{"id":2468,"date":"2015-05-23T12:15:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T17:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2015-07-05T11:34:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T16:34:45","slug":"the-feast-of-weeks-is-here-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/05\/the-feast-of-weeks-is-here-again.html","title":{"rendered":"“The Feast of Weeks” Is Here Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Moritz_Daniel_Oppenheim_-_Shavuot_(Pentecost)_(Das_Wochen-_oder_Pfingst-Fest)_-_Google_Art_Project\"<\/a>Last night we celebrated Shavuot (archaically known as \u201cThe Feast of Weeks\u201d) at our congregation.<\/p>\n

Talk about a difficult holiday for Secular Humanistic Jews! This one\u2019s got almost nothing to offer. There are very few rituals that merit any kind of modern application or re-interpretation. The main theme of \u201creceiving the Torah at Sinai\u201d is not exactly inspiring for people who openly acknowledge that no Torah was received at any place called Sinai (or Horeb, for that matter<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Torah has\u00a0three very ancient agricultural festivals that people still observe today. Two of these, Passover and Sukkot, were already associated with mythical narratives by the time of the Torah\u2019s final redaction. Passover absorbed the grand narrative of the exodus from Egypt.\u00a0Sukkot is associated by\u00a0Leviticus<\/a> with Israelites wandering in the wilderness. (Something about Sukkot seems newer. If we can trust\u00a0Nehemiah 8:13-18<\/a>, no one had celebrated it since Joshua. And we all know that Joshua\u00a0was as fictional as the exodus and wilderness wanderings.)<\/p>\n

According to the Torah itself, Shavuot is the late harvest festival. The text does not connect\u00a0it to\u00a0any historical occurrence. But owing to its proximity to Passover, the ancient Rabbis assigned it a pretty spectacular event, the revelation of the very Torah that fails to mention that the day on which it was revealed was Shavuot.<\/p>\n

For a few Jews, mostly\u00a0Israelis, there continues to be\u00a0some interest in celebrating\u00a0the holiday\u2019s agricultural roots. Kibbutzniks still put on big tractor parades. But here in the urban Diaspora, this aspect of the holiday is not too compelling, nor was it all that relevant to the increasingly urbanized Jews of 2,000 years ago. Hoping to make it a more meaningful day, the Rabbis created the connection to revelation. Today\u2019s\u00a0secular Jews aren\u2019t really\u00a0into that, either.\u00a0If it weren\u2019t for the Reform movement\u2019s invention of Confirmation<\/a>, hardly\u00a0any\u00a0non-Orthodox Jews would have any interest in attending festival services\u00a0at\u00a0all. Oh, and there\u2019s the dairy food. It\u2019s a big holiday for those who are not lactose-intolerant.<\/a><\/p>\n

Medieval Kabbalists invented a tradition of remaining awake all night to study Jewish texts. They called it Tikkun Leil Shavuot<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cCorrective for the Night of Shavuot\u201d)\u00a0perhaps based on a midrash that the Jews slept really well the night before the revelation (Shir Ha-Shirim Rabba<\/em>, 1, 12:2), prompting the question, \u201cHow could they even sleep at all on such a big night?!\u201d So the Kabbalists proposed the \u201cCorrective\u201d of staying up to learn\u00a0all night. Some secular communities have recently\u00a0adopted the tradition, turning it into an all-night cultural and study event<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for me, I find little of value in the holiday beyond historical appreciation. Perhaps if we had a secular Tikkun Leil Shavuot<\/em> where I live it might be of interest. Meanwhile, I have my own plans for the holiday. The American Humanist Association chapter that I head up<\/a> will be meeting and later in the day I\u2019ll be conducting a wedding, something that no theistic rabbi would consider doing\u00a0on the holiday, despite the fact that virtually no one is celebrating it.<\/p>\n

Shavuot\u00a0begins tonight (Saturday) and lasts for one or two days depending upon one\u2019s\u00a0tradition. For those of you celebrating, I wish you a happy holiday!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night we celebrated Shavuot (archaically known as \u201cThe Feast of Weeks\u201d) at our congregation. Talk about a difficult holiday for Secular Humanistic Jews! This one\u2019s got almost nothing to offer. There are very few rituals that merit any kind of modern application or re-interpretation. The main theme of \u201creceiving the Torah at Sinai\u201d is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":2469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,15,39,44],"class_list":["post-2468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-american-jews","tag-holidays","tag-secular-humanistic-judaism","tag-shavuot"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Feast of Weeks" Is Here Again!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last night we celebrated Shavuot (archaically known as "The Feast of Weeks") at our congregation. 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