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by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar
Shavuot is upon us, one of three festivals, along with Sukkot and Pesah, during which, in ancient times, Jewish pilgrims from all over the region would travel to Jerusalem, bringing the best of their flock or their harvest as an offering to the Holy One, as gratitude for the continued blessings of their lives — life itself being that blessing — and for a feeling of connection to their community and to God.
Over time, the holiday of Shavuot became associated not only with a successful harvest season, indispensable to our livelihoods on the crest between spring and summer, but with the celebration of the anniversary of recieving the Torah at Mount Sinai, understood to have taken place the day after seven weeks worth of seven days — seven being the number that represented wholeness in ancient Judaism — after the Exodus from Egypt. Freedom was not complete in and of itself; it also carried with it a sense of covenant and responsibility: that we are bound up together, through our story and through our responsibility to carry out sacred actions — mitzvot — in the world.
Starting tonight, and for the next two days, we celebrate that collective sense of responsibility and the moment in which we experienced receiving that covenant. Tradition says that we were all present — all of us, past, present, and future — to receive this covenant. (To this end, there is even an online Jewish matchmaking and dating service called “Saw you at Sinai!”) We were all there:
I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the ETERNAL our God and with those who are not with us here this day (Deuteronomy 29:13-14).
V’lo itkhem l’vadkhem anokhi koret et habrit hazot v’et ha’alah hazot. Ki et asher yeshno po imanu omed hayom lifnei Adonai Eloheinu v’et asher einenu po imanu hayom.
וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם לְבַדְּכֶם אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת אֶת־הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת וְאֶת־הָאָלָה הַזֹּאת׃ כִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם׃
Tradition understands this verse to invite us to imagine ourselves present for the formation of the covenant at Sinai — all of us collectively.
What might it mean for each of us to see our fellow Jews and fellow loved ones in community with Jews as having been present with us for that moment? We might not all recall that moment in exactly the same way; we might all have different interpretations of what took place in that moment, and of what the implications of that moment — the calling forth to us by God for entry into a sacred covenant — are for our future and for our responsibility to ourselves, to those around us, and to God. But we were all there. What might that mean?
Wishing you a hag Shavuot same’ah, a joyous celebration of this pilgrimage holiday, spiritual pilgrimage during which we encounter our fellows at Sinai.
I also want to share with you the D’var Torah I delivered at our final TGIShabbat musical Friday night service of the school year, reminding you that we’ll continue to meet for Shabbat services Saturday mornings all throughout the summer, from 9:30 to noon, followed always by a Kiddush lunch. And there is also still time to sign up for our Friday night Shabbat at home summer series, helping you get to know your fellow community members on Shabbat.
If you can believe it, this is one of the last times I offer a D’var Torah from the Bimah in this manner before Rosh Hashanah 5787.
Don’t get me wrong: there is still much Torah that we will be learning at Society Hill Synagogue between now and the new year — we’ll continue to meet each and every Shabbat morning, where we explore a Torah portion together during our Sanctuary-wide Torah discussion before the Torah service; there are still multiple B’nei Mitzvah to be celebrated — B’nei Mitzvah who will offer their own teachings of Torah; we continue to have adult education courses play out, and we’ll send out written reflections each week.
But it happens to be that Rosh Hashanah is especially early this year, on September 11, and it will be upon us before we know it.
And so if you can believe it, I am already reflecting on one of the key themes of the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, which is t’shuvah, repentance and return.
I’m thinking about it because in our ancient rabbinic stories class this week, we studied, in some ways, the paradigm for the complexities of t’shuvah, the difficulties surrounding the process of t’shuvah, of returning into the fold, centered around a man, a rabbi, named Elisha ben Abuya.
Elisha ben Abuya might, and I mean this is in the most nuanced of ways, have been the inspiration for another figure in our popular tradition, the film character, Darth Vader.
Like Darth Vader, Elisha displayed early signs of brilliance. I’ll reveal my full nerdiness quotient now when I reference that Darth Vader was originally Anakin Skywalker, who demonstrated preternatural abilities in his relationship to the Force, the power that flows through the Star Wars universe.
