Shavuos....…and the Receiving of the Torah

an excerpt from A Tale of Two Souls....

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'It is 3:00 a.m., Shavuous night (or rather morning), and I am one of many people in attendance at a class in our shul. The one I am attending is titled The Laws of Preparing Foods for the Sabbath. There are other classes going on as well. The rabbi teaching us has brought kitchen appliances as props to keep us alert. We need them. One lady is sleeping sitting up. I give her five minutes before her head hits the table. Our daughter and her friend once attempted the All Night Shavuous Learning. They brought their sleeping bags “just in case.” Within fifteen minutes they were both asleep on the floor in the coat closet. The all night learning is not mandatory, but highly suggested. But, don’t feel guilty if you sleep through another “most” important night in Jewish history. It’s just the receiving of the Ten Commandments. No biggie.

Exactly fifty days after we, the Jewish people, left Egypt, we received the Ten Commandments and the Torah. Now, during the seven weeks, between Pesach and Shavuos, we are commanded in the Torah to count the Omer. I don’t really know much about the Omer except to count it and that it’s another one of those times that interferes with my haircutting schedule. Every time I start to get into a haircut schedule, it gets altered by weeks of no haircuts. God said, “count the omer,” and we say, “don’t cut your hair.” It’s like the rabbi’s didn’t want us to be too clean or too happy for too long. If you ask, you get a combination answer about harvest and spirituality, but nonetheless, we count because God told us to count it. I’m probably not alone in that I don’t know exactly what I’m counting, but I get the idea, so I count. We all count. We’re supposed to be going up in spirituality during the forty-nine days (seven weeks) of counting. We start counting from the Exodus, which we relive at Pesach. The culmination of this experience is the holiday of Shavuos, the receiving of the Torah. But in truth, it’s just the beginning of a six-month communion with God that ends after the high holidays. Shavuos, one would think, would be a world-renowned holiday or at least a major Jewish holiday, but funny enough it’s hardly celebrated by anyone other than Observant Jews.

There aren’t even too many rules concerning this holiday. There’s a lot of talk about flowers, and every year the local Orthodox high school girls approach innocent carpool moms asking us to purchase their wilting flowers for double their value. And, of course, we do. It seems as if the little mountain, which Moses ascended and from which God gave us the Ten Commandments, burst into flowers, so this presents itself as a business opportunity to any Jewish day school. In addition, we typically eat dairy foods, as prior to this time we did not have the laws of meat and milk separation.

 So, to remember our receiving these rules, we specifically eat dairy, way too much dairy. If you like cheesecake, you are in luck. If you are lactose intolerant, you are out of luck. Of course, this dairy eating tradition is in conflict to those who believe you should eat meat at any festive meal. They fix that by eating dairy, swishing and swallowing and then eating meat. And, then there is the all night learning. Apparently three million Jewish people, while waiting at the edge of Har Sinai, managed to almost sleep through the receiving of the Ten Commandments. Seems like someone hit the snooze button. Whoops. So to make up for their faux pas, we now stay up all night learning. Our shul provides us with treats and enough caffeine to give everyone cardiac arrhythmias.'

Anyway, this year Shavuos (or Shavuot) follows Shabbos (Shabbat) so we are in for one of our mini marathons (3 religious days). That means we will have Shabbos followed by all night learning and lots of cheesecake. If you are in the area please stop by and join the rest of us for an all night party with the rabbis, caffeine and Dunwoody Does Dairy plus a great spiritual lift.