Many of our holidays show up in this week’s Parashah, Emor. We are given the Biblical commandments to celebrate Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. It’s a big week! Seeing all of these together, and reading about how we celebrate them, led me to think about some major differences, specifically between Pesach and Shavuot.
The original Pesach was very family, home-based. Each family was to slaughter a lamb, one per household. Each family put the blood on their doorpost and hunkered down. In this way, and similar to many of our Pesach celebrations around dining room tables, the Pesach celebrations were quite private.
But 7 weeks later, we arrive at Shavuot, a holiday that celebrates all Jews standing at Mount Sinai receiving Torah, together. It’s a holiday in which we mark (in a normal year, at least) our engagement with Torah by holding all-night learning sessions and lectures. Shavuot commemorates the all-access nature of Torah, the communal Revelation that took place and that continues to take place.
This juxtaposition feels connected to what I see happening in our world, a changing understanding of public and private. Many of us aren’t leaving our homes except for essentials, and our backyard fences have become the extent of our travels. We have significantly limited the way that we engage with the public. And yet, with the increase in Zooming, meeting with our synagogue community online and for many of us, having work meetings or board meetings over the computer, we’ve broken down the barriers of our homes and invited everyone in. Our homes are on display and we are brought into others’ as well. While before we may have been concerned about having a dirty sink in the background of a meeting, now we have children in the background crawling around and the reality of life as the soundtrack. In public we are wearing masks and staying away from others, in private we are letting people in and literally showing people our laundry and the pictures hung on our walls. Certainly, this is far from the ideal of what life looks like, but I wonder, when we emerge (please God, soon), how might this change our understanding of public vs. private? What might we take from this experience of letting people into our homes? How will it change us?
Four months after Shavuot, we arrive at Sukkot, a sort of hybrid of these two holidays in the way they mix the public and private. We build small sukkot in our yards that don’t fit many people, but we invite in guests (both literal and figurative) to share in the holiday with us. We commemorate the private, family tents that our ancient Israelites made in the wide, open wilderness. I think this hybrid has something to teach us. I hope and pray that we will arrive at a time where the masks and isolation are no longer necessary, and where we more comfortably invite people, literally, into our homes.
Wishing you all a safe, healthy, and peaceful Shabbat. Rabbi Sarit
We will NOT be having services at shul this Shabbat. I hope you will join Abe and me for Hachanah l’Shabbat (Preparing for Shabbat at 6:30PM this evening), and for Havdallah (Saturday at 8:50PM). Click those links to connect on Zoom!
Please check out our website for some Shabbat-related learning resources.
