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