Elisha ben Abuya was similarly unparalleled in his capacity to master matters of Torah, of the mysterious Divine wisdom that was the lifeblood of his people.
And yet both, for tragic reasons, found themselves giving into what Judaism calls the yezter hara, the evil, or troubled, inclination, what we know in popular culture as the Dark Side. Anakin found himself crossing every ethical and moral boundary in order to minimize danger to his beloved wife, Padmé (played by Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman). Elisha, who, tradition speculates, had experienced trauma in the womb, also witnessed an incident where one young man climbed a tree and transgressed an ethical Jewish law but then climbed safely down, while another young man climbed the same tree to fulfill a mitzvah, a sacred act, and then fell to his death. The sense of injustice and disorder in the world revealed to him then, and which he had seen in other events, caused him to renounce his relationship to God, to Judaism, and to the Jewish community, betraying each in several respects, causing him to ultimately be known by the moniker Aher, or simply “the other.”
When a previous beloved student of his, Rabbi Meir, pleaded with Elisha to consider making t’shuvah, realigning with the core goodness within him, with God, Elisha threw up his hands and said he could not. For once, he said, he had been riding his horse on Yom Kippur (a transgression according to Jewish law), Yom Kippur which fell on Shabbat that year, doubly problematic, right past the Temple grounds, triply problematic, and from the spot where the holy of holies had laid on the Temple grounds, he heard a heavenly voice, which echoed the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “שׁוּבוּ בָּנִים שׁוֹבָבִים” “return, erring children,” “חוּץ מֵאֱלִישָׁע בֵּן אֲבוּיָה” “except for Elisha ben Abuya, who knew My power,” the voice said, “and rebelled against Me.”
So he said, I cannot return, I cannot make t’shuvah: I am forever in exile.
As we reflected on this passage, we reflected on whether that could be the case: could God so turn God’s back on one member of God’s people? On one member of humanity?
We wondered, or one student wondered aloud, whether yes, perhaps that is what Elisha heard. But whose voice did Elisha hear in that moment, she asked? God’s? Or his own.
We wondered about the relationship between that moment and the experience of some of us sitting in services on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, some of us who might be having the experience, yes t’shuvah, returning, atonement, for those around me. But for me? Am I worthy?
The story progresses to Elisha on his deathbed, where he is visited by his student Rabbi Meir, who has remained loyal to him despite his many transgressions, which I have not listed here in full.
Elisha’s prior certainty that he could not experience redemption has softened, to, at the very least, doubt about whether he can. If one repents, he asked his student, is it accepted? His student, in turn, recited for him a verse from the Psalms. You, God, תָּשֵׁב אֱנוֹשׁ עַד־דַּכָּא, you help humans tashev, return, to the earth, וַתֹּאמֶר שׁוּבוּ בְנֵי־אָדָם and you say shuvu, return, o human beings. Implying, indeed yes, God accepts t’shuvah.
At that moment, Elisha cried, passed away, and died. Rabbi Meir, the text said, was happy internally and said, it seems that it was in the spirit of t’shuvah that my teacher passed.
Now, were the story to end there, it would be a nice, simple, redemption arc. But if you’ve followed sacred Jewish literature at all, you know it is rarely simple.
After they buried Elisha, fire descended from heaven, consuming his grave. His student, Meir, rushed and spread his shawl across it and cited a verse from the book of Ruth: לִינִי הַלַּיְלָה “Stay for the night,” Boaz said to Ruth. “Then in the morning, if he will act as a redeemer, good! Let him redeem. But if he does not want to act as redeemer for you, I will do so myself, as God lives!”
“God,” Rabbi Meir is saying, if you will act as redeemer for Elisha, good! If not, I will take care of it myself, living is the Eternal.
And the flame disappears.
So a second layer to our t’shuvah journey is added. First, it is understandable that we might think that the door to redemption is closed for us; it is not.
And, to the extent we need a little help getting through the door, look at what unlocks it: one’s relationship with another. Mutual reliance. The evolving dynamics of student and teacher.
At the end of Star Wars, the spirits of three students and teachers stand side by side: Master Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, his redemption arc complete.
The road is not always straight, the path is not always smooth, but the gates of t’shuvah are always open. May you have a beautiful summer. Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi K.
