Anticipation of Shavuot

(Published in The Outreach, June 2004)
The Outreach is the newsletter of Valley Outreach Synagogue, Reseda, California
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This period in our historical and religious calendar is one of anticipation. According to the Torah (Lev. 23:15), we are obligated to count the days from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavuot, a period of forty nine days. This period is known as the Counting of the Omer; an omer being a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering.

While this counting, like so many of our observances, is a recognition of God the Creator, the source of our earthly bounty, the religious and spiritual anticipation is that of Torah. At Passover we began our exodus from slavery – the harrowing journey through the desert towards an unfamiliar Promised Land. So new to freedom were we that we fought against its apparent lack of structure, railing at Moses for denying us the reliable comforts that were ours as Pharaoh’s slaves; fish, meat, a bed in a single location. Now, however, we were wandering, desperately anticipating our arrival in Canaan, that Land of Milk and Honey, where we would reap the harvest of our arduous journey. This land would be ours. In it, we would live as free citizens with governance over our time and ownership of our destinies.

Along our journey however, we would make a crucial stop at the base of Mt. Sinai. There we would have faith in the God that redeemed us, lose that faith in the absence of Moses who led us, and finally, regain it again, receiving the Ten Commandments. The free could now be truly liberated through God’s precepts. Like children, without boundaries and structure we were unable to properly function. The Torah offered us both social order and holiness.

The 49 days between Passover and Shavuot are seen as embodying the 49 steps of self-improvement—beginning with the departure from our "personal" Egypt, until our arrival at Mount Sinai, when we are ready to accept the wisdom of the Torah.

In a sense, Shavuot is a collective Bar Mitzvah, a time in which the entire Jewish people climb the mountain to receive Torah. It is customary to spend the entire night preceding the holiday in study, much as the Bar or Bat Mitzvah would most likely lie awake with nervous anticipation, running prayers and melodies in his or her head.

Chag Sameach!

Cantor Ron Li-Paz