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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