Books and Blintzes, Thoughts on Shavuot

June 5, 2008

by Daniel E. Levenson

While many (perhaps most) American Jews today may not be too familiar with the holiday of Shavuot, it is in fact, a major Jewish holiday which celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, no small event in the history of the Jewish people. Whether you think that God dictated the torah to Moses verbatim, or that it was pieced together by a number of different authors over the centuries, or something in between, the idea of setting aside a time to remember the arrival of this gift seems like it should occupy a more central place in modern Jewish life.

I am strongly of the opinion that to live a Jewish life is to be inquisitive, to always ask questions about not only the nature of human existence, but about the origins and evolution of Judaism from a historical and cultural perspective. It is particularly fitting, I think, that the holiday celebrating the giving of the torah is celebrated not just with prayer and ritual, but with education and learning at the center of our observance.

It speaks to the mode of engagement that Jews have had with the divine for millennia, constantly seeking answers and asking questions. We can read the Torah as part of this extended conversation between God and Israel; the Torah is filled with figures who seek to understand the world, their place in it, and what it means to be a Jew. They do this not through some mystical approach that is now lost to antiquity, but in a very human way, by doing the best they can, making mistakes and asking questions. We continue this custom in our own way, by reconnecting to the foundational texts of Judaism not simply by hearing words read aloud, but by actively participating in a journey of growth and learning.

It connects us not only to the tradition of learning that exists within the Torah, but with the tradition of studying and learning from the Torah. Shavuot celebrates the beginning of an eternal conversation between god and the Jewish people and in our celebration of the holiday, we continue this conversation. The idea that we exist not at the end or the beginning of a process, but somewhere within a continuum, connected to our ancestors and responsible for the legacy they have left for us, is deeply powerful and runs throughout Jewish history. And at the same time, we forge ahead, cognizant of the fact that others will come after us.

Shavuot is special to me because it evokes for me the roots of this journey, whether all of Israel literally stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah as we know it today, or generations of scholars and scribes pieced it together based on oral history and folklore, Shavuot reminds us that we are part of something greater than ourselves and that a big part of our role in this process is not to simply sit back and let things happen around us, but to take an active role in building our society and asking difficult questions.