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Jewish Life & Celebrations

Shavuot

Readings for an Adult and Youth Service

Rabbi Sherwin Wine
Below are a selection of readings for Shavuot, written by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, for both an adult and a youth service.
Sherwin T. Wine, Celebration, Prometheus Books, 2003, pp 278-286.

Community
Community is a feeling of identity, a sense of sharing with others what is one’s very own. The possession may be a family, a home, a friend, a place of work. It may embrace a common love or a common hate. A fiery cause that needs the fuel of many hearts may forge an alliance of feeling and deed; or the glamour of a new idea may unite the minds of men and women in an intense devotion. Even a shared grief may draw hearts close together in their quest for the sympathy of understanding.

But the surest bond is the invisible hold of the past. A common history strikes the roots of memory with clannish pride and envelops us in the thick vine of tradition. We are the heirs of past events that mold our fears and hopes; we are the children of ancient suffering and joy that leave their trauma in our sense of life. The inertia of old excitement pushes the stream of culture ever onward and opens new channels of meaning for the venerable thoughts of great men and women. We are joined together in a mighty fellowship with our past. The legacy of our ancestors is our own legacy too.

Memorial
Poets and sages wandered through the centuries of our history and wove the strands of our heritage with the flair of their talents. In the special joy of Shavuot we remember their gifts and reach out with gratitude to use their creation. To be Jewish is to bask in the sun of their fame. To be human is to sense the urgency of their words. People of the past who plant the seeds of wisdom in the minds of others bequeath to the present the harvest of a better world. Others have sowed and we have reaped; we shall sow and others will reap.

Shavuot Youth Service

Shavuot
Spring is here. Summer is about to begin. The school year is ending. Vacation time is near.

Shavuot is here. Shavuot is an old spring holiday. In the days when all of our ancestors lived in the land of Israel, the holiday marked the completion of the spring harvest. What began with Passover found its finish in Shavuot.

In olden times, our fathers and mothers took garlands of flowers, put them around their heads and danced in the fields. Even today the farmers of Israel celebrate the end of the spring harvest at Shavuot time.

The harvest lasts for fifty days - seven weeks and one day. Shavuot is a Hebrew word which means "weeks." The holiday of Shavuot is the Feast of Weeks.

Sifroot
Jewish writers have been writing for three thousand years. They have written prayers and poems, stories and sayings, legends and facts. Most of what they have written has been forgotten, lost in the dim memories of bygone days.

But some of what they have written was so good that our ancestors saved it. The books of the Bible, the books of the Talmud, the poems of Halevi, Bialik and Tchernikhovsky, the stories of Peretz, Sholem Aleichem, and Agnon – are still with us.

All famous Jewish writers did not answer the questions of life in the same way. They often disagreed. Some were humanistic Jews. Others were not. Our literature has many different opinions.

A culture needs many points of view to be a rich culture. Judaism is a rich culture. The Jewish people has a rich literature.

Sifroot is the Hebrew word for “literature.” Shavuot is the festival of sifroot, the holiday of Jewish literature.

Tarboot
A culture cannot survive all by itself. It is caring people that make it live. It is loyal children who make it survive.

If we value Judaism, we use it. If we like Judaism, we study it. If we think it important, we will also add to it.

There are so many books to read. There are so many songs to sing. There are so many dances to dance. There are so many holidays to celebrate. There are so many foods to eat. There is so much love to give – to our family and to others.

At the end of the school year, we remember all that we have studied and learned. We are also aware of how much more there is to study, of how much more there is to learn.
Understanding Judaism is a life-long project. Knowing our culture is a never-ending responsibility.

Tarboot is the Hebrew word for “culture.” Shavuot is the festival of Tarboot, the holiday of Jewish culture, the feast of Judaism.

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