Today, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, or the celebration thereof, has matured, just as Israel has matured as a state. First of all, it is linked to Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembrance of the fallen soldiers. This has a sobering effect; Israelis come into Independence Day from the depths of pain and loneliness, which explains in part why Yom Ha’Atzmaut is beginning to evolve as a religious holiday. Jews, even secular ones, are grappling with the religious values of the state. In 1982, there was no military parade, though no one would for a moment doubt the importance of the military in the survival of the state. There has also been a subtle shift to celebration as a family holiday, including seudah, a feast. The rabbinate has published a ritual guide, and communal prayer is a prominent feature of this day. There is talk of an Israel haggadah, a Yom Ha’Atzmaut seder, at which the entire story will be told, comparing it, of course, to other holidays of miracle, victory, and redemption.
In the United States, we are beginning to see the outlines of religious commemoration and celebration. An evening service is held in the synagogue, attended by all members of the family. Often, these services are followed by a lecture and a film on Israel. Afterward, usually in the synagogue social hall, there is a kumsitz, the word Israelis often use for a social gathering. Israeli foods such as falafel are served, the band plays Israeli music, and there is Israeli singing and dancing. In cities with large Jewish populations, there are Israeli Day parades with floats whose theme has some connection to the modern State of Israel or to the history of Zionism. Israeli dance groups often schedule a joint dance festival around the time of Yom Ha’Atzmaut.
At the morning service on Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Hallel is recited, just as it is on other holidays of deliverance such as Chanukah, Pesach, and Purim. There is a debate among traditional Jews in America as to whether to recite these prayers of thanksgiving with or without the introductory b’racha, which elevates the prayers to the status of performance of a mitzvah. Some Jews are afraid to change anything that was not established by the Rabbis of yesteryear. However, most Orthodox rabbis do acknowledge the monumental act of deliverance in the creation of the State of Israel and therefore instruct their congregations to recite the Hallel with its opening b’racha.
We are only at the beginning, just as Israel the state is only at the beginning. In fact, the words we use to describe Israel in our prayers are raishit tzmichat ge’ulatenu, “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption.”
Israel, the modern nation-state, is not without its problems. Integrating two cultures, Oriental and Western, is extremely difficult. It faces an enormous task of resettling Russian Jews, the problems of peace at its borders are never ending, and most difficult and troubling of all is the problem of Palestinians, both on the West Bank and elsewhere. The Palestinians fled in 1948, and have since raised their children in refugee camps because they were not integrated into any other Arab societies. It is a problem because they, too, have their memories and their dreams which they pass on from generation to generation. And so the dilemma escalates rather than quiets.
Still, I am a Jew more than I am a universalist. So to me, the right of Jews to legally resettle in their homeland, with the sanction of the nations of the world, is not something I will yield easily. For me, all things are not equal. My roots in that land go very far back; therefore, my compassion for humanity-at-large must be reconciled with my self-interest, my very identity.
When I arrived at the Jerusalem shoemaker’s shop, just as he had closed up to go home and get ready for Sukkot, and I said to him, “Please, my daughter’s shoes, for the holiday …” he pulled back his tin overhead door, took her shoes in hand, and quoted a verse from the Torah: “And when your brother is in need, do not stand idly by.” I had a sense that there was something else going on here besides the shoemaker, me, and a pair of shoes. No shoemaker from the Bronx can make the Bible come alive for me in quite the same way. Or to meet a woman whose family has lived in Jerusalem for eight generations; to see children playing in the sunshine near the sprinklers, oblivious to the rifled guard who protects these most valuable of our treasures; to come upon a mountain that is half brown and half green, and know that somewhere in the green half is a tree planted forty years ago by a Jewish child in a Hebrew school in Kansas City, Missouri, or New Orleans, Louisiana; to mourn with friends, one who lost a son and one who lost a son-in-law in the Lebanese war; to worry about my David whose bus is pelted with rocks as he travels from Jerusalem to his yeshiva in the Etzion bloc—these are my roots and my connections. The sum of all these experiences is greater than its parts. That’s what Zionism is all about, and what Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebrates—an abiding love for Jewish settlement in a Jewish homeland.
The story is told of the disgruntled traveler to Israel. He complains about the heat, the dust, the narrow streets in Jerusalem, the noise and crowds in Tel Aviv, the non-English-speaking chambermaid, the cabdriver who drives too fast, the lack of buying power of his dollar. The whole trip, he complains. Finally, at the airport for the return flight home, he starts again—this time, about the long lines and the thorough security check. Exasperated, his cotraveler turns to him. “This is the first Jewish state in two thousand years and all you do is complain, complain, complain.” The disgruntled traveler replies: “First Jewish state in two thousand years, and it had to happen to me!”
Most Jews, however, are like the big United Jewish Appeal donor who makes his first trip to Israel after years and years of committed work and generous giving. Upon his return, his friends ask him for a report. “Friends,” he says, “you know all those lies they’ve been telling us about Israel all these years? Well, they’re all true.”
