Rabbi Liberman – Summertime Learning Begins with Shavuot
The end of each year on the academic cycle brings many ‘end of year’ gatherings and celebrations. Final banquets, annual meetings, end-of-year school parties, graduations; the list is endless and consumes much of Mid-May through early June! All good things, all as wonderful demarcations of success, completion and the passage of time, these events come and go bringing with them the message that another year has gone by. In the Jewish calendar, however, we actually are far from ending, rather we are sitting much closer to our midpoint in the Jewish year!
Shavuot, the second of the Pilgrimage Festivals, beckons to us at this same season to connect and reconnect even more deeply to the meaning and uplift of Matan Torah, the giving of Torah. Traditionally celebrated in communal prayer, the rabbis later marked this celebration with the addition of the power of Torah study known as the Tikun L’el Shavuot, the staying up through the first night of the festival immersed in the light of study of Torah.
Beth Jacob observes this moment with a deep same sense of engagement as when we prepare for the Yamim Noraim followed by Sukkot and Simhat Torah, the actual ending of our Jewish‘spiritual’ year! The strength of learning in our community is apparent throughout the year, but the heights that can be achieved as if we were personally standing on Mt Sinai receiving Torah are no better accomplished than on the shoulders of our own congregational teachers and their words of Torah at our Tikun L’el Shavuot. Writer Lesli Koppelman Ross explains that “we remain awake to show that, unlike the situation of our heavy-lidded ancestors at Sinai, there is no need to bring us to our senses; we are ready to receive Torah.…In addition to wanting to compensate for the Israelites, the mystics had the idea that at midnight the heavens open and favorably receive the thoughts, study, and prayers of those who remain awake on the anniversary of the Revelation.” How could anyone possibly want to miss this amazing moment of Torah?
Rather than a seasonal ending of learning, Shavuot stands out as a beacon reminder that we yet need to know more! Summer is not a vacation from Shul or Jewish study, rather it is a time to approach these sacred events from a refreshing perspective. When we celebrate here at Beth Jacob “Journeying Through July” as a communal source of Jewish engagement, we do so in community still framed by Shabbat, Jewish values, participation in Jewish learning and just being ourselves as Jews. Many of our children may go off to summer Jewish camps or Israel trips, but the vast majority of these experiences only deepen their Jewish neshamot, infusing them with richly seeded moments of Torah learning – most not in a tradtional ‘classroom’ as we might call it, none the less, it is Jewish learning. Summer is not a vacation from being Jewish, rather it is a time of expansion of our Jewish being!
I would be remiss not to also add that as adults, we too can further our Jewish being both by study of Torah such as in our on-going classes that will continue to meet throughout the summer and also through taking time out to be part of unique Jewish experiences such as volunteering with NECHAMA – Jewish Response to Disaster. Jewish learning never ends. Being Jewish is year round. Studying Judaism only deepens our Jewish being! Wishing all our Beth Jacob community a wonderful summer!
L’Shalom,
Rabbi Lynn C. Liberman
Director of Congregational Learning