Wherever you go, I will go

Renewal and invention
The holiday of Shavuot has often been an excuse to indulge in both renewal and invention. Commemorating the giving of the oral and written Torah, Shavuot is also a reminder of what the Talmud tells us: “Whatever new interpretation an experienced disciple will offer in the future was already given to Moses at Sinai.”

In the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, Shavuot was already being observed in heaven from the first day of creation. Only after the flood was it brought to earth and given to Noah and his descendants in order to “renew the covenant in all respects, year by year.” God and Abraham’s encounter in Genesis 15 (“the covenant between the pieces”) is also said to have taken place on Shavuot, so that in this chronology, the giving of the Torah is only the most proper culmination of an already highly-charged day.

Weddings, music and work
Maimonides wrote that the days of Counting the Omer were akin to “the way one awaits one’s most intimate friend at a rendezvous — counting the days and even the hours.” So it is only appropriate that the revelation of the Torah at Sinai is also imagined as a love story, and as the wedding between God and the Shekhinah, or between God and Israel.

As retold by Howard Schwartz: “The Groom, the Lord, the King of Hosts, is betrothed to the bride, the community of Israel, arrayed in beauty. … Many days will you be Mine and I will be your Redeemer. Be My mate according to the law of Moses and Israel, and I will honor, support, and maintain you, and be your shelter and refuge in everlasting mercy. And I will set aside the life-giving Torah for you, by which you and your children will live in health and tranquility.” Like all marriages, of course, the meaning of such vows is only understood and argued over after the ceremony. In our case, it is still ongoing, millennia later.

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Amid the never-ending debate over the place of music within the synagogue comes a story from mid-19th-century Dresden. There, during first day Shavuot services, a new choir of men and boys alternated with the cantor. When it came time for the priestly blessing, a “choir of priests” was added, again responding to the cantor and larger choir. A report from the time simply notes, “Tears of the most heartfelt emotion streamed from almost every eye.”

During the late 18th century in Philadelphia, a Jewish merchant named Bernard Gratz left his non-Jewish business-partner in the lurch by taking Shavuot off. Unaware that some Jewish holidays fell in the middle of the work week and not just on Shabbat, Gratz’s business partner wrote with some sarcasm and bewilderment, “Moses was upon the top of a mount in the month of May — consequently his followers must for a certain number of days cease to provide for their families.” Little did he know that Shavuot presented Jews with another occasion — as if we needed one! — for gratitude, study, food and time with family. What better things can we possibly provide one another?

The mysticism of Shavuot
Unlike many of the Hasidic courts that developed in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the great master Nahman of Bratslav did not require the constant attention and presence of his followers. Instead, as Arnold Band writes, Nahman modeled an almost ascetic way of life for his followers, and eventually he only met with them on specific occasions, Shavuot being one. Many of his famous tales, then, originated in these brief but vivid encounters with the master, which also included music and dance.

The Baal Shem Tov died in the year 1760 on Shavuot, and many stories are told about the mystical experiences of young men at the courts of later tzadiks during the holiday. The emphasis on study is only heightened on Shavuot, and this seems to have only cemented and intensified the intimacy and attachment felt between and master and disciple.

Ruth, Naomi and Danish
Yaffa Eliach writes that in the shtetl of Eishyshok, Lithuania, “there was little the shtetl people were allowed to enjoy” during the days of Counting the Omer. Once Shavuot was upon them, however, “The windows of houses that faced the street were decorated with paper cutouts known as reyzele (roses)… The interiors of the synagogue and the batei midrash were garlanded so lavishly with freshly cut lilac that the houses of prayer looked and smelled like greenhouses.” Children wore their summer clothes for the first time, and of course there was the food: “cheese and honey cakes, cheese blintzes that were served with sour cream, and a long hallah filled with raisins, almonds, and cheese.”

In a beautiful passage from Elizabeth Ehrlich’s memoir, “Miriam’s Kitchen,” she admits, “I don’t know what to do about Shavuot.” She knows that the holiday, aside from commemorating the giving of the Torah, also includes a reading of the Book of Ruth, about that convert who “became the matriarch of a dynasty of kings.” She is aware, too, of the modern readings of Ruth that focus more on the heroine’s attachment to her mother-in-law, Naomi, than her new husband, Boaz. Still, Ehrlich is an outsider at the local synagogue, and when she goes there hoping to find sympathetic women interested in exploring the story, instead there is only a group of men reading the scroll.

Later, she visits her own mother-in-law, the titular Miriam, who lavishes her guests with all the dairy delights associated with the holiday. The next day, again restless and wondering if she should go to shul, she remembers that Miriam invited her over to make cheese Danishes. That settles it. “I leave my unfulfilled notions of scholarship,” Ehrlich writes, deciding to embody Ruth rather than study her. “I leave the matter of shul for another year. I pack up the baby and leave my home and set off for the Bronx, to make cheese Danishes. Whither thou goest, I will go.” PJC

Tim Miller is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.