Like every normal person, I should like to enjoy a long life. Like everyone else my age, I would like someday to enjoy the blessings of grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Besides the pleasure they will give, I have something special to tell them: that I lived in the eye of a miracle. I remember my parents and sisters and neighbors gathered in front of our console radio, listening to the UN count on partition. When the chairman called out the deciding vote, everyone hugged and cried, and my father opened a bottle of Scotch for a le’chayim. I remember David Ben-Gurion’s immortal words on the fifth of Iyar, May 14, 1948, as he declared Israel an independent state, with its provisional government. Moments later, one could hear the singing and dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv, and the sounds of guns and warfare in the distant background. I will tell my grandchildren that my second cousins fought in the War of Independence, that I know people who came on Aliyah Bet, and that I once met and conversed with David Ben-Gurion in person, that I was on a kibbutz in the Negev when the Sinai campaign broke out in 1956, and that the Monday morning of the Six Day War is as vivid to me as yesterday.
“Two thousand years, and it happened to me! Come here and touch me.” That’s what I’ll say to them.
And that is what they will tell their grandchildren, at a Yom Ha’Atzmaut seder.
CHAPTER · 24
SHAVUOT
Sung to the tune of Mah Nishtana:
Why is this festival different from all other festivals?
Because on all other festivals we celebrate eight days,
On this festival, only two days.
Because on all other festivals we eat chicken soup,
chopped liver, and roasts;
On this festival—blintzes and cheesecake.
Because on all other festivals we catch a good night’s sleep.
On this festival, it’s tikkun study all night long.
Because on all other festivals we celebrate our physical redemption;
On this festival—the Revelation.
Moscow, June 1976: My husband and I are in the synagogue on Archipova Street. At the moment it is filled with six hundred aging Jews. Halfway through the service, a group of thirty foreign college students enter, handsome Nordic types—which is as it should be if you come from the University of Copenhagen. A small dark girl is seated behind me. Lisa, it tu
rns out, is Jewish, one of three Jews in the group. She is an exchange student from Rutgers University, spending the year with a Danish family. Five minutes of whispered landsmanschaft and we rapidly locate our mutual acquaintances. Her uncle is a well-known professor of Jewish studies. She spent eight years in Hebrew school.
After a few moments I learn why some of the girls are wearing jeans under the Bessarabian babushkas they have so cleverly wrapped around their middles. They are not shul hopping; simply, they are on an architecture tour of religious institutions in Moscow. Had they known they would be walking into the midst of a service this Thursday morning, they would have dressed more conservatively. Never mind: the Russian Jews are happy to see foreigners in any size, shape, form, or relative state of undress. Just before they leave, Lisa leans over and asks, “Why is the synagogue so crowded today; is it like this every day?” “It’s Shavuot, a holiday …” I couldn’t finish my sentence. Her eyes lit up. “Oops! you’re right, I completely forgot; my mother forgot to write me. It’s like my anniversary. I was confirmed on Shavuot. …” And with a warm hug to some elderly Russian women, Lisa is off to celebrate Shavuot—and Greek Orthodox architecture.
Of the three Biblical festivals, Shavuot is currently the least known outside of its celebrating community. That, however, does not diminish its stature within. Of the three, it might be the shortest in duration, but it lacks nothing in the way of intensity of feeling and depth of meaning. For those who really get into it, there is a sensation of reenacting an event that occurred some three thousand years ago, a cataclysmic event that took place, tradition tells us, fifty days after the Exodus from Egypt. The event: Revelation at Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments.
But the holiday Shavuot didn’t start out that way. Originally, the Bible describes Shavuot as an agricultural festival, a feast of the summer wheat harvest in the land of Israel. The first wheat ripens approximately fifty days after the first barley. The first barley offering was brought to the Temple one day after Passover began. From that day on, the Jews were told to count up seven full weeks from one harvest to the other, and at the end of the count they were commanded to celebrate Shavuot which literally means “Weeks.”
The Torah refers to this day also as Chag Habikkurim, the Festival of the First Fruits. The Jews would make pilgrimage to Jerusalem, bearing as gift offerings the first fruits of their land, in particular, the Biblical “seven kinds” with which the holy land was abundantly blessed. Inasmuch as the national economy could not make a go of it on grain and fruit offerings, the wealthy landowners would bring their gifts in baskets of silver and gold. In an agricultural economy, Shavuot was a time of great bounty, of joy, an occasion for the nation to come together to give thanks.
In time, however, the emphasis of the day shifted from agriculture to history, so that today Jews in every part of the world, including those in agrarian economies, celebrate the Revelation foremost and the harvest secondarily. Shavuot is an example of the Jewish people’s ability to transform the meaning of a moment, to move from nature to history, from biology to spirit.
Some say the shift in emphasis occurred during the conflict between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the two major Judean parties of the first century C.E. The Sadducean leadership was comprised of wealthy landowners and members of the priestly class, people who had a vested interest in the Temple cult and harvest celebration of this holiday. On the other hand, the Pharisees, who were mostly scholars and folk people, derived authority from their knowledge of the oral tradition. Quite naturally, then, they wanted the historical event of theophany at Sinai—which was the source of all of tradition—to be the preeminent focus of the day. Moreover, they wanted to maintain the theological link between Shavuot and Pesach, as if to say that Revelation and Exodus were but two parts of the same experience. Freedom without Revelation, said the Rabbis, would have been of little significance. It was the completion of that redemptive act with the giving of the Torah that created the Jewish people.
