IT’S ALL CONNECTED
Sometimes, to most of us, the various holidays and observances in the Jewish calendar seem unrelated to each other. They feel like each is discreet and stand-alone. We might say, in early March “ok, Purim is coming” and start to think of Hamentashen and megillah reading. Or, in December we think about preparing for Channukah. But I do not see them as separate from the rest of the rich history and spiritual development embedded in our calendar.
We just observed Tisha B’Av, the traditional anniversary of the destruction of both Temples in Yerushalaim in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and in 70 CE by the Romans. It is also the traditional date of several other disasters including the Crusades and the expulsion from Spain. Is this observance and are these tragedies distinct moments in our history and calendar? I think not.
In early spring we observe and celebrate Passover, the time of our redemption from slavery in Egypt. This was a great and seminal moment in our tradition. However, that is not all. Part of the tradition of Passover is that on the second night we begin counting the “omer.” This is the fifty- day period connecting Passover to Shavuot. Shavuot started out as an agricultural, first fruit harvest festival but at some point, became, through some not very complex rabbinic calendrical gymnastics, understood to mark the date of the great revelation, the giving of the Torah, or at least what we know as the ten commandments. Thus, there is a connection between Passover and Shavuot. It is the gift of freedom for the sake of the gift of a set of rules and guidance that bind us to God and hopefully lead us to the path of a better life and a better society. This binding covenant has, embedded within it, the concept of reward and punishment. Just like any other contract there are consequences for failure to comply. A mere forty days after this great gift was bestowed on the Israelite people we committed the sin of the Golden Calf. Moses was so angry he smashed the stone tablets upon which the commandments were inscribed. YHVH was so angry that God wanted to destroy all the people who had just been freed. Moses interceded with God and ultimately God relented. This may have been one of the earliest examples of repentance and falling on God’s mercy (by Moses on behalf of the people) and forgiveness, a second chance, as exemplified by God having Moses prepare a replacement set of stone tablets “like the first.” This happened, according to tradition, on the 17th day of Tammuz, which is now observed as a semi-fast day to commemorate the breach of the walls of Jerusalem, by the Romans, in 70CE and is now the beginning of the three-week period of mourning and introspection leading up to Tisha B’Av.
What has the breach of the walls got to do with the Calf? Maybe nothing, but God’s anger at, and response to, the Calf are part of a series of dire warnings in the Torah text of the serious consequences of violating our end of the bargain. For Moses’ sake we got the calf mostly as a ‘freebie’ but after that, especially in D’varim 28: 15-68, the great tochacha (admonition), we are told, and our traditional history confirms, national sinfulness will be met by punishment including calamitous destruction and death loss of sovereignty and exile from our land. So, indeed, later history is reflective of early mistakes and warnings. This theme is reflected throughout the year in our prayer service. The Musaph service on the three pilgrimage holidays contains a paragraph that that starts out ‘Mipnei chata’einu go’aleinu, because of our sins, we were exiled.” This is the beginning of our prayer for a return to the glory in our history.
There is more in the fabric woven by our liturgy, texts, and history. Just as the shiva and its end (Tisha B’Av) bring us to a progression of healing from the pain of loss, just six days later we celebrate Tu B’Av the fifteenth of the month, not coincidentally, the full moon, a deliriously joyous day, a day of love and courtship. It has been referred to a “Jewish Sadie Hawkins Day” because the young maidens go out in search of eligible young men…. at the beginning of the grape harvest.
Just two weeks later the High Holiday season begins with Rosh Chodesh Elul. The month of Elul is very much a part of the season. It is a time of reflection and introspection. Daily services are punctuated by the sounding of the shofar as a wake-up call and all services, weekday and Shabbat are marked by the addition of the 27th Psalm, a statement, as I see it, of long-term hope at the time we are undergoing the process of soul-searching and the return to God as we seek forgiveness and redemption from our misdeeds climaxing with Yom Kippur, the fast day of atonement.
The calendar goes on through Sukkot, our joyous harvest festival (which culminates with a fervent prayer for rain, with the painful reminders of Yizkor and the joy of starting a new CYCLE of Torah reading), followed by Channukah and the Purim, stories of redemption at a time we are subjugated by other nations. Then we return. to the great story of redemption, Passover, thus beginning the cycle all over again. And a cycle it is, as evidenced by the name we give our Holiday prayerbook, MACHZOR, which means cycle, a continuum of a fabric attached and recurring end-to-end. There are no stand-alone moments in the Jewish year any more than any one narrative in the Tanach is entirely unrelated to some other incident or teaching. It is, indeed, interconnected and continuing.
As our liturgy and the days in our calendar are connected and woven together so, we, the Israelite People are intertwined. We are connected by our common history, by our texts, by our calendar and, in the sad and difficult days since October 7, 2023, we are connected by the understanding that we need to stand strongly together in order to survive.
