Why We Need ‘The Forgotten Festival’

Shavuot reminds us when we spoke with one voice.

The revelation on Mount Sinai was the one moment when God entered history.

How is it that for many, if not most, American Jews, Shavuot, marking God’s revelation to the Jewish people in giving us the Torah, has become The Forgotten Festival?

Pesach has iconic symbols like the Seder, matzah, four cups of wine, and a visit from Elijah. 

Sukkot has the sukkah itself, and the lulav and esrog.

Shavuot has what? Cheesecake? (Delicious but not exactly rooted in ancient tradition.)

Of course, Shavuot has the Torah itself, the eternal core of our religion. It is that one moment in history, we are told, when God engaged directly with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, and that every Jewish soul was present – past, present and future.

The very thought of this supreme connection – God entering our world and all Jews being together as one – is especially poignant at a painful moment when our society, and the world itself, seems frighteningly polarized – politically, socially, emotionally. 

Russia’s brutal, unjustified assault on Ukraine and our own inability to respond to the senseless murders of innocents, including school children, are but two dramatic examples of what happens when truth, morality and basic humanity lose their meaning.

We have lost the ability to discuss, debate and disagree without rancor, and we seem to have nowhere to turn.

How did this happen and how can we respond?

One of our era’s most thoughtful and accessible thinkers suggests that the Digital Revolution, which set out to connect us, has instead been responsible for dividing us more deeply than ever. Micah Goodman, a popular Israeli philosopher and educator, writes: “Precisely when we seem most connected, we are most distant; precisely when we have all the tools to free ourselves and gain exposure to the wider world, we find ourselves imprisoned and disconnected.” (See his article in Sources, “Our Technology Sickness – And How To Heal It.”) Facebook algorithms trap us in “digital echo chambers” that only present us with like-minded views, he notes.

Goodman says the most fitting metaphor for our time may be the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, as described in Genesis, Ch. 11, 1-9.

The people of the world, who all spoke one language, sought to build a tower to reach the heavens, presumably to replace God. 

In response, God says to the angels: “Come, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there upon the face of the earth,” dooming their effort. 

Today, we have come a long way in connecting the world, but only up to a point. We have mastered the technology of mass communication but in so doing, we have lost the art of direct communication, of speaking to and listening to each other with attentiveness, respect and empathy. 

Goodman suggests that the Talmud of old offers an answer to our modern-day dilemma in the way it is compiled. This essential text is unique, he points out, in that it canonizes not the God-given laws but rather the human debates about how to adhere to those laws. Exemplified by Hillel, our sages honored those who learned and appreciated both sides of a dispute before deciding the right path. 

A far cry from the present day, when we have our own truths and no tolerance for anyone else’s. We don’t debate, we demonize.

In Genesis, God “went down” to earth to disrupt and diffuse an arrogant attempt to take over the heavens. In Exodus, the same God gathered the Jewish people at the foot of Sinai and gave them God’s greatest gift, the Torah, because they/we pledged – with one voice – to accept the authority of heaven.

The festival of Shavuot reminds us not only of our commitment to accept God’s Torah laws but to live in harmony with Judaism’s essential teaching: that we are all God’s creation and deserving of respect.

May our prayers on this Day of Revelation reach not only the heavens, but each other.

Shabbat shalom and Chag Sameach.