Nothing like a good love story. Here's one from Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchov: One day, the king (a widower for many years) was out on a tour of the kingdom, when he saw that further up the road a young maiden was being attacked by theives. "Quickly," he said to his drivers, and they approached the scene. As they got closer, they heard the woman cry out, and as the Roayal Carriage was coming into view, the thieves fled. Traumatized by the attack, the King offered for the woman to stay in the castle and recover. Time passed and the King fell in love with the maiden, and for a while, she also felt love for the King. But alas and alack, the maiden's attention moved on to other matters, so she left the Castle and the relationship fizzled. Days passed. Eventually, the King devised a plan to get her back. What did he do? He hired a band of thieves to seek out the maiden. Just as they were about to attack, the King planned to appear and save the day. Why did he go to all this trouble? Because he wanted to hear her cry out again. He wanted to hear that cry from the deepest place within, the cry of ultimate fear, hope, and yearning. But would that really have brought her back?
In the laws of fasting, the Rambam explains that it is a mitzvah to cry out and blast trumpets when "tzures" (suffering) befalls a community. It's a commandment? Come on. Blasting on trumpets, crying out loud, isn't that a bit extreme? So it's good to pray, to ask for God to help us out, but don't get carried away. Besides, God knows when we need to be saved, right?
Sunday night, it all begins. Shavuot. The 51st day since the first night of Pesach. The culmination of all the counting of barley. The Slonomer Rebbe talks about these 51 days as paralleling the 51 days from the Beginning of Elul to Shemini Atzeret, the holiday at the end of Succot. In the Torah, Shemini Atzeret and Shavuot are both called "Chag HaAtzeret." What is this "atzeret?" On these culminating holidays, God is asking us to stop (atzur) for a day, to hang back a minute and just BE with God. There aren't any special mitzvot to do on there days: no twigs to wiggle, no crackers to crumble, no obscene amounts of wine to guzzle. These days, says the Slonomer, gather up all the holiness from the previous 50 days and hold it there on a level that's even holier. Like the white space in between all the letters of the Torah, the days of "atzeret" are a "holiness concentrate," just waiting for us to mix it up and drink it. Dwelling in that space for a day allows us to feel what it is to be in an intimate relationship with God. So much has just happened. Whether it be the cycle of intense tshuvah on the High Holy Days, or the incredible ecstasy of freeing ourselves from ourselves on Pesach, these two eras in the Jewish calendar bring us to new levels in this relationship with our creator, our friend, our lover. Well, if that's true, why aren't there any special mitzvot to perform in celebration of that?
In the Hallel prayer that we'll say on Shavuot, we recite the words "Ana Hashem Hoshiya Na! Ana Hashem Hatzlicha Na!" Please, God, save us! Please, God, let us succeed! The numerical value of this "na" is 51. There seems to be a hint to the 51 days before "atzeret" in this prayer. As it turns out, of all the prayers in Hallel, this one is the loudest, deepest cry out to Hashem. The weeks leading up to Shavuout have been our engagement to God, in preparation for the big wedding at Har Sinai. We are that maiden with which the king is in love. On Shavuot, God held the mountain over our head, says the Midrash. What, to force us into taking the Torah? Maybe. But why did the King send the thieves, was he trying to force her back into his arms? No. He only wanted to hear her cry again. He wanted to reawaken that which had sparked within her when first they met. That first cry was real, an expression of her yearning to be free of tzures.
On Shavuot, or special Mitzvah is to cry out. Not because it's a fast day, not because of the great tzures that's upon us, but because we've come so far and overcome so much to get to our chupah. We can't contain ourselves anymore. "We've been waiting seven weeks for you to ask us to cry out, God!" Only when we cry out do we become ourselves, do we make it clear that we want this relationship, that we need it. On the first Shavuot, we fell asleep, we weren't so excited, we were scared. So now we have a custom to stay up all night in anticipation. "Tomorrow morning," Rav Shlomo Carlebach used to say, "God is going to talk to us!" When that thought makes us cry out, God will have no choice but to hold us in the sweetest embrace, and the whole world will feel the jubilation of meeting the creator under that mountain chuppah.