On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone forth
from the land of Egypt, on that very day, they entered the wilderness
of Sinai.
-Exodus 19:1
The holiday of Shavuot, as it is described in the Torah (Numbers
28:26) is a harvest festival, when "first fruits" are brought as an
offering in the Temple. It has no historical referent, its timing was
set according to the counting off of seven weeks from the second day of
Pesach. However, the rabbis of the Talmud somehow (creatively, it seems)
calculated that the date coincided with the giving of the Torah at Mt.
Sinai, and so it took on the additional meaning of the holiday of the
giving of the Torah and that is how it is described in the traditional
liturgy.
In
secular Israeli culture it is associated with the color white, with
dairy foods, and with greenery: kindergarten children come to school the
day before Shavuot dressed in white with crowns of leaves. A
permutation of Mayday, I suspect. In any case, for those who don't go to
synagogue, it is a day off, and the weather is usually conducive to
excursions in nature or to the beach. The unexplained tradition of
eating dairy foods has become a kind of obsession fueled by
advertising. A generation ago, the kibbutz custom of holding a parade
celebrating the first fruits of the fields (and of the plastics
factories – and of the baby nursery) was well-known, and an attraction
for city visitors. These still exist, but today are seen more as quaint
than as a moving symbol of our return to the land.
The medieval custom, the "Tikkun Leyl Shavuot" – staying up all night
to study Torah – has long been observed, mostly in Orthodox communities
around the world, as a way of connecting with the Sinai component of
the holiday. We spent a couple of years in Jerusalem in the 70s, and
looked forward every year to the experience of wandering the city all
night, tikkun-hopping until we got to the Western Wall in time for a
sunrise service and then walked home to collapse. The density of
religious communities and scholars in Jerusalem made that experience
uniquely possible. There were enthusiastic conversations before and
after, as people gave tips on where was cool and what had been boring
(the recent Israeli movie "Footnote" has a scene making fun of this
aspect of Jerusalem culture).
Since then, the tikkun has become a mass phenomenon all over the
country, and the week before Shavuot is packed with pre-holiday tikkunim
at community centers and schools, libraries and other institutions,
enriched by musical performances and focusing on a broad variety of
themes from the heavy to the light (the food, on the other hand, tends
to be only heavy). Of course, one can criticize this fad for a certain
amount of kitschiness and trivialization. However, it seems to me that
it is a wonderful example of the way culture develops, sometimes in
surprising directions. The belief that God indeed appeared on Mt. Sinai
and revealed ten – or 613 – commandments is not exactly universally
accepted by the participants in all these tikkunim. But that doesn't
stop increasing numbers of us from gathering on the anniversary of that
alleged revelation to explore together the rich tradition – Torah in the
broadest sense – that somehow got started on that day. For the early
20th century pioneers, the return to agriculture was a kind of
redemption, and so the restoration of the harvest festival was a
powerful symbol. But just as in the rabbinic period the day took on a
meaning connected to revelation, so too in modern Israel, the land
itself has turned out to be not enough – many Israelis are seeking the
spiritual and moral dimensions in their Jewish identity, and are taking
advantage of the resources of the tradition in new-old ways to find
them.
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