MAY 13 • 2021 | 37
to rise after this pandemic, and we hope
that will be soon.”
Davidson is performing the second
song because Prine was a hero of his, one
of his favorite singer-songwriters. Prine
died of COVID-19 fairly early on in the
pandemic, but lyrics he left behind relate
to the purpose of Shavuot: “Just give me
one thing that I can hold on to” is repeat-
ed throughout the song.
SOUL OF SHAVUOT
“Shavuot is [thought to be] when all of us
were alive at the time or were Jewish souls
waiting to be born,” Davidson said about
ideas associated with the holiday. “We
were all there at the foot of Sinai waiting
to have our collective encounter with the
Divine.
“It’s something that’s always accessible
to us whether it’s through Torah study
or acts of chesed [giving of oneself with
compassion]. We can always hear an echo
of that voice from Sinai. We carry it with
us through our lives as Jews.
“In another sense, it’s kind of fun to
stay up all night with friends, study and
wait until the sun comes up.”
Berman, now a New Yorker who joined
her family at Temple Beth El while grow-
ing up in Michigan, is thinking about all
the metaphors that can be used in this
presentation.
“I haven’t unpacked the metaphors yet,”
said Berman, whose personal experiences
are recalled in her book No Place Like
Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments pub-
lished by Harmony Books and whose play
1300 Lafayette East was premiered at the
Jewish Ensemble Theatre.
Berman is thinking about who we need
to be when the sun rises.
“The older I get, the more I become
interested in time,” said Berman, who has
two plays and two films in development
and teaches playwriting at New York
University and Bard College.
Reboot is producing DAWN in
partnership with the Jewish Emergent
Network, which promotes collaboration
among seven communities across the
United States, and LABA, a global labo-
ratory for Jewish culture, as participants
mark the breaking of the holiday dawn
in each of the distant locales offered the
festival.
“Shavuot is a huge, incredible holiday
and so intrinsic to the Jewish experience
… [with] so many ways to interpret it and
inspire,” said David Katznelson, Reboot
CEO. “By reimagining the all-night study
and presenting it in this new and magical
way, we provide a portal of entry to this
mighty holiday.”
Details
To get a link to the program, with
an entertainment schedule, go
to DAWNFestival.org.
“When I was an under-
graduate [at the University of
Michigan], I was a literature
major interested in 20th-cen-
tury American literature,”
Davidson said. “You find a lot
of stream-of-consciousness
literature among the Beats
and even before the Beat
writers, and I was trying to
tap into a Beatnik version of
Torah study.”
As he put together the
book, which he is distrib-
uting with only the cost of
postage and the suggestion
of a charitable contribution
to a Jewish organization,
Davidson wants readers
to bring their own individ-
uality to religious content.
He relates that to his own
life, establishing identity as
the son of the late William
Davidson, a successful entre-
preneur and philanthropist
defined by his son as “the
world’s best father.”
WRESTLE WITH ISSUES
“We’re supposed to contin-
ually examine our lives and
wrestle with these issues and
be more fully actualized as
people,” Davidson explained
about what he has gleaned
from religious studies.
“I think it’s true of all peo-
ple, not just for Jews. I think
it’s particularly true for Jews
because we call ourselves
Israel, the people who wres-
tle with God, which means
we’re supposed to be the
people who wrestle with
these questions.
“We might not find the
answers, and maybe that’s
not the point. Maybe the
point is to continue to ask
ourselves these questions
and check in on ourselves
to find out what the tradition
has to teach us about how to
be more fully actualized.”
— Suzanne Chessler
Details
Ethan Davidson’s book will be discussed digitally from 7:30-8:30
p.m. Wednesday, May 26. Registration is available at jtsa.edu/
developments-of-the-human. He will appear in person starting at 7 p.m.
Thursday, May 27, at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. Registration is
available at temple-israel.org/ethandavidson. To order the book, go to
ethandavidson.com.
“WE WERE ALL THERE AT THE FOOT OF
SINAI WAITING TO HAVE OUR COLLECTIVE
ENCOUNTER WITH THE DIVINE.”
— ETHAN DAVIDSON
Brooke
Berman