42 | MAY 25 • 2023 

SPIRIT

Personal Growth
O

ne of my favorite 
and first questions 
I use when learning 
or teaching is: What is the 
Jewish wisdom tradition 
asking us to pay attention to 
right now? 
The first and 
natural place to look 
for an answer is in 
the Torah portion of 
the week. However, 
this week is a little 
different from all 
other weeks. The 
Torah portion breaks 
from the weekly 
narrative to invite us 
to home in on what 
I believe is the most 
underrated Jewish 
festival with some of 
the biggest potential 
for personal transformation. 
If you’re less or unfamiliar 
with this holiday, you’re 
not alone. Inconveniently 
placed against the backdrop 
of secular time’s call to 
graduation ceremonies and 
the beginning of the summer, 
Shavuot is liable to get lost in 
the shuffle of life aside from 
a cheesecake or blintz. In my 
life, I didn’t fully experience 
or appreciate what Shavuot 
has to offer my life until 
I was a rabbi, and it has 
nothing to do with cheese.
There is a special holiday 
reading this week (Shavuot 
2) that draws our attention to 
the existence and celebration 
of the Shalosh Regalim 
(Deuteronomy 16:16-17), or 
the three festival pilgrimage 
holidays: Sukkot, Passover 
and Shavuot. Together, these 
three festivals punctuate 
the year with community 
celebrations and personal 
transformation. 

On the heels of Yom 
Kippur, Sukkot opens 
our hearts to joy in the 
company of one another. 
Weeks following the chaos 
of Purim, Passover opens 
our hearts toward 
collective freedom and 
justice. Culminating 
seven weeks later 
with Shavuot, and the 
revelation of Torah at 
Mount Sinai, opening 
our hearts toward 
ourselves through 
learning; to calibrate 
our aim once again 
toward a target (we will 
inevitably miss) and 
need to make teshuvah 
for once again, 
restarting the cycle. 
Shavuot is about 
learning and offers us an 
opportunity to ask our 
questions and explore new 
ideas. Being curious, humble 
and open to changing and 
developing your opinion, 
listening to oppositional 
voices with a different story, 
is the Jewish way to learn. 
Questions and inquiry are 
central in Judaism and reveal 
the path to discover what we 
need to meet the moment. 
Jewish life is 
transformational. Paying 
attention offers us direction 
for how to calibrate our 
goals and intentions for 
how to live. However, it’s 
only possible when we pay 
attention and lean into the 
Jewish cycles that are before 
us that real transformation 
can happen. Happy learning 
and don’t forget the Lactaid! 

Rabbi Jeff Stombaugh is Executive 

Director/Rabbi of The Well.

TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Jeff 
Stombaugh

Parshat 

Shavuot 2: 

Deuteronomy 

14:22-16:17; 

Numbers 

28:26-31; 

Habakkuk 

3:1-19.

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