Shavuot. Weeks. Interesting name for a holiday that's about receiving the Torah. It marks 3000+ years since we stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and saw the voice and heard the flames of our Torah. We know that Shavuot comes at the tail end of the seven week Omer-counting period. From the name, it sounds like the focus of Shavuot is more on what has led up to it than being about the day itself. That's a nice idea and all, but come on, this is that DAY WE GOT THE TORAH. Shouldn't that be the focus? Shouldn't we all contemplate the TORAH GIVEN AT SINAI?!
I remember being introduced to the works of the pointillist Georges Seurat in middle school. His paintings are such that when you look at them up close, you see nothing but a splattering of colored dots. But, with the new perspective you get upon moving back a few steps, you see a beautiful "Sunday Afternoon on the Banks of the River Seine." His art is just one example of the way we often relate to the world. It's totally logical to think that proximity is directly proportional to true connection. If I want to find a real relationship to something or to someone I have to really focus on it, really be close to it. That's the process of counting the Omer. The process of examining every aspect of your self and your relationships. How do I give? How do I receive? How do I judge? How do I love? Sefirat HaOmer. Until this week, I had only been thinking about Sefira as Counting. But its root, Sefer, also means book. Book of the Omer. What's that all about?
In Likutey Halachot, Rebbe Nosson speaks of our book of the Omer. It's the book we're writing, our journal, during the seven weeks (and the whole year, really) leading up to Shavuot. We're writing it to clarify our place in the world -- to figure out our take on this wonderfully crazy thing called Torah. Sefirat HaOmer is a time for us to tell ourselves our story -- our whole story. Each time we look at all the events, all the people, all the places that we've known, it's from a deeper perspective. The girl next door who was the "light of my life," that final exam that was my "day of reckoning;" those are things that are playing a different role in my story now. Each day, I open up my book; I have to figure out where I left off. Where am I in my story? What's the Big Picture of where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going? That's the only way I'll be able to make TORAH into Torah. To remove it from its status as OTHER and see it as within the big picture of life on this planet.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe reminds us that the Torah was given to bring us to unity, to give us perspective and help us see one Big Picture. But really there are two realities aren't there? G-d gave us the Torah, so there's G-d and then there's us. Coming out of the slavery of Egypt where a G-d that loves us was such a distant concept, there wasn't another way to begin a relationship but to give. Our lives, then, are a process bridging the divide. We weren't destined to live our lives within the walls of a sanctuary; we are to be Jews in the world -- Jews that look for G-d around every corner, within every movie, upon every painted canvas. When we do that, there'll be no disconnection between the TORAH we LEARN and the Torah we live. It will no longer be about taking what was given, but about realizing what we find.
So it's the night of Shavuos and we're all trying to stay awake all night. We want to be excited for the next page of our story; we don't want to be caught falling asleep as our ancestors did at the base of Mount Sinai. So what do we do? We tell stories. What better way of keeping awake. Not make-believe or fairy tales, but true stories. Rav Gedalia Fleer told us this week that stories bring out our emet (truth). Emet is written Aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet), Mem (the middle letter of the alphabet), Taf (the last letter of the alphabet). From where I've been to where I am to where I'll go…I'll tell it all!
May our lives be full of stories. And on Shavuot, let's share our story from our Sefer HaOmer as G-d is sharing the story of the Sefer HaTorah.