Growing up, my father would often say, “On Sukkot,
you can eat WHAT you want, but you can’t eat WHERE you want. On Pesach, you can eat WHERE you want, but
you can’t eat WHAT you want. Shavuot is
the best holiday since you can eat WHAT you want and WHERE you want it.”
Now, the holidays are about much more than what’s on
the menu (or are they?), but Shavuot does stand out in the cycle of holidays
for its lack of specific rituals or symbols.
If we go around the year, we start with the shofar announcing a new year
on Rosh Hashanah along with all of the accompanying sweet symbolism. Yom Kippur is unforgettable for the fasting
and the amount of time spent in synagogue.
Sukkot has the sukkah and the four species. Chanukah has the lighting of the candles commemorating
a miracle. (The presents came
later.) Passover is the “King of Rituals”
with matzah and the many features of the Seder.
Shavuot? Yes,
there are customs like cheesecake, but Shavuot is, fundamentally, “just” a
holiday commemorating receiving the Torah at Sinai. In my experience, it is the one that gives
observant Jews the hardest time with their bosses when they ask to take it off
since it is the least recognizable of the Jewish holidays.
Why don’t we make a bigger deal and have rituals
celebrating Shavuot? After all, without the
Torah received on Shavuot, there would be no Judaism! The answer is that Torah is life. More accurately, Torah is the mechanism for living
a meaningful and sacred life. To commemorate
the Torah, one doesn’t need fancy rituals or recipes. To commemorate Torah, we recommit to
living it.
The best things in life may not be free, but the
greatest thing in life is to purposefully live it.
There is one holiday omitted from the list above. Nowadays, we make a big deal about it with
costumes and fancy gift baskets, but Purim, at its core, is celebrated in a
very everyday way. The Megillah teaches
that we celebrate Purim by observing four mitzvoth: we read the Megillah that recounts
the Purim story; we have a festive meal; we share gifts of food with friends;
and we make sure to help out those in need.
Yes, these are rituals, but I can’t think of a more natural way to
celebrate than telling a story, eating, sharing, and helping.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, a noted rabbi and
psychiatrist, notes that what makes Purim unique is that there was nothing
supernatural about it. Everything seemed
to unfold in an ordinary fashion, yet God was quite active behind the scenes to
bring about the salvation of the Jews. The
Purim narrative includes a drunken king, a refusal by the queen earning her a
death sentence, a Jewish beauty becoming the next queen, a villain, a hero, a
couple of parties, a hanging, and a victory. Hardly the stuff of miracles! In reality, though, we can find God pulling
the strings behind the scenes.
The holiday of Purim – like Shavuot - is about
celebrating the way we live our lives.
And here’s the kicker. In Megillat Esther (9:27), we read:
קִיְּמוּ
וְקִבְּלו הַיְּהוּדִים עֲלֵיהֶם וְעַל זַרְעָם וְעַל כָּל הַנִּלְוִים עֲלֵיהֶם...
The Jews ordained and took upon themselves and
upon their seed and upon all those who join them…
The
Talmud (Shabbat 88a) comments that this verse in Esther means that: kiymu ma
she-kiblu k’var – The Jews during the time of Purim accepted what they had
accepted previously. This refers to the
Torah. The Jews accepted the Torah at
Sinai, and they accepted it again during the time of the Purim story.
What
does this mean?
Among
the possible explanations, we learn that, like Sinai and Shavuot, Purim is a
reaffirmation that Judaism is living.
The Torah contains many rules and obligations. At the same time, Judaism is meant to be
integrated into our everyday lives to uplift and sanctify what we do and who we
are.
The
Jews in Persia may have strayed from this message. It is quite easy to lose sight of the sacred
and meaningful within the hustle and bustle of the everyday. At the height of their salvation from the
depths of despair, they reaffirmed the necessity of bringing Torah and Judaism
into their everyday lives.
Thank
God (and with God’s help), the 21st century doesn’t confront us with
a similar threat of destruction. As we
celebrate Purim, it would be nice to reaffirm for ourselves and our children
the power, meaning, and relevance of Torah in our lives and in our world today,
and every day.
