MAY 28 • 2020 | 25
S
havuot is a mysterious hol-
iday. This commemoration
of receiving the Torah at
Mount Sinai isn’
t given a specific
date for its celebration; instead,
we are told in Sefer Sh’
mot (the
Book of Exodus) to schedule it
seven weeks from
the second night
of Passover. I never
heard about it grow-
ing up. It transpires
after Hebrew school
adjourns for the
summer, and other
than serving Aunt Martha’
s blin-
tzes without mentioning why, my
folks never brought it up.
The tradition is to enjoy four
sumptuous meals over the two
days of the holiday and ensure
that at least a few of them feature
dairy foods. Evidently, back at
Mount Sinai, we received the
laws of kashrut (keeping kosher)
but didn’
t have time to master
proper slaughtering practices, so
eating dairy was a safer bet.
One highlight of Shavuot is the
custom of staying up all night to
learn Torah, called Tikkun L
’
eil
Shavuot, the healing of the night
of Shavuot. Why a healing, one
might ask? In the description of
the morning of the Revelation
at Sinai, the Midrash describes
how the Israelites overslept and
had to be awakened by Moshe.
How could we have fallen asleep
the night before? We should have
been too excited to sleep a wink!
Thanks to our exhausted ances-
tors, we pull an all-nighter to
rectify this grievous error.
Shavuot is one of my favor-
ite holidays. With no specific
duties other than learning,
praying and eating as much as
possible, it’
s a (cheese) cakewalk.
One reason Shavuot has no set
date is because the essence of
Torah is outside of time and
space. Whereas sanctifying food
requires a new blessing with
every meal, the blessing over
Torah study need only happen
once a day. We don’
t just study
Torah. We live Torah. This
blessing finishes with the words,
“Who gives us Torah,
” stated in
the present tense. Shavuot is less
an anniversary than a celebra-
tion of the continuous flow of
Revelation.
Some years, we have rented
a cabin in the local mountains
with a minyan of friends and a
Torah scroll to reenact the Sinai
experience. In our ’
hood, most
shuls keep java on tap and use
the extended period to dive into
titillating text study until dawn.
When the horizon ignites at 5
a.m., all the bleary-eyed survivors
slam-dunk a festival Shacharit
service and then walk home to
pass out until lunchtime.
One year after Shavuot, I
learned that two of our close
friends lost their wives. Both
were young mothers, each with
three grade-school age children.
Strikingly beautiful women;
beacons of charity and kindness.
Two agonizing funerals were
followed by shivah minyanim
(prayers during the first week of
mourning). After the first funer-
al, I was asked to lead Mincha at
the shivah house. I shouldn’
t have
agreed: I sobbed throughout the
service, starting and stopping and
trying again. When visiting with
their guests, the husbands would
bravely tell anecdotes about their
wives and then convulse again
in misery. Speechless family and
friends watched as prepubescent
kids struggled with Kaddish.
These calamities
occurred the day
after we celebrated
the giving of Torah.
I struggled, as did
many in our com-
munity, with this
stark contrast — on
the one hand, the
holiday emphasizes
that everything hap-
pening to us is directed by God
and, like the Jews at Sinai, it’
s our
job to respond with acceptance
and allegiance. But I’
m human,
and I was grieving, and part of
me struggled to accept the hor-
rible events handed to people I
really cared about.
To add to this schizophrenic
contrast, the next night I went to
a Lakers game with my brother
Joey. Yes, life is for the living. The
energy was palpable as the crowd
jumped to its feet with every
heroic basket. We were awestruck
by the team’
s miraculous coordi-
nation and perseverance. I had to
resort to inserting earplugs half-
way through the game thanks to
the din of manic fans. After the
final buzzer, I went to hear some
of the greatest musicians in the
world play at an L.A. nightclub.
Keyboard wizard David Garfield
led his septet through the bram-
bles of some of the thorniest
charts imaginable, bringing
waves of unbridled pleasure to
this music lover. Again I was
brought to tears, but this time
they were tears of joy.
I decided to drive home over
the canyon, rather than the more
expedient freeway. At the top of
the pass, I pulled off at a beau-
tiful wilderness area, the head-
quarters of the L.A.-based envi-
ronmental group Tree People.
With the aid of the ambient glow
of the metropolis, I hiked a mile
to the top of a hill and prayed
Ma’
ariv under a waxing moon.
How did these deaths figure
in God’
s plan? Where is God’
s
“beneficent kindness” amidst this
daunting sorrow wracking our
community?
The same God who
arranged for these two
women to pass is the
same God who created
the universe, who gave
us Avraham and Sarah,
who freed us from slavery
in Egypt and gifted the
Torah 3,500 years ago on
the very first Shavuot.
This is the Makom, the
Omnipresent, who will help my
now single-father friends cope
and bring them and their chil-
dren healing.
We are always receiving divine
messages, heavenly love notes,
holy whispers of Oral Torah.
We may not always understand
them. Shavuot is here to open
our hearts to this communication
and encourage us to keep the
conversation alive.
Sam Glaser is a performer, composer and
author in Los Angeles. He has released
25 CDs of his music and a book titled
The Joy of Judaism. This essay is an
excerpt from his book.
Spirit
A Shavuot
Revelation
SAM GLASER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Sam Glaser