appeared in the New York Times and the
Detroit Free Press on June 1. The Times' caption: "Israeli soldiers
following a rabbi in a dance before the Western Wall in Jerusalem
yesterday as part of the celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of
the reunification of Jerusalem during the 1967 war." The Free Press
had a headline under the photo: "Israelis Celebrate Anniversary Of The
1G i - r o nf ogruceesttr 0
0 of pJse
Jerusalem.
mb . e " h i T nhdeaFrraebebPi et stsh ep hwoet os tcear p n tiiv
i o na rl eaaf d t esr: "Israeli
at
Wall
marching into Jerusalem on Sunday. Police reported little violence as
> tens of thousands of Israelis celebrated the capture of Arab Jerusalem
25 years ago. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir pledged on Israel Radio
that 'a united Jerusalem was and will forever remain the Israeli
capital.' "

—

Yet in many other syn-
agogues, attendance will be
far below that of the other
two biblical festivals,
Passover and Sukkot; and
outside of synagogue, most
Jews will not even know
that it is Shavuot, or what
Shavuot commemorates.
Perhaps Shavuot suffers
from not having an immedi-
ately recognizable symbol
associated with its celebra-
tion. Passover has matzah;
Sukkot has booths. Poor
Shavuot has only cheese
blintzes (since the holiday is
associated with dairy foods)
and is observed for two days
rather than eight.
But in a fuller sense,
Shavuot underscores the
polarization of American
Jewry: one segment stays up
all night to mark a festival
that the vast majority of
Jews do not even know is
taking place.
The most ironic aspect of
all this is that Shavuot
marks the giving of the
Torah, the most universally
revered text among Jews
everywhere. While we have
Passover Haggadot that
range from traditional to
feminist, anarchist to envi-
ronmentalist, and while
each branch of Judaism has
its own liturgy and service,
there is, still, but one Torah.
And while traditional and
non-traditional Jews may
fervently debate whether its
words are Divinely written,
Divinely inspired or simply
written by a variety of men
and perhaps even women,
the Torah reads the same in
any synagogue, and each
scroll is painstakingly hand-
written by scribes on parch-
ment in the same ancient
tradition.
One would think, then,
that the holiday com-
memorating the giving of
the Torah would be the most,
not the least, celebrated
among Jews. But since when
do we operate according to
logic?
The truth is that if the
Torah had more relevance in
our lives, the holiday of
Shavuot would receive the
attention it deserves.
But whether or not we are
all listening, Shavuot speaks
to all Jews — the young (who
find the first pages of the Bi-
ble sweetened with honey to
encourage their study on
Shavuot), as well as adults
(who recite the Yizkor
prayer recalling loved ones
who have died) and even

Dry Bones

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converts (who take pride in
the traditional reading of
the Book of Ruth, which re-
counts Ruth's conversion to
Judaism).
Making the case for the
wider observance of
Shavuot, I would note that
in an age of lawlessness, the
Ten Commandments still
symbolize the fundamental
rules of morality and decen-
cy. And in a time when the
Self comes first, we are
reminded that the Jewish
people accepted the Torah by
saying, "we will do, and we

will harken" — first we will
consent and only later will
we come to understand. That
is a message of faith for us in
an era of cynicism.
Tradition has it that all
Jews — past, present and
future — stood together at
Mount Sinai when God gave
Moses the Torah. When will
we all stand together again,
united in our continuing
faith in The Word? It may
not be this year, but surely it
will be when all of us ac-
knowledge and accept the
message of Shavuot.

❑

The Language
Of Hatred

ELIE WIESEL

Contributing Editor

L

ike faith or love, hate
has a language of its
own. Each is a vehicle
for the other; they mutually
stimulate and nourish, to
the point where neither can
live or breathe without the
other.
Even suppressed or mute,
hate finds a way to express
itself. We recognize it by its
language. It cannot remain
indefinitely silent. It im-
poses its violence upon us
inevitably, as it distorts
reality and the humanity
that reality stands for. Who-
ever hates becomes a carrier
of hate, and in the end that
hate modulates and infects
his thoughts and all his
words. All that he says will
bear the mark of hate and
thus that of death.
Can we speak of an in-

Mr. Wiesel received the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1986. He is a
professor of humanities at
Boston University.

spired hatred? Certainly
hate, like inspiration,
underlies conceptions great
and small; but we must not
confuse it with inspiration
because the two are incom-
patible: hate can only kill
inspiration, for the simple
reason that hate kills every-
thing. The poet can screech
his hate, or shout it, but he
cannot sing it.
I'll go even further: the
poet of hate quickly ceases to
be a poet at all. Art and hate
cannot go hand in hand: the
first seeks to create and ex-
alt, the other to tear down
and destroy. We create for
someone, we use hate
against someone. When you
come right down to it, hate
means the end, as well as the
futility, of any literary or ar-
tistic undertaking.
I know: there are holes in
my argument. You will cite
Louis-Ferdinand Celine and
Ezra Pound and Richard
Wagner. You will mention
Jean Genet and Martin
Heidegger. Fair enough. Ex-

Continued on Page 10

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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