With the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and the ensuing exile from the land, it was only natural for the people to gravitate toward the spiritual cathexis of the holy day—the Torah and the covenant. The Pharisees didn’t eliminate the agrarian characteristics of the day, or the prayers that refer to celebration as it was in Biblical and Temple times. What they did was to add and reinforce other customs and prayers that supported the ancient tradition that the Revelation occurred on Shavuot. Those customs and prayers are all part of the celebration today.
PREPARATION
In contrast to Pesach and Sukkot, which celebrate a physical redemption, most of the preparations for Shavuot concern the spirit rather than the physical props such as are required for Pesach and Sukkot.
In the Bible, the three days preceding the Revelation are described as very special days. They are called Sheloshet Yemai Hagbalah, three days set aside to get ready to receive the Torah, three days during which the Jews were told to purify themselves and abstain from having sex. Today, there is no formal observance of Sheloshet Yemai Hagbalah. The only vestige of those three days is that the Sefirah (the mourning period for the Had-rianic persecutions, ca. 135 C.E.) ends three days earlier, instead of ending with the onset of Shavuot. Those who missed their chance on Lag B’Omer, and who haven’t had haircuts all during Sefirah, may now do so. Those who grew Sefirah beards—and the number in the Orthodox community is growing these days—will now shave them off. Also, marriages are performed during these three days. The injunction against sex on Sheloshet Yemai Hagbalah was in effect only at Sinai.
There are men who take seriously the idea of purifying themselves for reenactment of the Revelation. They go to the mikvah, which is open for men’s use on the day preceding Shavuot.
For many, the most important preparation for Shavuot is, oddly enough, a good long afternoon nap on erev Shavuot. In a moment, it will become clear why.
Shavuot is a little jewel, a Jewish housewife’s dream. There is no massive housecleaning, no need to cook and plan for umpteen holiday meals, and if there’s a lot to be done before the end of the academic calendar, then two days of holiday and not eight are just enough. (Although I sometimes suspect that the lesser preliminary efforts required of a woman have made Shavuot universally the least known of the three festivals. How’s that for Jewish mother power?!)
All the festival rules regarding candlelighting, Kiddush, meals, food preparation, work, as well as most of the festival liturgy, apply to Shavuot. But there are some exceptions, which give the holiday its own special character.
On Shavuot, we eat dairy for the festival meals or at least for some of them (which diminishes somewhat the housewife’s gain because, as everyone knows, dairy meals are harder to prepare than meat meals). In our house, as in many Jewish homes, we eat no meat during Shavuot, unless it happens to come out on Shabbat. Somehow, Friday night without chicken is just not Shabbat.
Foods, like cheese blintzes, cheese kreplach, and cheesecake are served. The symbol of kreplach, a three-sided pastry filled with cheese, is that God gave the Torah in three parts (the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings) to three categories of people (Kohen, Levite, and Israelite) through a third-born child (Moses, whose older siblings were Aaron and Miriam) in the third month of the year (1. Nissan, 2. Iyar, 3. Sivan).
Jewish lore offers several origins to the dairy tradition: Moses was drawn out of the water on the day which later came to be Shavuot. He was willing to be nursed by only a Hebrew woman. On his merit, that of choosing a Jewish mother’s milk, we eat dairy. Another, less fanciful reason is that until the Jews received the Torah they were not bound by the laws of kashrut. Upon receiving the Torah, all their pots and pans and dishes were rendered trefeh (unkosher). So they ate dairy until they could kasher their utensils....
Another explanation grew out of allusion to the verse in Song of Songs (4:11) that “knowledge of the Torah is like milk and honey under the tongue.” From this verse also grew the custom of serving at each m
eal two challot that are sweet and baked with honey.
Another food custom is to prepare or buy challot that are a bit longer than usual. These challot are a symbol of the “wave offering”—the two loaves of bread that the Jews were required on Shavuot to bring from their farms to the Temple (LEV. 23:17). The officiating priest would then wave these loaves before the altar.
In addition to food customs, the tradition arose to decorate the synagogue and the home with plants, flowers, branches of trees. The synagogue never looks more beautiful than it does on Shavuot. It feels like a wedding is taking place, and in a way it is. One explanation of this custom is that the giving of the Torah took place on a mountain encircled with green (either this was an exilic fantasy, or several millennia of erosion have denuded Mount Sinai and environs of greenery; it is now a rather brown mountain—if indeed that is Mount Sinai); another is that the infant Moses was saved from certain death by being placed in a basket of reeds and floated on the river of reeds. We spread greenery all around to remind us of that miracle. Although I’ve never seen it, I’ve read that in some synagogues reedlike grasses are spread on the floor of the shul. And of course all the greenery is a sensate reminder that Shavuot started out primarily as a harvest festival.
How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Page 46