The Relationship between Cheesecake and Hamantashen

 

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 21^st 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.